A Salvage of Gods

Eleven seconds. That is how long Maren Doss has to pull Cael Varnath out of a dead star before the beacon detonates and seals them both inside the hollow shell forever. She has run this kind of job a hundred times , strip the wreckage, pocket the relics, never ask what the old gods left behind. But this signal is different. Inside the carved-out corpse of a vanished star, Maren's crew uncovers an artifact that should have burned out of existence millennia ago, something the gods themselves seem to want back. With rivals led by Orin Duskwhale already shadowing the extraction and the enigmatic Thessaly Venn offering alliances no one should trust, Maren finds herself caught between factions willing to start a war over divine salvage. Lysen Korr grows increasingly unstable under the artifact's pull, Joss Pell uncovers evidence that the gods may still be watching, and Seraphine Lox arrives with orders that force Maren to choose between her crew and the greater unknown. As the beacon's countdown reshapes the laws of the hollow shell, every salvage becomes a question of faith, loyalty, and what the crew is willing to sacrifice for answers the gods never intended anyone to find. The only certainty left is this: whatever Maren pulls from the dead star will demand a price , and she is running out of seconds to decide what she is willing to pay.