The Castle That Woke with Her

Elias Hawthorne is a master carpenter who understands timber, joints, and the hidden forces that make great structures stand-or collapse. When an eccentric antiquarian offers him a fortune to repair an ancient Ley-Oak bed in the ruined Keep of Ashford, Elias accepts the dangerous journey into the mountains.But the castle is not truly dead.Inside the High Solarium, Elias discovers a magnificent crimson bed whose silver-veined timber is under impossible strain. Its broken joint is more than a flaw in craftsmanship-it is part of a vast magical structure built centuries ago. And when the damaged frame begins to awaken, Princess Arabella is pulled from her unnatural sleep, haunted by the suffering of a presence imprisoned beneath the castle.Deep below the keep lies the truth: Prince Lucian, the last heir of Ashford, has been bound for a thousand years to a terrible corruption known as the Calamity Blight. The ancient builders tried to contain the living force inside him by turning the castle itself into a cage. But no cage can hold a living thing forever.As the fortress trembles beneath the pressure of the failing structure and an enemy army approaches, Elias must uncover the forgotten design left by his ancestor. He realizes the answer is not to rebuild the prison-but to transform it.With Princess Arabella caught between her own fractured memories and Lucian's torment, Elias must risk everything to remake the ancient architecture before the castle collapses and releases the darkness it was built to contain.