Wed to the Shadow Court

Ilsa Brightmere is the village hedge-witch, and she has one talent: she can hear a lie, and she has a mouth that can't help repeating it. That mouth once cursed a stranger in a tavern by name. She's about to marry him. The Lord of Shadow takes tribute brides the way other lords take taxes, and Ilsa walks into his keep knowing exactly what he is. What she doesn't know is that he remembers the curse, that his court is full of things that should be dead, that his former betrothed is still very much alive, and that his own shadow has stopped following him. Ilsa is not a tribute. She is a question. And every answer she digs up makes her less of a scapegoat and more of a ruler. She married him as an offering. She'll crown herself beside him as a curse, said out loud, on purpose, forever.