The Between - Asher Honish

Tulin has existed for five centuries.

As one of the rarest beings in the known cosmos - a Vael Veth'ala, capable of perceiving the life force of every living thing and standing outside the boundaries of ordinary time - he has spent his long life being used by the institutions that coveted what he carried. Now he lives in deliberate isolation on a remote archipelago world, tending tide pools, waiting for the cosmic purpose the Vael believe anchors every soul to the living world. At five centuries, he has stopped expecting it to arrive.

Then a stranger appears on his coast before dawn.

Kael Dorn is Serathi, a species that has hidden its true nature from the galactic body known as the Aurric for three centuries. He has come with a warning, an offer, and a secret: his biology is entirely illegible to Tulin's perception. For the first time in five centuries, Tulin cannot read a living being. He cannot feel Kael's remaining time, his vitality, the arc of what he is.

He has to simply pay attention. And what he finds, as the two of them move through a dangerous investigation into the Aurric's exploitation of Tulin's people, is something neither of them has a framework for, a resonance that exceeds what either of their biologies should be able to produce, and the first suggestion, after five hundred years of open ground, that his purpose has finally found its direction.

The Between is a lyrical science fiction novel about sovereignty, collective resistance, and what it means to be known without being read.