COMING SOON! DEATH BOUND by Meg Halcyon!
For fans of forbidden love, secret identities, enemies-to-lovers fire, and revenge-driven fantasy, Death Bound is a darkly evocative tale of survival, betrayal, and the masks we wear to claim what’s ours.
Chapter One Excerpt:
The dead were better company than frost and far less likely to kill me.
The crypt yawned before me, darker than a starless void and colder than a frostwolf’s howl. Every breath I exhaled turned to mist, swallowed whole by the freezing air, as if the tomb itself resented the heat of the living. My fingers ached from the cold, and I had the distinct misfortune of being trapped down here with nothing but the faint, humiliating hope of catching something remotely edible.
I’d like to say I was on some grand quest, hunting a beast worthy of a feast.
But no.
I was hunting a rat.
Yes, a rat.
How the mighty have fallen.
“Come on, you little morsel,” I grumbled, creeping along the narrow path between the tombs. The crypt seemed endless, with rows of sarcophagi lining the walls, each one cradling some long-forgotten noble. The faint blue glow of enchanted flames flickered in sconces, casting just enough light to keep the shadows at bay—not that it did anything for the chill.
I spotted the rat skittering just out of reach, its tiny form slipping into the shadows like it knew it had already won. The proud Elara—handmaiden to a princess whose name history had all but buried—now reduced to stalking vermin through the frozen depths of the Crypt of Silence, hands raw, knees aching, dignity long since abandoned.
At this rate, hunger wouldn’t kill me. The shame would get me first.
My stomach growled, the sound echoing far too loudly against the stillness of the stone, like a beast clawing its way out of me. I froze, half-expecting the dead nobles to stir in their icy coffins, their empty skulls turning to judge me with the weight of centuries. Not that they needed food. Or warmth. Or anything at all.
The dead didn’t starve.
The dead didn’t love.
The dead didn’t hate.
But by the ancestors, I did. Hunger gnawed at my ribs, sharper than any blade. Love ached in my chest, heavy and unspoken. And hate? Hate burned hot enough to melt the frost, curling through me like smoke from a dying fire, too stubborn to fade.
I edged closer, the tombs fading into the background as I focused on the rat. Small, scruffy—not exactly a brag-worthy prey. Still, down here, even a rat was worth the chase.
Food was food.
Aeliana was counting on me…
BLURB:
The dead whisper her name.
The living will learn to fear it.
Elara was nothing more than a servant, tending the frozen dead alongside Princess Aeliana in Icespire’s crypts. Cursed by the queen. Abandoned by the kingdom. But when the Dragon King attacked, fire turned their frostbitten exile into a massacre.
Elara should have died that day. Perhaps she did.
But death did not claim her. She clawed her way back from the ashes, forged by grief and sharpened by betrayal, and now she wears Aeliana’s face like armor. Disguised as the princess she once served, Elara stands in Emberfall’s treacherous court, bound as the seventh wife to a king too cruel to attend his own wedding. The court watches her every move, rivals wait for her to falter, and the icy magic that saved her—the magic that nearly consumed her—is the only thing keeping her alive.
But secrets are hard to keep in a palace built on lies.
Rhydian, her loyal guard, is the only man who knows the truth of who she is. He is steady where she is storm, a quiet force in a world that would see her destroyed. His devotion is an anchor she cannot afford, his lingering glances a weakness she cannot allow. Because no matter how much she trusts him, loyalty has its limits. And the deeper Elara sinks into Emberfall’s court, the more she wonders how far even Rhydian would go to protect a girl who is no princess at all.
And then there is the Dragon King.
Outside Emberfall, he waits. He moves like a specter of war, his molten gaze unraveling the delicate web of deception Elara has spun. He is chaos and fire, the man who reduced her world to ash, the monster who should have killed her. And if she is to survive, she must wield her stolen name like a blade and keep him from crushing the girl he once burned alive.
Elara’s life is a lie. Her power is a curse. But vengeance burns colder than the frost in her veins.
They cast her aside.
They turned her home into a grave.
The Dragon King took everything.
But Elara didn’t claw her way out of death to bow.
She rose to bring them all to their knees.
Trigger Warnings: This book contains themes of dark magic, graphic violence, betrayal, emotional and physical abuse, forced marriage, power imbalances, grief, deadly secrets, identity deception, and revenge. Reader discretion is advised.
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