Burn for the Bond

The Empire survives by breaking bonds. Aelith is a Severant-trained, conditioned, and branded to hunt down magical connections and destroy them without hesitation. For fifteen years, she has been the Empire's perfect weapon, severing bonds wherever they appear and leaving nothing behind but silence. Sorin was once a conduit, a rare mage who could amplify bonded magic. When he refused to keep turning love into fuel for imperial power, the Throne shattered his abilities and discarded him.
He lived anyway-changed, hunted, and dangerous in ways the Empire does not fully understand. When Aelith captures Sorin, something impossible happens. Their magic reacts. A bond forms where none should exist. The Severant's mark-designed to erase connection-awakens instead. Branded as liabilities and hunted by imperial kill squads, hunter and captive are forced to flee together. As the truth behind Severants, conduits, and forbidden bonds begins to surface, Aelith must confront the most dangerous realization of all: she was never empty.
She was sealed. To survive, they must uncover what the Empire buried, outrun those who want them erased, and decide whether a bond that should not exist is worth burning everything for.