Spared (Of Fire And Shadows, #0.5)

When eighteen-year-old Phe is approached by General Bastion to help take down a sex trafficking ring in Xafara, she doesn't think about it. She just agrees. How could she not when there are lives on the line?
What she doesn't realize is that General Bastion wants her undercover not as Phe the assassin, but as Lady Orphne, Phe's Oceanid persona. Where assassin Phe is strong and defiant, Lady Orphne is weak, timid, and quick to forget her power.
When Phe is taken to The General—head of the criminal ring and obsessed with Lady Orphne—she finds herself fighting two battles: one against The General and one against the ghosts and trauma of her own history. Her only hope is to survive long enough to bring the operation down from the inside.
Will this be the mission that breaks her?
Can she rescue the others before it's too late?
This novella is book 0.5 in the series as it takes place six years prior to Spark and has a very different feel than Book One. It is best read after Spark.
Due to the adult-themed content, there are both content and trigger warnings to this novella and it should be read by readers 18 and older.
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It's a brutal continuation of Phe's story—where duty demands more than survival, and loyalty means walking into the fire, knowing you may not walk back out.
For fans of Natasha Ngan, Sabaa Tahir, and R.F. Kuang—
Spared follows Phe's most harrowing mission yet. Sent undercover into the heart of a trafficking ring, she volunteers to play the prey in a calculated move to dismantle the predators from the inside. With her combat skills shackled behind the Lady Orphne persona, Phe must rely on wit, willpower, and sheer defiance—not just to gather intel, but to stay sane.
She's not infiltrating to survive.
She's infiltrating because others won't survive if she doesn't.
If Spared leaves you with anything, I hope it's this:
You don't have to feel fearless to do something terrifying. You just have to decide it matters enough.