Star Paths

One broken rule. One open door. One prototype spacecraft that had absolutely no business launching - and two kids who had no business being inside it.

Kaia Voss has never met a rule she couldn't find a reason to ignore. Rowan Pike has never met a problem he couldn't think his way around. They live at the same orphanage. They are not friends. And on the night of a school tour to the Horizon Transit Center, one small act of curiosity lands them both inside the most advanced experimental spacecraft on Earth - right before it launches itself into deep space.

When the ship crashes on Orialis - a glowing, forest world of impossible beauty, where cities grow in the canopy and the trees themselves seem to breathe - Kaia and Rowan find themselves far from the only danger in the stars. A cold, calculated man called Director Veyr has followed them through a fold in space. He doesn't want the children. He wants something far more valuable: the Heart Maps of Orialis - ancient living records of the hidden routes between worlds. With them, he could control who travels where, who reaches what, and who gets left behind forever. The people of Lumenfall have protected their maps for generations. But Veyr is patient, well-equipped, and already at the canopy walls.

Kaia wants to charge in and fix everything. Rowan wants to understand the situation before anyone does anything. Both of them are scared. Neither of them will admit it. And somewhere between the root chamber, the hull of a ship, and a thirty-foot drop, they are about to learn that bravery was never about not being afraid - it was always about choosing to act anyway.

The Heart Maps of Orialis is the first book in the Star Paths series - a twelve-book adventure packed with alien worlds, sharp humor, genuine danger, and two kids learning that their greatest strength might just be each other.