The Unbound Artist
Framed for scandal and publicly flogged by the very uncle who murdered his revolutionary parents, virtuoso composer Lysander Thorne is cast into Veridia’s gutters as a "talentless hack." Broken and septic in the slums, he’s forged anew by a defiant street cellist, Brynn, and a disgraced mentor, Orlov, who teach him to transform the city’s chaos. Knife-fights, factory screams, the pulse of the oppressed into raw, dangerous music. As Lysander fuses his elite training with gutter truth, igniting an underground movement with outcast artists and laborers, the Aurelian Conservatory strikes back. His adoptive brother Kael, the golden child who betrayed him, demands a public duel of compositions: icy perfection versus Lysander’s "symphony of scars." Victory sparks brutal crackdowns, forcing Lysander to master his rage, unite fractured allies, and compose a final, city-shaking "Anthem of Scrap and Sky." In a crescendo of music and rebellion, he must shatter his uncle’s gilded tyranny or watch everything he’s rebuilt and everyone he loves burn. This is revolution scored in blood, dissonance, and the unbreakable chords of found family.