Alder Carter

Kemo was hired to do a simple job: keep the fragile, brilliant researcher Duli alive through a six-month winter deployment at a remote, snow-buried station. But when the long-wave radio goes dead and the blast doors lock from the outside, Kemo realizes murder isn't the real threat. Someone in the base is orchestrating a slow, methodical heist to collect a debt that cannot be paid in money—a debt Duli didn't even know she owed. As the suspect list shrinks and paranoia mounts, Kemo must use his superior tactical mind to assemble a counter-crew from the terrified remaining staff. He has to out-plan the thieves in the cold, navigate a shifting web of betrayals, and execute a counter-heist before the winter swallows them all.

In the high-walled trade city of Qart-Hadim, survival is not about who you know—it's about which doors you can open. Khezirat makes it her business to know them all. As the city’s master gatekeeper, she navigates the hidden architecture and forgotten thresholds of the lower wards to keep her dying mentor's final promise: protect the vulnerable, and never trust the Merchant Families.

But the city's corrupt rulers have just sealed a desperate, unwanted blood-pact with the ruthless Sutarim desert tribes to stave off a mounting eastern blockade.

Enter Tammuz, an ash-marked, brutally disciplined Sutarim warlord assigned to enforce the fragile peace. He despises the decadent city and everything it stands for. When Khezirat is handed over as his involuntary guide and watchdog, the lines are drawn. She has the geometry of the streets in her blood; he has the authority to burn them down.

Forced into an uneasy proximity as unseen enemies begin sabotaging the magical transit gates, Khezirat and Tammuz must rely on the very things they hate about each other to survive. It’s an enemies-to-lovers game of locked doors and traded secrets—and if Khezirat isn't careful, the dangerous outsider will uncover the weaknesses she swore to guard, or worse, the woman holding the keys.