Elara Voss didn't come to Eclipsed Veil Academy to make friends. She came for answers — about the ritual that went wrong, about the shadow that lashed out, about the night she lost the only person who ever really knew her. She didn't come to be bonded either. Especially not to him. Prince Kairos Shadowveil. The boy whose shadows killed her best friend. The boy who knows it. The boy whose heartbeat is now locked inside her chest like a second pulse she can't silence. The Veil doesn't care about guilt. It doesn't care about grief. It only cares about balance — and it's decided that Elara and Kai are the equation. Now they have to train together, fight together, survive together. And the longer the bond holds, the harder it becomes to remember which feelings are hers and which ones belong to the boy she's supposed to hate. Some bonds are made to heal. Some are made to destroy. Elara's beginning to think hers might be both.