Merlin has promised a queen the one thing every ruler desires: a kingdom that will never disobey.

In exchange for Princess Ellistrae's hand, he vows to deliver a substance capable of quieting rebellion without leaving any visible harm. The compound does not exist in Camelot's age?but Merlin knows where it can be found.

The future.

His apprentices, Kaelen and Seris, are sent through a blood-forged portal into Vethara, a vast technological city where ChemCorp governs daily life through surveillance, armed Enforcers, and a public water system already carrying an experimental obedience drug called Synth-M.

Their mission appears simple: infiltrate ChemCorp, steal a sample, and return before the portal closes.

But Kaelen awakens in the future with hidden mechanical augmentations woven through his body?devices Merlin installed without revealing their full purpose. Seris discovers that her magic can cross more than distance when Princess Ellistrae begins speaking to her across time. Then an unknown intelligence reaches Kaelen through his own augmentations with a warning: the mission is not what Merlin claims, and one of the runes inside him was designed for compliance.

Sheltered by Riven and the forgotten people living beneath Vethara, the apprentices learn that Synth-M is no distant experiment. It is already flowing through the city's pipes, and full deployment is only weeks away.

To stop one age from enslaving another, Kaelen and Seris must evade ChemCorp, uncover the connection between Merlin and Vethara, and decide whether the master who shaped them can still command their loyalty. But time is closing around them, and the portal home may force a choice neither is willing to make.