This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice.
She was born to be a sacrifice. She refuses to be a martyr.
Evelyn Arden has spent twenty years making herself small. Then the Blood Moon rises over Thornhelm, and a crescent of black-red thorns blooms across her throat—the mark of the Chosen. Once every century, one soul is offered to keep Nyxareth, the Devourer Beneath, locked behind its seal. The Order of Dawnlight calls it a mercy; Evelyn calls it murder, and she has fourteen days to find another way.
In a stolen book of forbidden lore, she discovers a potential solution: a soul-binding ritual that might satisfy the seal without ending a life. Only one man could attempt it—Darian Blackwood, a two-hundred-year-old necromancer living in the cursed marshes of the Hollow Reach. Darian’s heart was carved out and buried where no god could reach it, and the continent believes him incapable of tenderness. He doesn't want a guest or a dangerous bargain, but Evelyn is the first person in two centuries to look at him without flinching.
At their side stand Bram Coldwell, Darian's dry-tongued gravekeeper, and Mira Fenwick, Evelyn's childhood friend turned witch hunter, who risks everything to look the other way.
Against them stands High Inquisitor Marcus Thane—brilliant, patient, and utterly devout. He believes the Choosing protects the innocent, but he also possesses secret knowledge about the ancient bloodline that sealed the Devourer. To him, Evelyn's sacrifice is not just a ritual, but the key to his ultimate plan, and he will march an army into the Hollow Reach to ensure it happens.
In a kingdom that turned its worst horror into a bedtime story, love is the most dangerous heresy of all. And beneath a bleeding moon, the dead are already listening.
If you love forbidden romance, morally gray necromancers, chosen-one sacrifice tropes, and gothic dark fantasy with real stakes—this is your next read.