They burned his home.
They killed his mother.

They should have killed him too.

A brutal dark fantasy of survival begins.

Alidinia is twelve when the empire wipes out his people in a single night of fire and steel. He escapes the slaughter?but not what comes after.

A red-cloaked soldier takes him south. No answers. No mercy. Just training.

Hard. Relentless. Unforgiving.

Ali is pushed beyond survival?forced to endure pain, obey without question, and learn to become something lethal.

Because he is not just another orphan of war.

He is being shaped into something far more dangerous.

There is something different about him. Something the empire is hunting?and something others are willing to kill to control.

And if they fail?he will be turned into a weapon instead.

This was never about saving him.

It was about making him.

And if he survives what's coming... he may become the most dangerous kind of assassin.

One who was never meant to survive at all.