Lucian. The kingdom called him a cursed child long before it called him king. Born to a nameless lowborn woman, his crimson eyes were declared an omen of ruin, and on the day of his birth, his own father ordered the infant abandoned beyond the borders to die beneath the jaws of beasts. Yet fate refused to claim him. The wilderness raised something far crueler than any prince. By fifteen, Lucian emerged from the shadows at the head of an army of exiles, mercenaries, and forgotten monsters—people the world had discarded, just as it had discarded him. He answered betrayal with annihilation. Cities that resisted burned for days, noble houses that mocked his existence vanished overnight, and battlefields became rivers of blood beneath his command. Those who survived whispered that he smiled while kingdoms fell, that he never hesitated to execute traitors, rebels, or even his own officers if they failed him. At only eighteen years old, the boy condemned as a curse had become the most feared monarch on the continent—a king whose name silenced crowded halls, whose scarlet gaze could reduce seasoned warriors to trembling, and whose mercy was so rare it had become little more than a myth. At the grand ball of Eldoria Academy, where princes, dukes, and noble heirs gathered beneath glittering chandeliers, no one dared meet his eyes... until one foolish, smiling girl walked straight toward the monster every kingdom had learned to fear.