The Beginning of the Rebellion

Sean was nothing but Number 9, a starved slave left to freeze to death in a cursed forest. But Sean didn't survive the whip and the frost just to die quietly. Escaping his chains, he stumbles through a mysterious glowing portal, only to find himself 100 years in the future, trapped by the Night Court—a bureaucratic nightmare powered by an ancient, dying machine known as 'The Engine'. He is no longer just a runaway slave. Bonded with the soul of the 'Crippled King'—a 112-year-old monarch who holds the only map to the world's deepest secrets—Sean becomes the most hunted man alive. From an obsessive doctor who wants to cut him open, to a cold, calculating Warden who rules through ancient ledgers, everyone wants the memory locked inside his head. But extraction always kills the host. If they want the King's secrets, they will have to play by the slave's rules. He wasn't born a king. He wasn't chosen by destiny. But in a world built on cruelty and sacrifice, Sean will outlast them all and take the crown—because being the man in charge is safer than being the man in chains.