In the Sunken Spires, breathing is a privilege someone else pays for with their blood.

Talla Rook is a scavenger, not a hero. She has spent her life clawing for air in Low-Tide, surviving on the scraps of a dying, vertical city that is physically sinking into a caustic ocean. But when a surge of forbidden "Inverse-Siphoning" power erupts from her skin, she is dragged from the gutters and conscripted into the Obsidian Citadel -- an elite military college where students are trained as living batteries to power the city's anchors.

Inside the Citadel, survival is a blood sport. Cadets are ranked, used, and quietly discarded when their magic is spent. Talla isn't here to make friends; she's here to not drown. But her rare ability to draw magic in rather than bleed it out makes her the most dangerous asset in the Spires -- a battery that could save the city or a bomb that could blow it apart.

Commander Soren Valek is the Citadel's most precise instrument of order. Cold, hyper-logical, and lethally attractive, he is tasked with breaking Talla into the perfect weapon. In a world of bone-crushing depths and chemical burns, Soren is the only thing standing between Talla and the machine that wants to consume her.

But in a school built on sacrifice, can she trust the man trained to keep her in chains?

The first book in a high-heat "Gutter-Gothic" epic. Perfect for fans of the high-stakes trials in Fourth Wing and the visceral power dynamics of Gen V.

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• Science Fiction & FantasyFantasyNew Adult & College

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
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• Print Length: 591 Pages
• File Size: 28 KB