The Hermatic Gospel

In a broken world, silence is the ultimate predator. A psychic plague has birthed the Blight—a sentient, growing citadel that consumes cities not with fire, but with perfect, terrible silence. Its ruler, the Conductor, transforms human souls into static works of art, editing away their pain, memories, and noise to create a grotesque paradise of eternal peace. Opposing him stands Captain Eva Rostova, the hardened warden of the Haven, a last bastion of struggling, feeling humanity. When the Blight's seductive call begins luring her people away to a fate worse than death, Eva must fight an enemy that cannot be killed with bullets. Her only weapon? A paradox buried in her own tragic past. Guided by the mysterious scholar Aris Thorne, Eva must weaponize her most profound grief and guilt—the memory of an impossible choice that cost her everything. To save the living, she must confront the horrifying truth that the Blight is not a destroyer, but a curator, and that her own un-editable soul may be the fatal flaw in its beautiful, silent design. As the Conductor's obsession with her turns deadly, Eva must face a nightmare that offers her deepest heart's desire: the family she lost, returned in perfect, silent form. To resist is to wage war on her own heart. To surrender is to doom humanity to a gallery of beautiful, breathing statues. In the war for the human soul, the only victory is to remain painfully, defiantly, alive. --- Book Two of the critically acclaimed Unedited Soul Trilogy, for readers of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and the psychological horror of Clive Barker.