This first in a “fresh new sci-fi” (Jason M. Hough, New York Times bestselling author) series follows a powerful woman who can destroy planets with a single word but is suddenly faced with an adversary that threatens the entire known universe. Far in the future, human beings have seeded themselves amongst the stars. Since decoding the language of the universe 8,000 years ago, they have reached the very edges of their known galaxy and built a near-utopia across thousands of worlds, united and ruled by a powerful organization known as the Ascendance. The peaceful stability of their society relies solely on their use of this Deep Language of the cosmos. But this knowledge is a valuable secret, and a holy order of monastics known as the First House are tasked with monitoring its use and “correcting” humanity’s further development. Elyth is one such mendicant, trained as a planetary assassin, capable of infiltrating and ultimately destroying worlds that have been corrupted, using nothing more than her words. To this end, Elyth is sent to the world Qel in response to the appearance of a forbidden strain of the Deep Language that was supposed to have died out with its founder over seven hundred years prior. What she finds on the backwater planetoid will put her abilities to the test and challenge what she knows of the Deep Language, the First House, and the very nature of the universe. Jay Posey is the author of the Legends of the Duskwalker trilogy and the Outriders series. He’s also spent fifteen years with Ubisoft/Red Storm Entertainment, contributing as a writer and game designer to a variety of projects, ranging from Tom Clancy’s award-winning Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six franchises to the virtual reality game Star Trek: Bridge Crew . Jay currently resides in Durham, North Carolina. Chapter One ONE Elyth knew this world, as sure as she knew her own name. She held the earth loosely clasped in her left hand, felt its damp weight, its sponged texture cold with the night. She knew this soil, knew the life it gave, the story it told, and the doom it now bore. She had come to know it well over weeks of reconnaissance, sweat-grimed days and nights spent on the trail of her deadly mark, learning its ways and its weaknesses. But the time for stalking her prey was finished. Elyth had all she needed to complete the kill. When her work was done, the planet Revik would lie dying at her feet. And none would be the wiser that an assassin of worlds had been visited upon them. She raised her monocular to her eye, swept the view smoothly from left to right and back again. Through its lens the numerous guards shone like tongues of pale fire flickering along the walls and interior of the palace, some five hundred yards distant. Crouched at her hidden vantage point, Elyth noted the passing of a pair of watchmen by the main gate at the target site below. It was her third night of observation; she had the rhythm of the place now, its breath and its heartbeat. A quick glance at the sky. Two moons highlighted the seams between the densely packed clouds drifting like ice floes in a lazy current overhead; the third moon was too weak and distant to make itself known. And though she couldn’t see it, Elyth knew between the moons and the clouds lay an armada. Five thousand Ascendance ships, oblivious to her presence on Revik and yet each utterly dependent on her success. She returned her monocular to its housing at her belt, then removed a small pouch from an inner pocket in her vest. Into it, she let fall the handful of soil she’d gathered. A keepsake; a reminder of what once had been, before her coming to this world. Time to work. Elyth sealed the pouch of soil and replaced it inside her vest, then wiped her palms on her pants and stood from her crouch. Roughly three hundred yards of untamed land separated her from the border of the cultivated palace grounds, followed by two hundred yards of open space to her target. She drew on her gloves and slipped her mask over her face, concealing the last bits of exposed skin and cloaking herself fully in the smoked gray-blue of her infiltration attire. So clad, she slipped from her elevated position and began her approach. Locals called the mountain Heifeld, but its true name was much longer and harder to pronounce, and carried within it all the weight and force of the truly ancient. Elyth had discerned that name in her careful interrogation of the land; the twin-peaked, green-gray mountain had become her ally and also her point of attack. A shallow saddle separated her from the lower but larger, flatter peak, where her target sat: the regional governor’s multitiered, multiwalled summer palace. As impressive as the structure was, though, Elyth’s actual mark was what lay beneath; one of Revik’s most potent threadlines. A planetary nerve cluster near the surface with deep-run roots, concentrated into a focal point less than a hundred yards in diameter. Humans seemed in