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Crimson Rada Crimson RadaChristopher M. Pilie

Crimson Rada   /   Book Five

Ecliptica

How far would you go to bring someone home?

Across two centuries, the Rossignols are searching for a way to reach a man believed lost. Something beyond their understanding is waiting for them to find it.

Read an excerpt Discover the story
Ecliptica book cover by Christopher M. Pilie

The next Crimson Rada novel

Coming December 21, 2026

Written and illustrated by
Christopher M. Pilie’

An armored sentinel with a lantern beneath immense cathedral arches and a darkened sun
From the pages of Ecliptica   /   Prologue

The story

The past has not
finished with them.

Louis Rossignol has brought his family to New Orleans, far from the revolutions and losses that drove them from Europe. But his son Gustave is still missing, vanished in Rome during an encounter with an ancient relic. His family has no grave to mourn and no clear path to follow.

More than two centuries later, another generation begins to question the father they thought they knew. Gabriel paints visions he cannot explain. Isabelle searches for reassurance in her faith. On the coast of Maine, David finds a history hidden among inherited possessions.

Their separate searches lead toward the same question: what has the Rossignol family been carrying through time?

Read inside Ecliptica

A warning written in flame.

From the Prologue

The moment steel scraped against the ancient floor, sparks leapt and caught, racing along the blade’s path as fire bloomed from the contact, igniting in a line of living flame that followed his step, the heat distorting the air, the light flaring outward to drive the shadows further back.

The creatures fled at last.

The knight stood within the growing circle of fire, shield raised, sword grounded, lantern blazing beside him, a solitary sentinel in a place that had not known vigilance in ages, his presence a declaration rather than a threat, a warning written in flame and gold.

Whatever had been waiting in the darkness now knew it was no longer alone.

And somewhere beyond the reach of sight, something ancient stirred, answering the sound of drawn steel, as the dream held its breath, poised on the edge of revelation and war.

Follow the story into Egypt
French officers watch ships and distant fires across a moonlit bay
Chapter illustration · Egyptian Sun

Alexandria   /   August 1798

More than an heirloom.

Jacob receives a letter from his cousin Joseph. Its warning is impossible to dismiss.

They asked directly for my timepiece.

Marcel deflected them with admirable composure, and the Lord granted us enough confusion in the skirmish to escape without mortal loss, yet their knowledge troubles me. They knew of its existence, and more than that, they knew it traveled with us.

You must therefore keep your own concealed with the utmost care.

Do not display it. Do not speak of it. Not even among men you believe loyal.

There are forces moving beneath the visible currents of Europe, and they are not bound by crown or republic. Whatever the watch truly is, it is not merely an heirloom, and those who seek it do so with an intent that does not end at curiosity.

From Chapter 1, “Egyptian Sun”

A woman crosses rain-darkened Jackson Square toward St. Louis Cathedral
Chapter illustration · Morning After Endymion

The French Quarter   /   Another generation

An image she almost remembers.

In Gabriel’s Royal Street studio, Isabelle finds a painting that feels disturbingly familiar.

Her attention had been caught by the canvas dominating the far wall, a work still wet in places, luminous despite the morning light that crept reluctantly through the windows. She stepped closer, drawn in against her will, her breath catching as the scale and intensity of the image resolved fully before her.

A vast, radiant ring of gold burned at the center of the composition, its surface alive with intricate carvings and light, suspended within a towering, cathedral-like void. Figures crowded the scene, angels in varying states of ascent and descent, their wings catching firelight as they surged upward toward the ring or recoiled from it, while below, human forms writhed and reached across a reflective floor that seemed to ripple like water under strain. From above, a single shaft of light descended, piercing the darkness and igniting the halo’s edge, the entire image balanced on the knife-thin boundary between salvation and catastrophe.

Isabelle stood silently, absorbing it, unsettled by the familiarity she could not explain.

From Chapter 2, “Morning After Endymion”

A man reads beside the rocky Maine coast near a lighthouse
Chapter illustration · North of Memory

South Cushing, Maine   /   2024

A name carried across centuries.

Beside the cold Atlantic, David opens a Bible he took from his father’s house.

In his hands rested the Bible he had taken from his father’s house. The leather cover bore the gentle ruin of decades, edges darkened where fingers had pressed most often. It did not feel ornamental. It felt used. When he opened it, the spine exhaled a faint, tired sigh, and the thin pages trembled in the wind before settling.

Inside the front cover, written in a steady, deliberate hand of an ancestor:

Louis Rossignol.

The name struck him harder than he expected. Not because he did not know it, but because it stood there in ink, unhidden, as though the man who wrote it had assumed the book would one day pass into hands not yet certain of what they held.

From “North of Memory”

The illustrated world

Beyond the familiar streets.

From a guarded road through the Alps to the long shadows of Louisiana, the Rossignols follow a history that reaches farther than any one lifetime.

These illustrations accompany the story inside Ecliptica.

Explore the novels
A guarded carriage follows a narrow road through snow-covered Alpine peaks
Brenner Pass
An avenue of oak trees frames a Southern mansion beyond a candlelit table
Oak Alley

The Crimson Rada novels

Find your next chapter

Follow the Rossignol family in reading order, from Sugar to Ecliptica. Choose a book to learn more, or find your preferred edition below.

Ecliptica book cover

Book Five

Ecliptica

Coming

Across two centuries, the Rossignols search for a way to bring one man home.

Learn more

The fifth novel in the Crimson Rada series. Step into the story with an excerpt.

Read an excerpt