A Crown Hammered from Stolen Antlers

von Christie Walton

164 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

Winter in Oakhaven is not a season-it is an insatiable predator. On the starving fringes of the realm, permafrost snaps wooden palisades like dry bone, reducing grain stores to gray slush and forcing families to measure their children against sacks of winter barley. To keep her croft from famine, Maren is surrendered to the cold iron sledges of the tithe-collectors. Yet she is no ordinary weaver's daughter. Beneath her calloused, needle-scarred fingertips lies an uncanny resonance with bone and marrow-a forbidden sensitivity that draws her straight into the suffocating belly of the Glass Cathedral.Within that towering redoubt of quartz and ermine, masked courtiers maintain porcelain youth through the royal Coronet: a circlet carved from living antler that writhes with suppressed agony beneath geometric silver bands. But the relic's magic is rooted in subterranean butchery. Chained beneath the foundations by barbed harpoons lies Julian Dawson, a four-century-old prince who consumed the heart of a primordial Elk-Sovereign, now milked of marrow and horn to sustain the ruling regent's immortality.Assigned to etch containment runes into Julian's raw horn-stumps, Maren is ensnared in a web of courtly treachery. Lady Olivia Sterling, draped in mourning silk and camphor, promises an alliance to liberate the captive beast. Yet every secret Maren uncovers is deadlier than cold iron. The killing frost choking her home is no natural blight, but toxic spiritual exhaust expelled by the citadel to preserve the court's cosmetic perfection. Julian is no gentle forest martyr, but a ravenous horror waiting to cleanse the valley in blood. And Maren herself is a stolen changeling-born to anchor wild godhood within mortal bone.When a Solstice ritual triggers a devastating ambush, Maren shatters the coronet across the high altar, awakening colossal Elk-Titans deep beneath the bedrock. As primordial behemoths tear through the glass dome and crush the nobility beneath tons of falling stone, humanity faces total extinction. To halt the slaughter, Maren makes an irrevocable choice: gathering silver carving needles and weeping antler shards, she stitches the shattered bone directly into her living skull, binding the feral ley-lines to her own marrow.Visceral, dread-laced, and mythic, A Crown Hammered from Stolen Antlers is a haunting dark gothic fairy tale of body horror, ancient betrayal, and monstrous transformation. Perfect for fans of Hannah Whitten's For the Wolf and Brom's Slewfoot, this novel weaves an unforgettable tale of the queen who rose from blood, bone, and bark.

• Themen: Belletristik Fantasyliteratur Dark Fantasy
• ISBN: 9798182776530
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 14.09.2026
• Größe: 229 x 152 mm
• Verlag: CHRISTIE WALTON