Trace of Arcane

Trace of Arcane: Viridis
Book One of the Trace of Arcane Series

Eden is born in Viridis, one of the last Fringe societies untouched by the rule of Lux-an authoritarian power that rose from the ashes of a fallen civilization, hoarding what remains of the ancient world's knowledge. She enters the world after the drought, after Arcane's fateful discovery of a hidden repository, and after Lux begins its quiet war-turning the Fringe societies against one another with rumors of curses and destabilizing their relationships.

From the moment she can remember, Eden knows she is different. Not in the way people celebrate. In the way they fear. Her thoughts come sharper, her emotions colder, her understanding of others distant and incomplete. She learns quickly that her survival depends on pretending-masking her mind, her instincts, the darkness that creeps at the edges of her thoughts.

As the world around her fractures, Eden begins to question what is truth and what is acceptable, who decides what knowledge is dangerous, and why certain people-people like her-must be hidden to be safe. When the silence of conformity becomes louder than the lies, she is forced to make a choice: remain unseen, or risk becoming something unspoken.

Viridis is the first step in a journey of quiet rebellion and unflinching self-examination. Through Eden's eyes, we begin to explore the uneasy space between truth and survival, difference and belonging, control, freedom, purpose and identity. In a world built on forgetting, her story is a trace of something Arcane-unclaimed, untamed, and waiting to be remembered.