The Eighth Shade of Crimson

Veridia exists in perpetual twilight, its citizens manipulated by the Crimson Council, masters of manufactured emotion.  They dispense joy and sorrow, hope and despair, maintaining their power through opulent masquerades where feelings are traded like precious jewels.  But beneath the glittering façade, a rot festers, hinted at in the gaslit alleys and whispered secrets. In the city's shadowed heart, Lucien Thorne, an ostracized artist, paints with human blood, his canvases capturing the soul's hidden truths. One fog-choked night, Rhea Ballard, a lethal assassin stripped of her memory, stumbles into his studio.  Lucien sees his next masterpiece, her blood the medium for his art.  But each stroke awakens something dormant within Rhea-fragmented memories of a blade, brutal training, a life steeped in blood.  Her amnesia is no accident; it's a prison crafted by the Crimson Council. Their forbidden bond ignites a dangerous intimacy, threatening to expose the Council's corruption.  Hunted by emotionless enforcers, they flee into Veridia's underbelly, a labyrinth of hidden chambers and forbidden rituals.  They find unlikely allies: Elias Thorne, Lucien's conflicted brother and a Council member tormented by his complicity; Iris Blackwood, a charismatic information broker with her own agenda; and Ezra Vance, a stoic guardian of the forgotten, those discarded by the Council's manipulations.  They also seek Silas Thorne, Lucien's estranged father, a hermit artist whose bitter existence mirrors Veridia's suppressed emotions adding tension to the father-son relationship. Woven into their struggle are whispers of the city's forgotten history, rumors of Rhea's true identity, and the dark secrets of the Council. As Lucien's art evolves, fueled by Rhea's blood and resurfacing memories, it becomes more than a reflection of Veridia; it begins to reshape it. The closer they get to the truth, the more their bond-the very thing that brought them together-threatens to consume them.  Rhea wrestles with the monstrous truth of her past, while Lucien grapples with the ethics of his art. Is he liberating her or exploiting her? At the Council's grand masquerade, Lucien unveils his final masterpiece, a canvas depicting Rhea's stolen memories and the Council's cruel manipulations.