“Trust me, my love. And remember—the world is not what we’ve been told.”
It’s been years since seventeen-year-old Ayla Livingston’s mother was taken and now she’s forced to run again. But the father she barely knows has finally found her and takes her to Inner World, a powerful civilization hidden beneath the Earth’s surface.
Built on advanced technology and genetic perfection, Inner World is unveiling a war with the Surface. Not even her father, its highest-ranking military official, can stop it.
Ayla’s only chance to change the future is to compete in the Rite, a brutal competition testing mind, body, and spirit. Win, and Ayla earns influence among those who rule. Lose, and she lives the rest of her life without power, forced to watch the invasion unfold in silence.
Her assigned trainer for the Rite is brilliant, relentless—and forbidden. Fiercely loyal to the system she longs to dismantle, he pushes her to her limits as the Rite draws them dangerously close. But triumph carries its own sentence: the Pairing, a mandatory genetic bonding that will determine who she is allowed to love.
As war looms, Ayla must decide. Submit to the system or risk everything to tear it down.

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