THE BLEAK SKY

She escaped the storm of her home-only to find it waiting in the sky.

Mara Ellison has spent her entire life fighting to survive. The eldest in a fractured, poverty-stricken family, she clawed her way into college-alone, unsupported, and unwanted. But when the weight of exhaustion, guilt, and abandonment becomes too much, she drops out and returns to the town she swore she'd never see again.

Grayshade is just as gray as she remembers-its skies heavy with unspoken things. Her parents treat her return like a failure. Her siblings carry old wounds. And Mara, suffocating under pressure and silence, begins seeing things in the clouds: strange patterns, haunting voices, fleeting visions that blur the line between memory and madness.

As the days darken and the storms grow more violent, Mara begins to question what's real, what's buried, and what the sky is trying to tell her.

Because some storms don't pass.
Some are born with you.