A royal bodyguard who loses a piece of her memory every time she kills must uncover the identity she was carved to forget before the tyrant she protects uses her to murder the last heir of a dead god-empire-who may be herself.

Sera Nhal has one gift the palace fears and needs in equal measure: when she draws her black blade, people die cleanly, quickly, and often without understanding how close she came.

The cost is always the same.

Every kill takes a memory.

A face. A promise. A street she once knew. The sound of a voice she loved.

Sera tells herself it does not matter. She was abandoned young, bought younger, and sharpened into the perfect weapon for the throne. A weapon does not need a past. It only needs a hand to point it.

Then a failed assassination cracks open the first hole in the lie.

The empire Sera serves was built on the ashes of a holy conquest. The bloodline it claims to have erased may still live. Her missing memories were not accidental. Her blade was forged for one purpose: to keep the truth buried inside her own skull.

Now the chancellor who raised the empire from famine and ruin wants her closer than ever. A rebel prince wants her dead. And a man marked for execution looks at her as if he already knows her real name.

If Sera keeps killing, she may save the throne and lose herself forever.

If she stops, the empire burns.