Grinning at the Abyss
By @john1208
When my sister Safura burst into Grandmother’s deathbed chamber to swap our betrothal papers, everyone expected me to cry. Instead, I giggled and signed my life over to Basir Vost - the sickly, disgraced glyph-scholar doomed to die in a month. Safura thought she was stealing Dalun, the doctor destined to cure the canyon’s plague and become a billionaire. She didn’t know two things. First, my 'airhead' persona hides the fastest, most lethal canyon-runner in Qalari. Second, I recently unearthed a coded journal written by my own past self, detailing exactly how to manipulate Safura into taking Dalun before her bottomless greed pushes him into horrific, illegal human trials. My mission? Keep Basir from translating the explosive Obsidian Glyph that killed him in the last timeline. If I can physically snatch the volatile runes before they detonate, his research will unlock the city's limitless ancient power grid. But with Safura's double agent already infiltrating our crumbling manor, can I keep up my cheerful, ditzy act long enough to turn my dying scholar into the city's apex tycoon?
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