In the heart of the Ghostwood, where trees bleed crimson sap and time curdles like spoiled milk, a spectral stag rules over a herd of restless spirits. Here, debts are paid in blood, and defiance feeds the shadows. Anya Cindyr, a werewolf bound to the stag’s ghostly herd by a childhood pact she never chose, is caught between loyalty to her pack and the stag’s unyielding grip. Every moonrise, the stag’s antlered crown pierces her skull, transforming her into a shepherd of phantoms. Her humanity is a fraying thread, her claws carving luminescent trails through the forest’s veined undergrowth.
When Ronan Thorne, a botanist with the Heretic King’s dormant spirit coursing through his veins, stumbles into Anya’s nocturnal hunt, their collision ignites a chain of events neither can escape. Ronan’s whispered words—“You’re not its knife. You’re its *regret*”—fracture Anya’s resolve, awakening a memory of her mother’s lullaby and the stag’s roots coiling around their cabin. Together, they uncover a chilling truth: the Heretic King’s essence is corrupting the herd, twisting ghostly elk into wolf-shadow hybrids. If his corruption spreads, he will merge Anya’s pack with his spectral army, devouring both realms.
As Anya and Ronan journey deeper into the Ghostwood, they confront the Bone Wives, a coven of witches spinning thread from the hair of the dead, and Lira Veyne, a ghost whose unfinished business binds her to Anya. Their alliance is tested by the Heretic King’s seductive promises and the stag’s tightening chains. In the Stag’s Hollow, a cavern where the forest’s memories pulse like trapped fireflies, Anya faces an impossible choice: let Ronan die and lead the herd to restore the forest, or kill the Heretic King by merging his essence with her own, becoming a hybrid deity, unshackled but eternally alone.