The city sells breath. The sky is the lie.

In the buried city of Nhalven, air is rationed, obedience is survival, and the surface is supposed to kill within minutes.

Eighteen-year-old Ilyra Fen knows how to keep broken systems alive. As a lower-ring pipe-runner, she repairs the valves that feed clean air to the city's wealthy while her sick younger brother, Eno, struggles to breathe on diluted medicine and borrowed time.

Then Ilyra is selected for the Crestfall Trials.

The winner earns medicine, status, and a full air allotment for their family. The losers become warnings.

To save her brother, Ilyra must survive a trial built to break her, expose the lie holding an entire city underground, and decide how much truth is worth when every breath can be used against her.

Perfect for readers who love underground cities, survival trials, forbidden romance, and rebellion against a system built on fear.