SageFoxxie
Born into chains, Lyra has learned silence is safer than hope. She hides her fire behind obedience, her past behind quiet eyes - until the heir of the estate, Joshua Vale, returns from the capital with cruelty in his voice and questions in his heart.
He is everything she should fear - sharp, entitled, dangerous - yet something in her unbreakable calm stirs a curiosity he cannot name. For a fleeting moment, he falters. But when softness feels too much like weakness, Joshua retreats into brutality, trying to bury the strange warmth she awakens in him.
As rebellion brews beyond the manor walls and whispers of freedom spread among the enslaved, Lyra finds herself at the center of a choice that could cost her life. Framed for a crime she didn't commit, she risks everything to set the others free - and in doing so, forces Joshua to face the truth he's spent his whole life denying.
Their fates are bound by fire and consequence.
And when the chains finally break, one of them won't survive the dawn.