Commander Rowan Calder feels a stranger's wound open across his own palm before he ever sees her face. The impossible pain pulls him through Ravenshade Forest toward Elara Myrren, a healer hiding among ruins left by the War of Shattered Oaths. Their connection should not exist. Old oathweaving was buried after promises became powerful enough to break armies, ruin bloodlines, and teach the dead to remember. Yet Rowan and Elara are bound by a living thread that carries pain, fear, and flashes of one another across any distance. The crown sees a threat. Scholars see evidence. Enemies of the old order see an opportunity. Rowan and Elara see a danger neither of them consented to, made more complicated by the trust growing between them. Every step toward understanding the bond risks strengthening it, and every moment of attraction raises the question they refuse to ignore: can love be real if magic is already pulling them together? Their search leads into sealed war records, thornbound ruins, and the truth behind vows once treated as sacred protection. To survive, they must learn how to separate connection from possession and choice from destiny. The bond can carry their wounds without permission. Their hearts will have to decide whether anything else crosses between them. If they cannot remake the terms of the magic, the old war may decide their future before either of them can.
Commander Rowan Calder feels a stranger's wound open across his own palm before he ever sees her face. The impossible pain pulls him through Ravenshade Forest toward Elara Myrren, a healer hiding among ruins left by the War of Shattered Oaths. Their connection should not exist. Old oathweaving wa...