Elara Vale has already lost a husband to the Shadow Fae, and she refuses to lose her younger sister too. When Mira's name is chosen as a human offering, the widowed Elara steps forward and takes her place, trading the safety of her village for a journey into the very world she has spent years hating. Thornhall should be a prison. Instead, it becomes a place of impossible magic, hidden rules, and one dangerously compelling mystery. Vaelor is powerful, watchful, and bound by secrets he seems physically unable to reveal. The more Elara questions him, the clearer it becomes that his silence is not simple cruelty. Something old has wrapped itself around him, around Thornhall, and perhaps around the history Elara has been taught to believe. She came expecting monsters and hoping for closure. She did not expect the pull between them, the flashes of tenderness beneath Vaelor's restraint, or the unsettling suspicion that the truth about the Shadow Fae may be far more complicated than the stories told in her village. Every answer creates another question, and every step closer to Vaelor makes it harder to remember why she should keep her heart guarded. But curses are built on rules, and breaking the wrong one can demand a brutal price. With her sister's safety behind her and an uncertain fate ahead, Elara must decide how far she is willing to go to uncover what Thornhall is hiding. Because the man she was prepared to fear may be the only person who can lead her to the truth, if the curse lets him speak before it is too late.
Elara Vale has already lost a husband to the Shadow Fae, and she refuses to lose her younger sister too. When Mira's name is chosen as a human offering, the widowed Elara steps forward and takes her place, trading the safety of her village for a journey into the very world she has spent years hat...