Human history is the story of empire.

For as long as anyone could remember, the Carlisles had been caretakers of Castlemartin, a sprawling estate perched atop Scotland’s Isle of Skye. Its latest caretaker, the mysterious historian Lord M. Nigel Carlisle, was rumored to work tirelessly within its book-filled confines, endlessly refining his secretive research on imperialism.

Carlisle’s 1995 book Eras of Empire was a warning, a caution to those who believed history was dead. Even after World War II, the lords and ladies of Europe’s dynastic families never perished, for lurking in the shadows were the fanatical progeny of Habsburg and East India Company elites lamenting modernity, actively seeking a return to a world of royalism.

Tragically, the book was a monumental flop. After the recent demise of the Soviet Union, its message just didn’t resonate.

In 2023, Ethan Briar is a rising star at the new global research company Sovereign Intelligence (Soverint) in trendy mid-town Manhattan. A disheartened Millennial unable to break into senior management, Soverint sends him to join a red team of intelligence experts to assess the output of a quantum supercomputer at the Castlemartin estate, which is rumored to produce comprehensive alternative histories of the world that predict the future.

His mission also tasks him to covertly find another intelligence operative, code-named Ocean Sleeper, trapped within Castlemartin's ultra-secure compound. But a plan that seemed so simple becomes infinitely complex. A shadowy history of the world is revealed, a history of secret societies and the occult, unknown to most.

Carlisle is nowhere to be found, mysterious figures roam the halls at night, and Ethan begins to feel he is in serious danger. He quickly discovers we are not at the end of history, for history cannot be buried so easily.