The Inkweaver

In the shadow of the Thorned Wood, where trees whisper with the voices of the hanged and roots thirst for blood, lies Blackthorn Hollow-a village bound by a curse it refuses to name. Centuries ago, its people burned Isolde of the Vale, a healer accused of witchcraft, and forged a pact with the forest that devoured her. Now, the Thorned Wood demands payment: a life each generation, offered to its queen, or the vines will strangle the land.

Amaranthine Vale, Isolde's last descendant, has spent her life unraveling the truth. Armed with her mother's cryptic journal and a ledger of the dead, she seeks to break the cycle. But the forest is alive with malice. Wisps-spirits of the sacrificed-lure the unwary into its depths, and the Thorned Queen's voice grows louder in Ama's dreams, claiming her as kin. When villagers begin disappearing, their bodies found twisted in flowering brambles, the Hollow turns on Ama, branding her a heretic.

Yet the greatest danger lies within. The more Ama delves into the forest's secrets, the more its power consumes her. Violet veins snake across her skin, thorns bloom from her wounds, and the line between savior and monster blurs. Allies fracture: Lysandra, a sharp-tongued outcast with a hidden past; Seraphine Voss, a historian whose family profited from the witch hunts; and Elara Moss, an ethereal girl whose innocence may be a mask for Nyx, the forest's most vengeful wisp.

As the Thorned Wood's roots claw closer and the village erupts into puritanical violence, Ama must choose-embrace her ancestral magic to rewrite the story, or burn it all to ashes. But in Blackthorn Hollow, every truth is a wound, and every ending begins with blood.