The Formless Forge
READING AGE 16+
Nadia Brant is nineteen, acting head of House Vane, and the one who keeps the family ring.
Cal Vane is seventeen, the heir everyone has written off, and the boy the ring was supposed to belong to.
Their families tied them together with a contract, and Nadia has made it clear she will be the one to end it—on her terms, when she chooses. Cal should be grateful. Instead he keeps looking at the ring on her hand and asking himself what she is waiting for.
Then Cal finds the Formless Forge. It can give him an aspect, a chance at Halcyon Academy, a way to keep his house from being carved up by rival families. Every use costs him years. He hides that from everyone, including Nadia, who watches him too closely and helps him too little.
She holds the power. He holds a secret that is eating him alive. Neither of them says the thing that would make the contract mean something.
He wants the house. He wants her to choose. He cannot afford to want both.
Unfold
His mother's mouth was open. His father got there first.
"So," Dorian said.
The word arrived at chest height, at the volume of a man standing three feet away. Cal had heard that voice in this room a hundred times. It had never once been aimed at him.
"So you opened it." His father didn't move……
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