A woman is confronted by her father, who is furious she ruined a marriage arrangement with a Duke he arranged. She pleads with him not to force her to marry the older man, but he states she no longer has a choice. Later, alone, she experiences a sudden, intense heat in her body as a shadow curse surges. The scene shifts to a woman with a young son, Eden. She leaves him to take a scribe test, determined to get the job to earn gold for an antidote. Her son is suffering from a curse that has reached his marrow, and the only cure requires his true father's blood as a catalyst before the seventh full moon, or he will die. The woman vows to find that man from seven years ago and do anything to save her child.