The story

1922. An archaeological expedition in Anatolia opens a chest that should never have been opened. Of the six men who entered the chamber, only one walks out. David Kern, twenty-two, will carry that poison the rest of his life.

Thirteen years later, Berlin under the Reich. Aria Schmidt, eighteen, restores antique clocks alongside her watchmaker father when a visitor leaves an object at their shop. The hunt that begins will span three generations.

From Istanbul's underground vaults to the Andean peaks, from Polish forests to Irish silences, the Fifth Breath is sought, lost, found, passed on. The SS wants it as a weapon. The Vatican wants it as a relic. A handful of men and women know that it cannot be possessed nor destroyed — only transmitted.

In 2025, on an Atlantic terrace overlooking the Shannon estuary, Mira opens her father's blood-stained notebook. What she finds is not a novel. It is a breath. And that breath, from now on, will never fall silent again.