The Eighth House

In the city of Aurelis, every citizen is born twice — once by blood, once by the Loom. At the Alignment, a single trial decides which of the Seven Houses will claim you for life: your home, your purpose, your worth. No one questions it. No one is allowed to.

Kian never wanted to be grateful for his assignment to House Ashkar, the city's most honored warriors — but he went anyway, because that's what you do. He's spent his whole life sensing he doesn't quite fit the shape the world keeps handing him. He just never expected to be right.

Leon is the youngest Blade-Captain in Ashkar's history, a man who has built himself into exactly what the House needs — disciplined, composed, unreadable. He has no patience for the reckless new fledgling who won't kneel on command and won't stop asking why.

But the closer Leon gets to Kian, the more the questions Kian refuses to let go of start becoming his own. Because Kian was never supposed to be sorted into Ashkar at all — and the truth of what he really is has a name the city erased generations ago: the Eighth House.

To love each other, they will have to survive the system that built them both.