Prologue
In Agrecius Mondeu, humanity is measured in numbers—and capped at two thousand.
Hidden beneath the marble capital, nineteen-year-old Evangeline Valerius lived as a ghost. Born from an unknown assault and raised in the damp air ducts of the labor sector, she carried no serial mark, no record, and a single physical flaw: a dark beauty mark beneath her left eye.
When a surprise raid exposes her existence, her mother willingly steps into the iron chains to take the fall. In Perfeína, an unregistered adult coming of age means an older worker must be purged to keep the quota balanced.
Desperate to stop the trade, Evangeline breaks cover, only to collapse at the feet of Prince Bastian Greywood. But Bastian doesn't see a soulmate when the mate bond sparks between them. He sees an illegal mouth to feed with a defective face. Without a second thought, he signs her death slate and leaves her to watch her mother die.
Severed from her bond and starved to the bone, Evangeline's body shuts down on the cold marble floor.
Dumped across the northern border like offal, her frozen body is recovered by Prince Elias Burkley. Elias isn't looking for romance or noble politics—he is preparing a starving northern army for an inevitable war. But when the frozen girl on his gurney begins to smoke, melting the frost off his coat, he realizes Perfeína didn't throw away a dead worker.
They discarded a weapon.
