The dead do not knock; they scratch.

For three years, Wren Calder has served as a Griefkeeper, a lonely, grueling profession dedicated to binding the restless dead. She has been trained to believe that grief is a disease to be quarantined, and that she must carry the weight of her work entirely alone?a belief that hardened the day her sister, Linnet, disappeared at the border and the temple dismissed it as a routine loss.

But when a mysterious, cold-blooded killer begins skinning Griefkeepers in the border villages, the empire turns a blind eye, leaving the border unprotected. The only person who seems to care is the man the entire capital calls a monster: the Ashen Wolf.

Kael, the border lord and commander of the Ashen Wolf's garrison, is a man surviving a curse that demands constant, agonizing sacrifice. To stop the killer, he arrives at Wren's door with an ultimatum: travel to the citadel of Theссaly and help him solve the mystery, or remain behind to face the same fate as those he couldn't save.

Wren agrees, intending only to find answers about her sister. Instead, she finds herself in the orbit of a man who is far more than the terrifying rumors suggest?and discovers a secret that rewrites everything she knows about her trade. The true bargain at the border was never a curse to be endured, but a weight that was never meant to be carried in isolation.

As Wren and Kael face a threat that seeks to tear the province apart, they uncover a dangerous, forgotten truth: the strongest bindings aren't forged in iron or solitary sacrifice, but in the shared strength of those who refuse to stand alone. In a race against a failing bargain and court intrigue that threatens to destroy everything they've built, Wren must decide if she is brave enough to redefine the cost of her calling?and whether she is willing to stake her future, and her heart, on a man who has spent four years fearing that he is beyond redemption.

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