Redemption's Price (en Inglés) - Sam Knight

The Sovereignty branded him a deserter. His crew calls him Captain.

Marcus Strand used to be one of the Sovereignty's finest. Then he learned what that actually meant - and walked away from everything.

Now he captains The Redemption, running rescue operations across the frontier with a crew who have their own reasons for being exactly nowhere the empire can find them. It's dangerous, thankless work. It's also the only thing any of them have ever done that feels right.

Then the Chorus arrives.

They don't conquer. They invite. They offer connection, belonging, an end to the ache of being one small self alone in the singing dark. The people who accept walk away smiling - grateful, peaceful, and utterly gone from the inside out. Worlds are going quiet at the edges of known space. The Sovereignty isn't coming. And Marcus Strand - who has dragged people back from every kind of edge - is about to walk alone into the one place his crew cannot follow.

Some doors only open from the inside.