Chapter 1: A Crown of Teeth
The first time the Hollow King died, his bride didn't even know his name.
She didn't mean to kill him. Not really.
But when the silver-haired prince knelt before her in the ruins of the Shattered Cathedral, offering a crown woven from his own ribs, Veyra of the Twilight Reach did what any sensible witch would do—she stabbed him through the throat.
His blood wasn't red. It was black, thick as ink, and it sang as it splashed the broken altar stones.
"Oh," said the prince, voice bubbling around the dagger in his windpipe. "That's new."
Then he collapsed—only to wake seven breaths later, grinning up at her with too many teeth.
"Again," he whispered, eyes shining like eclipsed stars.
Veyra had been raised in the skybound libraries of the Weeping Scholars, where books wept ink and truths were bound in chains. She'd bargained with river gods, outwitted three-faced demons, and once tricked a nightmare into eating itself. But this? This was wrong.
The prince—no, the thing wearing his skin—rolled his shoulders, the gaping wound in his neck stitching shut with threads of shadow and soft laughter. "Normally it takes at least a beheading to put me down. You're fascinating."
She dove for her fallen grimoire.
"What in the nameless hells are you?"
"Your betrothed," he said, flicking a finger. Her book burst into blue flames. "Also the last living heir of the Hollow Throne. Also, possibly a minor god? The priests argue about that part."
The crown of bones rattled between them. It was still warm, slick with marrow. In her pocket, the marriage contract pulsed—the enchanted ink writhing like a nest of trapped serpents. She'd signed it blind, desperate to escape her grandmother's schemes. Now she understood why the parchment had tasted of grave-dust when she licked the seal.
Outside the cathedral, his shadow moved without him—a liquid darkness scaling the walls, swallowing the screams of the still-burning city below. The scent of charred lilies and old magic hung thick in the air.
He tilted his head.
"Do you know what happens when a Star-Eater witch weds a Hollow King?"
Veyra spat at his feet. "I'm guessing it's not a happy ending."
His smile widened. Sharpened. "Darling," he purred, stepping into his own shadow, "we are the ending."