At Red Fear, the most exclusive brothel in the Kingdom of Argevin, there is something even more dangerous than the men who pay to bring their darkest fantasies to life: hidden within its walls is Kasdeya, the kingdom's deadliest woman. No one has ever seen her face and lived to tell the tale. Raised on the streets and condemned by a curse that turns her bodily fluids into lethal poison, she has learned that getting close to anyone always comes at a price. When a mysterious client offers her an impossible mission -- to seduce and assassinate the King of Argevin -- Kasdeya agrees to infiltrate the court posing as a foreign noblewoman vying, alongside other ladies, for the hand of his son, Prince Keir. He is brilliant, arrogant... and irresistibly charming. What begins as a game of appearances soon threatens to become the greatest obstacle to completing her mission. Yet the palace is rife with enemies, conspiracies, and secrets far more dangerous than she imagined. As lies pile up and the shadow of *nectumbra* -- a disease linked to a mysterious figure named Andras -- looms over the kingdom, Kasdeya must decide what is deadlier: the poison coursing through her veins... or the feelings growing for the man she should never have let herself get close to.