She left Thornwood seven years ago. The wards have been dying ever since.
Maren Ashwick didn't want to come back. The letter from her aunt was five sentences and contained no apologies ? just three facts: the wards are failing, the blight is in the root systems, and they need her blood. She packed her herbalist's satchel, crossed the border where a moth fell dead at her feet, and walked back into the town she'd fled barefoot in the dark.
Kael is still there. Of course he is.
He hasn't changed in the ways that matter. His hair is still black, his jaw still sharp, his presence still the particular kind of still that means he is paying very close attention. He watched her cross the square with the weight of every unanswered letter between them, and he said nothing. Just turned back to his council meeting and kept working.
He has been keeping this town alive with both hands. He has also, she learns in pieces, been looking for her.
Thornwood is rotting. The boundary oak weeps phosphorescent sap. Silver foxes lie dead without a mark on them. And at the root of it all is a hunger Maren doesn't have a name for yet ? something old, something patient, something that fed on the magic keeping this place safe for generations.
She came to heal a blight. She did not come to forgive anyone. She especially did not come to fall in love with a man she left behind. But the thorns between them have had seven years to grow, and some things, it turns out, take root deeper than exile.
A slow-burn fae romance with second chances, a world that smells of copper and decaying lilacs, and a love that survived being buried. Perfect for fans of lush fantasy settings, emotionally devastating reunions, and happily-ever-afters built on the ruins of old wounds.
