From her first breath, Stadia’s life was a sealed pact, traded by her village to Death to end a plague. Marked by a ghostly petal over her heart, she was raised not as the future bride of a God but as a normal kid. On her eighteenth birthday, what she believes is her escape arrives: an elegant invitation. But her excitement shatters when the black carriage delivers her to a ball in her honour organized by the king of the dead himself. He is not a skeletal horror, but a being of devastating beauty and ancient power, and He has come to claim His due. Yet, Stadia’s fiery defiance intrigues Him. Instead of a forced union, He proposes a cruel and seductive wager: He will court her. She has thirteen lunar cycles to fall in love with Him willingly. The prize, the souls of her parents. The penalty for failure is the utter erasure of her soul. Thrust into a treacherous court of specters and Reapers, Stadia navigates a realm of breathtaking beauty and profound sorrow. As Thanatos reveals the poignant necessity of His work, their charged encounters blur the lines between captor and confidant. But when a mortal from her past breaches the underworld to rescue her, Stadia is torn between the sunlit life she was denied and the consuming dark passion of a God who offers her a crown. Her final choice will not only decide her fate but will redefine the very balance between life and death itself.