The child growing inside her shouldn’t exist. As a member of serf and slave caste, Sarai izt Kviokhi’s bloodline is genetically incompatible with the divine elite—especially The Name, the immortal tyrant who’s ruled the galaxy for three thousand years. But after a failed assassination attempt leaves the lethal, psionically-gifted operative stranded on a desolate moon with no memory, her impossible conception becomes living proof that the Dominion’s entire social foundation is a lie.
When word of the blasphemous child is leaked, it spreads across the galaxy like wildfire. Ancient, half-forgotten myths resurface—prophecies of a warrior-prophetess destined to overthrow the false god, whose daughter will restore an ancient dynasty—and Sarai finds herself the target of a destiny she desperately wants to avoid.
She tries to vanish and raise her daughter far from the Dominion’s reach. But the galaxy won’t let her hide. Her only ally is the man sent to kill her—a former lover who chooses treason over orders. Rival factions hunt her for their revolution. The Name dispatches kill teams to preserve his lie. The only way to save her child is to give them what they fear most: not a prophesied savior, but a mother with nothing left to lose and an empire to burn.
The Foundational Duology
Immortal and Godsbane form the foundational duology of my planned five-book Dark Dominion Sequence. The duology functions as a complete two-act structure:
Immortal opens with Sarai awakening in a desert with no memory, severe injuries, and an impossible pregnancy—the biological union of genetically incompatible castes that shouldn’t exist. Hunted by the regime that turned her into a weapon, she must survive long enough to give birth while unraveling what she’s forgotten: why The Name himself wants her dead, what the prophecies surrounding her unborn daughter truly mean, and whether the man sent to kill her can become her salvation instead. It’s a fugitive thriller that narrows from galactic conspiracy to the fierce intimacy of early motherhood and rekindled love under impossible conditions.
Godsbane follows Sarai six months later as she emerges from hiding to publicly claim her prophesied role, igniting a galaxy-wide rebellion against three thousand years of theocratic tyranny. But revolution proves more complex than prophecy promised: her daughter has been taken by those who see the child as divine artifact rather than person, rival factions weaponize her image for competing agendas, and The Name responds with propaganda, military might, and psychological warfare designed to shatter her credibility. The book escalates from guerrilla resistance to fleet-scale conflict while tracking Sarai’s transformation from fugitive to revolutionary symbol—and the costs of becoming what others need you to be.
This is where most space opera would end—with tyranny defeated and the righteous triumphant. But I intend to continue Dark Dominion for three more books because victory is just the beginning of a revolution’s consequences. Books 3-5 follow the violent aftermath and tribulations of true reform as Sarai’s daughter Mikhalah grows from childhood through adolescence while the prophecies that made her a symbol before birth continue to shape and constrain her life.
The sequence’s final movement examines what happens when the child you sacrificed everything to protect develops her own agency—and her own agenda—prophecies be damned.
Thematic Architecture
This series interrogates autonomy, motherhood, and power through sustained metaphor. The Dominion’s caste system isn’t just social hierarchy—it’s enforced genetic determinism. Scions and Anathema are biologically incompatible; interbreeding is literally impossible. Sarai’s pregnancy doesn’t break this rule through love or destiny—it’s the consequence of assault by The Name, with her bio-engineered nanoculture performing real-time gene editing to harmonize the incompatible chromosomes.
Her womb becomes a political battleground before she even knows she’s pregnant.
The ancient legends and prophecies that grow to surround Sarai—the warrior-prophetess called Sutmankah who will overthrow tyranny—and her daughter Mikhalah—the True Heir who will restore the ancient dynasty—transform them both into symbols before she is even born. The series asks whether being “chosen” absolves you of moral responsibility, whether means justify ends, and if “destiny” is just another form of violation.
The revolution’s success reveals the sequence’s central argument about systemic change. Defeating the god-emperor doesn’t cleanly dismantle the structures that enabled him—in fact it may only put new faces in positions of power. The economic systems, military hierarchies, and cultural supremacies that sustained three millennia of oppression risk persisting under new management, revealing how revolutionary expediency can replicate the structures it meant to destroy.
The narrative rejects clean revolutionary fantasy: you cannot simply remove the tyrant and expect justice to spontaneously emerge from centuries of institutionalized cruelty. True reform requires sustained effort, dedication, and sacrifice long after the old regime has fallen.
Voice & Market Positioning
Dark Dominion is a story about what it costs to be a woman when your womb becomes political property—literary craft in accessible genre trappings, but free of comfortable guardrails. The series has the addictive pacing of Fourth Wing, the sarcastic survival instincts of Artemis, and the unflinching war ethics of The Poppy War, but elevates these into space opera that interrogates power and autonomy with the sophistication readers found in A Memory Called Empire and the visceral moral complexity of Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels.
The romantic core—a reformed assassin learning patience and a survivor learning to trust again—anchors the story as galactic revolution explodes around them. This is intimate epic SF exploring what happens when maternal protection and healing love collide with galactic revolution and the fall of a three-thousand-year tyranny.
For Readers
Dark Dominion is for readers who want moral complexity and challenging questions in their entertainment, who prefer prophecy to be interrogated rather than fulfilled, who can handle a protagonist who makes terrible choices for comprehensible reasons, and who understand that some victories cost everything. Sign up to the newsletter for updates.
For Agents
My commercial track record with Doomsday Recon (credited as co-authored with Jason Anspach) demonstrates I can deliver accessible genre fiction with literary craft, build worlds at scale, and sustain reader engagement across extended narratives. The nearly half-million-word trilogy hit Amazon’s Top 7,000 for over six weeks (peaking in the low 2,000’s), earned 4.7 stars across 1,500+ reviews, sold thousands of copies, and generated six million Kindle Unlimited page reads—in its first year alone.
Ryan is an exceptionally talented writer—absolutely on the shortlist of the best writers I’ve worked with in my fifteen-year career.
David Gatewood, Editor-in-Chief at WarGate Books
I am currently seeking representation for Immortal (131K words) and Godsbane (134K words), the foundational duology for the planned five-book Dark Dominion Sequence.
Both manuscripts are complete and available upon request.
Discover more from Beyond the Margins
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Beyond the Margins 