Army_2013007
In the sky-bound realm of Cheon-geung, magic is written on the skin.
The high nobles bear luminous, constellation-shaped scars that grant them command over light, gravity, and time. Seventeen-year-old Eun Chaewon has no marks. She is merely a low-caste ink-maker in the Royal Observatory-until the night she accidentally paints a forbidden 13th constellation onto an imperial silk banner using ink ground from fallen star dust.
That night, an unauthorized star flares in the sky, and anyone who gazes upon it is marked for execution.
Enter Kang Yoon-woo: the cold, ruthless prodigy of the High Sun Clan and the youngest Chief Auditor of the Celestial Court. Assigned to execute the treasonous artist, Yoon-woo corners Chaewon-only to recognize her brushwork. It contains the exact celestial cipher left behind by his older brother, who vanished three years ago under imperial orders.
Instead of turning her in, Yoon-woo strikes a dangerous deal: Chaewon will use her forbidden star-sensing talent to decipher the palace's shifting vaults, and Yoon-woo will protect her from the Emperor's shadow-hunters.
Together, they uncover a terrifying conspiracy: the Emperor is stealing the kingdom's memories to build an artificial constellation capable of wiping entire lineages from existence. To stop it, an ink-maker with no magic and a nobleman losing his own must learn to trust each other before the coming eclipse erases them both.