The threat of war looms over the galaxy as mysterious forces watch from the darkness.
The Sea of Spirits is in crisis. Nations vie for control of the stars and the threat of apocalyptic war looms. A dictatorship obsessed with domination and racial purity bullies a smaller democracy, the tensions between the two threatening to boil over into a war with the potential to bring an end to all life in the nine-ringed galaxy.
Against this backdrop, several lives are altered forever. An ambitious but reckless young woman fights to achieve her destiny in a galaxy that rejects her kind, while a politician and a hardened but damaged marine embark on a desperate mission into an unknown region of space to ensure the survival of their people. A mysterious artifact is unearthed on the human homeworld, and an idealistic junior politician rebels against the norms and doctrines of an oppressive society whose leaders do everything in their power to break his will and spirit.
Meanwhile, something watches from the dark, something unknowable, and when you stare at it, it feels like it is staring back.
This is the first chapter in the Saga of Nine Rings.
Christopher Johnson 