How far would you go, and what lines would you cross, simply to survive?
Malina of Hastia has been thrust into a living nightmare … a brutal trial of selection within the Mountain of Souls, where failure means a gruesome death, and even survival only guarantees another day of suffering.
Cursed with yellow eyes and deathly pale skin, she is frail and certain to die, broken and forgotten like so many before her … without even knowing why.
Yet fate has other, more sinister plans for Malina than a quick death, and as the truth behind her incarceration is slowly revealed, she discovers the Mountain is not a prison, but a forge.
Those who survive its trials are remade into The Chosen: a fearsome cohort of assassins trained in blade, deceit, and enchantment, bound to fulfil an ancient prophecy that promises to save humankind.
But survival has a price.
To live, Malina must embrace killing. To rise, she must forget mercy. To become one of The Chosen, she must surrender her very soul.
But if survival costs her everything that once made her human, what kind of monster will Malina become when she finally leaves the Mountain?
