The Cage of Sky and Stone

THE GILDED MAELSTROM shouldn't exist. It doesn't ravage the Scoured Lands like the other sentient storms. It sings. It beckons. And where it passes, it leaves behind hauntingly beautiful crystals—not ruins. For Max, a guilt-crippled disaster analyst exiled for the catastrophic failure that killed hundreds, the storm is a terrifying question. His instruments detect a rhythmic pulse within it. A heartbeat. And the psychic chill it triggers is the same one that haunts his bones from the day his old life ended. When his own sister, a ruthless Institute Director, orders him to provoke the storm as a test, Max knows it's a mistake. This isn't a mindless force of nature. It's a consciousness. And it's trying to communicate. Teaming up with a hardened soldier who trusts only weapons and a mysterious, intuitive boy who draws truths he shouldn't know, Max ventures into the heart of the golden storm. What they find shatters humanity's founding myth: the storms aren't the first attack. They're the planet's immune response. And we are the infection. Now, Max holds the key to a fragile peace. But to become the bridge between a wounded world and a terrified humanity, he must confront the voice from his own past echoing in the storm, and make a sacrifice that will change what it means to be human forever. A gripping blend of visionary sci-fi and profound emotional drama, for readers of Annihilation's eerie mystery and Project Hail Mary's desperate ingenuity.