Inside The Hollow Throne
New Orleans is drowning in clear water.
Beyond the city, alien engines drink from the Mississippi, turning its mineral-rich waters into power. Their outflow feeds flourishing vegetation and floods streets where humanity struggles to survive. The water looks pure. The machinery producing it will eventually consume the planet.
The Neurovask came to claim Earth. Their longtime enemies, the Aqualithari, came to defend it, seeking friendship and responsible access to the water both species need. Between them stands Sable Renoux, a young New Orleans prosecutor whose life was fractured by invasion, captivity, and an unfinished experiment.
Before the world fell, Sable trained to protect herself after surviving abuse and exploitation. Now she carries a mechanical right arm, an amber left eye that sees hidden burden, and a water-burning Neruvexel engine inside her body. She can shape water into blades and draw it from her surroundings, but control comes unevenly. Without water, her strength fails. With it, a mistake could hurt someone she loves.
The Neurovask want their technology back. Sable wants to live.
Around her move the Achewoven, mysterious companions of the defenders who thread emotion and history into rope. In this city, rope is currency, testimony, and a vessel for the weight people leave behind. Its strands can reveal events no witness understood, preserve the lives held in old photographs, and make readers feel another person’s suffering.
The Suspended hang in robes and metal faces, former humans altered by the invaders and freed by their enemies. Their appearance conceals lives Sable may have more in common with than she knows.
As the planetary engine awakens forgotten human gifts, the past becomes dangerously accessible. History can be read. Its release can be manipulated. With enough water, even the dead may return.
But bringing someone back can create a new burden.
In a city where memories survive their owners, Sable must learn what was done to her, whom she can trust, and how to carry power without repeating the violence that shaped her.
A Sable Renoux story.
From the world behind the music.