Until the Roots Consume Us

The story opens with a heart-pounding chase through the rain-slicked canopy of Ilythra, where Zorien seemingly saves Lirren from syndicate hounds - the perfect heroic start to a two-year lie. Years ago, Zorien lost his leg in a collapsing ruin, watching Lirren flee into the dust while he bled. Now a sarcastic, world-weary syndicate fixer, he has perfected his revenge. Masking his bitterness behind a gentle, devoted smile, he played the perfect boyfriend, infiltrating her lonely life only to plant forged evidence of treason and hand her over to the Amber-Guard. His victory is meant to be sweet. Instead, the silence of her empty apartment is suffocating, and the bittersweet, unspoken love he tried to bury claws its way out. The agonizing emptiness shatters into sheer panic when his frantic sidekick, Pell, uncovers a horrifying detail: the Enforcers transferred Lirren to the Deep-Roots, a living penal-cavern scheduled for a toxic botanical purge in exactly twelve hours. It was a time limit nobody mentioned. Now, Zorien must tear down the very city he manipulated to break into an impenetrable prison. But even if he reaches her in time, can she ever forgive a man whose love was built on a lie?