Her husband stole the stars. He never knew she’d signed them.
For nine years, Iris Venn built Dawnfall in the dark — the projection system that turned a failing Duluth planetarium into a national story. She worked under a cracked lens in a freezing control booth while her husband Marek stood in the light and took the interviews.
On the morning of the grant announcement, he ends the marriage from the doorway and slides a folder across the console: a separation agreement, an intellectual-property release, and a foundation packet crediting the work to himself and the woman hired to replace her.
Iris doesn’t sign. She walks out with an offline drive, a scrap of hand-cut copper from the original projector, and a secret worth more than either.
Because the dome’s aging lens bends blue light along its eastern seam — and for three winters, Iris has been feeding the system a private sequence of corrections to hide the flaw. Marek can’t run Dawnfall without her math. And he can’t run it with her math without carrying her signature under every sky he claims.
Proving it will take more than the truth. It will take certified copies and chain of custody. A union print-shop notary who has outlasted three lawyers. A seventeen-year-old tester who kept every card he ever wrote. A fabricator named Rowan Vale who refuses to rescue her, and offers something better instead.
Marek has attorneys, donors, and a story the whole city already believes.
Iris has receipts.
A slow-burn novel about authorship, erasure, and the patient, meticulous, deeply satisfying work of taking your own name back.
Genre: Romance
For nine years, Iris Venn built Dawnfall in the dark — the projection system that turned a failing Duluth planetarium into a national story. She worked under a cracked lens in a freezing control booth while her husband Marek stood in the light and took the interviews.
On the morning of the grant announcement, he ends the marriage from the doorway and slides a folder across the console: a separation agreement, an intellectual-property release, and a foundation packet crediting the work to himself and the woman hired to replace her.
Iris doesn’t sign. She walks out with an offline drive, a scrap of hand-cut copper from the original projector, and a secret worth more than either.
Because the dome’s aging lens bends blue light along its eastern seam — and for three winters, Iris has been feeding the system a private sequence of corrections to hide the flaw. Marek can’t run Dawnfall without her math. And he can’t run it with her math without carrying her signature under every sky he claims.
Proving it will take more than the truth. It will take certified copies and chain of custody. A union print-shop notary who has outlasted three lawyers. A seventeen-year-old tester who kept every card he ever wrote. A fabricator named Rowan Vale who refuses to rescue her, and offers something better instead.
Marek has attorneys, donors, and a story the whole city already believes.
Iris has receipts.
A slow-burn novel about authorship, erasure, and the patient, meticulous, deeply satisfying work of taking your own name back.
Genre: Romance
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