The First Layer

Ashar Vale is a university student preparing for an ordinary future in the Velkaryn Empire. Once expected to join the ranks of the gifted, he was passed over years ago and has learned to live with what might have been.

Then a routine university expedition takes him into the first layer beyond the gate—a vast, alien wilderness the Empire has spent centuries making controlled.

Ashar returns alive.

He does not return alone.

Something from beyond the gate has taken root inside him. Surviving it awakens senses he should not possess, while buried memories begin to surface around a past he no longer trusts.

Now discovery may be as dangerous as the presence sharing his soul. To survive, Ashar must hide what he is becoming, uncover what was done to him, and seek answers beyond the Empire’s approved paths—before something else recognizes what he carries.