This novel is written in the tradition of speculative fiction that holds a mirror not to a future that is inevitable but to tendencies that are already present—the appetite of systems for power, the fragility of democratic institutions when faced with concentrated private capability, the beautiful and irreducible fact of human consciousness at its best. If there is a single idea at the heart of this story, it is the one that Abhimanyu spent his life approaching: that the act of a mind fully knowing itself is not merely philosophical but transformative. That understanding what we are—truly, deeply, with the patience it requires—is the only foundation from which we can build something worthy of what we are.

The silence between thoughts is real. It has always been there. It will not abandon you…