Time was never merciful.
In Eldoria, the turning of each year is not greeted with celebration but with blood, memory, or love. The Bell of Years demands its toll, and kings have bowed to its arithmetic for centuries. When the chime resounds, a life is measured, a sacrifice claimed, and the throne secured for another cycle. To rule is not simply to govern—it is to pay.

King Ithriel inherits this legacy with a crown still heavy from war. Victory against Avernos should have promised peace, yet the curse of the Bell lingers, binding him to an ancient contract that no sword can sever. On the day of triumph, amidst chains and shadows, he meets Kaelis—an enemy prince, a prisoner of war, and the man fated to upend every vow Ithriel has ever sworn.

Kaelis enters the palace as a captive marked by the Hour, a brand tied to prophecy and ruin. He is meant to be leverage, a pawn in political intrigue, or a sacrifice to appease the Bell. Yet every word he speaks carries fire, every silence builds tension, and every glance threatens to undo the careful arithmetic of survival. In him, Ithriel finds not just defiance but recognition, a mirror of his own hunger—for freedom, for truth, and for a love the Bell was never meant to allow.

Within palace walls where whispers are sharper than blades, conspiracies coil around them. Lord Varcen schemes with ropes and gallows, Serenya keeps her sword ready for betrayal, Thane weighs loyalty against survival, and Miravel counts years in ink and dread. Each choice Ithriel makes pulls threads tighter: to spare his enemy, to share a vow of blood, to challenge the law that has chained generations. And with each heartbeat tethered to Kaelis, the line between duty and desire begins to collapse.

Their bond grows in defiance of tradition, tested by betrayal, sacrifice, and the relentless tolling of time. What begins as enemy and captive transforms into something forbidden, fragile, and unstoppable—a love strong enough to fracture the Bell itself. But freedom has a price. If Ithriel dares to choose Kaelis over arithmetic, he risks unraveling not only his reign but the very fabric of the city. If Kaelis dares to stay, he must gamble his life and his people's memory on a future written without chains.

At the year's turning, when the Bell should ring, Eldoria waits. Will the curse demand blood once more? Or will two men dare to write a new accord—one bound not by sacrifice, but by shared years, shared vows, and shared love?

เวลา is a dark romantasy weaving forbidden love, political intrigue, and gothic atmosphere into an epic tale of destiny. Perfect for readers who crave enemies-to-lovers tension, slow-burn romance, and the sharp edge of sacrifice, this novel asks:
What if love could break the mathematics of fate itself?