The Gatebreaker’s Pulse

The subway doors split open, and Kai Lin is dragged through a blood-red rift while the wounded woman he saved watches from the other side. He wakes beneath a red moon with a burning mark under his ribs, surrounded by strangers who want to cut it out of him. In Mirrorfall, bloodlines rule. A missing heir is worth more alive than dead, so Kai is forced to impersonate Red Heron’s lost successor. His only shield is Vera Crowe, an exiled guard who signs a contract to keep him alive while secretly planning to use him against the people who ruined her. Each time Kai converts pain into power and humiliates another clan, Vera’s cold resolve cracks. Then Kai learns his vanished father once walked these streets. Now Luca, Red Heron’s smiling ruler, knows Kai is a fraud. The city’s leaders are hunting his mark, and Vera’s sister is being used as leverage. Vera must choose: hand Kai over and save her family, or stand beside the man whose existence could expose the secret keeping Mirrorfall alive?