A Bargain of Ash and Ivy

Every generation, a bride is given to the Veil. Every generation, she dies upon it. Isolde Marlowe hears lies in written ink. It is a gift she has hidden all her life — because in the kingdom of Velmar, people like her are registered, silenced, and used. Then her name is drawn as the Treaty Bride, and she is married to Kaelan Ashvane, the exiled prince of the fae Ashen Court, under a contract written in living ink. Nine clauses bind them. The seventh is sealed. Its price is her heart. Every bride before her died at her first Anniversary Court, when the heart-tithe falls due. But the contract holds one loophole it never expected to face: it can be rewritten in the hand that first wrote it — or in the blood of a Verbatim. And Isolde is the first Verbatim bride in the treaty's history. She does not intend to run. She intends to arrive at the Anniversary Court with a pen. A Bargain of Ash and Ivy is the first book of The Ashen Courts — a romantasy of arranged marriage, a morally grey prince, a deadly fae court, enemies to lovers, and a slow burn built on letters neither lover is allowed to lie in. This is the story of a heroine who saves herself — with ink, with blood, and with the truth. Book One of The Ashen Courts. Book Two, A Crown of Salt and Stars, follows. AI Disclosure: The text and cover of this book were generated with artificial intelligence, edited and reviewed by the author, who takes responsibility for the final work.