A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood, #1)

by S.T. Gibson

To those who escaped a love like death, and to those still caught in its grasp: you are the heroes of this story.

You did not let me keep my name, so I will strip you of yours. In this world, you are what I say you are, and I say you are a ghost, a long night’s fever dream that I have finally woken up from. I say you are the smoke-wisp memory of a flame, thawing ice suffering under an early spring sun, a chalk ledger of debts being wiped clean. I say you do not have a name.

think, my lord, that this is when you loved me best. When I was freshly made, and still as malleable as wet clay in your hands.