Three brides. All dead before their first anniversary. All still warm as embers when they were found.Wren Marlowe knows the rumors when her family sells her to the Dragon King of Vhalos to settle a debt she didn't create. His terms are simple: one year of marriage, play the obedient queen, and never ever enter the western wing of his castle. In exchange, her brother lives.Wren has survived nineteen years by reading people the way merchants read ledgers. But King Corven is the first person she can't read at all, a man who drew up her contract before his last bride was cold, who watches her like a riddle he intends to solve.Then the impossible happens. The ancient dragon that bows to no one lowers its head to her. Symbols she can't explain begin to burn beneath her skin. And when an assassin's blade leaves the king dying, Wren commands the assassin with a power she never knew she carried.Now Corven looks at her like she's the most dangerous thing in his kingdom.Because she is.But the dead brides weren't a curse. They were a warning. And the truth about what Wren's blood means, what her marriage costs, and what the mountain intends to collect is buried in the one place she was told never to go."Some contracts can't be broken. They can only be renegotiated."