They told me the forest wanted a bride. They told me I would be given to a monster. They never told me the monster was a man bound by grief, blood, and a curse older than the village that sacrificed me. When Elara is chosen as an offering to the haunted woods beyond Greymist, she expects death beneath the dark branches. Instead, she finds Caelan—a silver-eyed lord trapped in the ruins of a fallen house, burdened by an ancient bargain and the ghost of a love that should have died long ago. As the forest begins to wake around them, Elara discovers the truth is far more terrible than the stories she was raised to fear. The village has fed daughters to the Hollow Wood for generations, and she was never chosen by chance. Something beneath the roots knows her name, and it wants far more than her life. Drawn together by danger, longing, and the slow, impossible tenderness growing between them, Elara and Caelan must face the buried heart of the curse before it claims her body, his soul, and everyone left standing in the shadow of the trees.