In the idyllic mountain town of Ventane, a portal to hell swirls within a hotel hot tub. Meg, haunted by hidden secrets and a childhood debt, finds her life upended by Soren, a man burdened by a family curse that plunged his ancestors’ town into perpetual violence. As cosmic forces and shifting physics collide, even Vaelgor—a mysterious arbiter from another realm—sees his rigid equations of human deeds upended by Meg. Severed Echoes is the first volume of The Veil Duet, a tale where magic and guilt coalesce, and absolution comes at the highest price.