Heart of Entropic Silence

On the planet Serandil, your heartbeat is your wealth, and matching someone else’s rhythm is punishable by death. When Ayla, a “heart hunter” on the Rustgold Sea, steals the heartbeat of a noble, she stumbles upon the assassination of former Prince Caleb. By a freak accident, their hearts are forcibly synchronized. If they cannot be separated within 72 hours, their blood will boil to 72°C, killing them both! Once sworn enemies, they become lovers on the run. During their escape, Ayla uses her mother’s forbidden “Neural Loom” to reconstruct Caleb’s right eye, triggering a disaster that lays their memories bare to one another. The physician Eli, who secretly loves Ayla, swaps out the life-saving inhibitor in a jealous rage. Caleb takes it as an attempt by a “love rival” to murder him. When their political enemies unleash a “citywide heart-rate slaughter,” Eli atones in the most brutal way: he stabs the antidote chip into his own heart, then throws himself at Caleb to transfer it. His unspoken love sinks into darkness as his life goes out. The blood of a dear friend awakens the faint royal blood within Ayla! She stirs a frenzy of metal across the Rustgold Sea and turns the tables on her enemies. But Caleb’s heart has reached its limit. Weeping blood, Ayla seals him inside a “72°C temperature-controlled crystal coffin” that freezes time. With bloodstained neural threads in her hands, she becomes the only person in the wasteland who still remembers the rhythm of his heartbeat, waiting in despair for the faint possibility that it might beat again.