Five Stakes

In Nostra, love is a weapon. Blood is a language. And betrayal is tradition.

Kaya was born with a crown carved into her future, not of gold, but of bone and duty.

At nineteen, she stands in the arena, thrown into the Nostra's deadly trials. The rules are brutal, win, or vanish. And behind every blade lies another secret, another story soaked in ash and longing.

But Kaya isn't just another noble with a sword and a name. She carries a past stitched with silence, a heart warped by obedience, and a love she should've never touched, one that ended in ruin.

Now, as alliances fracture and ghosts whisper from the walls, she must ask herself: what more is she willing to sacrifice, for the throne, for her legacy, for a kingdom built on blood?

Will she become the empire's perfect heir... or its final reckoning?

A lyrical dark fantasy of ritual violence, forbidden longing, and a girl who was never meant to survive the story they wrote for her.