Part of the First Mark series
Rayne Cavanaugh was supposed to live a normal, boring life under the Authority's watchful eye-especially with her adoptive parents working for them. But everything changes the day she turns eighteen. When she chooses her first tattoo, the ink doesn't stay where it should. It moves. Forms a serpent. Breathes.
She is Inkbound-part of a secret bloodline with the ability to bring tattoos to life. The world she thought she knew vanishes in an instant.
Fleeing government agents who want to weaponize her abilities, Rayne joins a crew of rogue Inkbound who reveal the truth: her serpent doesn't match any known pattern. It's older. Smarter. And it remembers a place that doesn't exist in any modern record-an ancient city called Caelith.
As Rayne's ink evolves, she begins experiencing visions and memories that aren't hers-fragments from a woman long dead. Together, they uncover signs of a hidden past: experiments, betrayals, and a civilization wiped from history by those who feared what the Inkbound once were.
But Rayne's presence activates something buried deep in the wastelands-an artifact that confirms what the Authority has long feared. The First Pattern still exists. And it's waking up.
By the time she realizes she's not just a descendant of this legacy-but a key to its return-Rayne will be forced to choose whether to run from the creature inside her... or become it.
