TO PROTECT MY FAMILY, THE PRICE THE PAY IS . .

. ME.

After America's collapse, a new nation emerged from the ashes - NOMISMAN, its 20 cities governed by the AI system, AURA. In the elite Newtown sectors, maintaining the status quo is everything, and defying AURA's control is a clear mark of treachery.

Sixteen-year-old EZARIAH MALKIN thought attending his grandmother's funeral was harmless. But when the Enforcers arrive to arrest the mourners for defying AURA's algorithm, Ezariah's father takes drastic measures to preserve his influential family's status.

Ezariah and his two younger brothers are Renounced - stripped of their identity, wealth, and exiled to the lawless depths of the Slum they were raised to fear and revile. In the Slum's winding maze of alleys, where danger lurks around every corner, survival is more than a battle.

Ezariah is forced to forge unlikely alliances to protect his brothers from its harsh realities - a world of smuggling, Enforcers, crime bosses, fighting rings, and starvation. His only hope is winning the Culling, a relocation lottery so exclusive that escaping the Slum may extract a cruel price - one Ezariah can't afford to pay.

. .