The Road South

When a decades-old photograph reveals a stone staircase descending beneath the Indonesian sea, archaeologist Mason Vale discovers that his family’s greatest secret was never buried in a tomb.
It was a road.
Hidden across islands, oceans and forgotten stations, the Road was built long before recorded civilisation and appears connected to something far beyond Earth. Mason’s grandmother Margaret vanished while following it in 1937. His father later returned to it — and spent the rest of his life trying to ensure Mason never did the same.
Now the Road is waking again.
With Leila Haddad and Finn Mercer beside him, Mason follows the trail south through Indonesia, ancient transit stations and secrets buried deep within his own family history.
But every discovery reveals something larger: forgotten human worlds, a network capable of preserving the dead, and ancient systems that may have been making decisions for humanity for thousands of years.
Because Earth may not be our first home.
And whatever once scattered humanity across the stars may finally have found us again.