Night of the Brass Coin

The story opens with a breakneck chase through the neon-drenched slums of Kravathek, as underground doctor Dacha Zoria narrowly escapes a pack of cybernetic bloodhounds. Dacha never wanted romance; she just needed a quick burst of somatic energy to survive an experimental toxin. Breaking into a red-light district suite, she mistook the terrifying Spire Enforcer, Vorek Yastov, for a hired resonance escort. After extracting what she needed, she left a mocking thank-you note and three rusty brass tokens on his nightstand. Now, Vorek is furiously tearing the subterranean city apart to find and obliterate the woman who humiliated him. By day, Dacha hides in plain sight as the only physician capable of soothing his cursed insomnia, gritting her teeth as he vents about the 'street rat' he plans to skin. It’s a high-stakes, action-packed game of survival where one wrong glance means death. But as an unseen plague threatens the slums, Dacha discovers the mastermind behind Vorek's curse is her own mentor - whose terrifying actions are the only thing holding back a worse apocalypse. When a sudden bio-warfare attack forces Dacha to use her stolen resonance technique in triage, Vorek corners her. Will this desperate medical maneuver expose her as his elusive prey?