The Iron Bride

To save her dying town she swore a year to the fae lord who could end it, never knowing the bargain was always meant to spend her life.

Maren Ashby has spent her whole life at a failing forge, useful to everyone and chosen by no one. When a fae rot bleeds across the border and lays her father down, she crosses into the winter court of the Hollowthorn to bargain with its cold, beautiful lord: one year bound to his hall, in exchange for her town's life. But her smith's hands carry cold iron, the one thing in the world that can wound him, and the one thing that makes him feel after three hundred numb years. What no one tells her is that the bargain was never meant to set her free, and the great fae tree at the heart of the court has already carved her name among the dead. When she learns what her year is truly worth, she will have to decide whether the lord who bound her is her ruin, or the first person willing to burn for her.