Every autumn, the lord of Thornfeld must feed his lands — literally. An ancient pact binds the ruling family's life force to the soil; if the lord doesn't bleed magic into the earth each harvest, the entire region starves. Lord Auden Thorne has been doing this alone for six years, and it's hollowing him out. He'll be dead before thirty. When a new imperial law mandates that all unwed lords take a bride from the latest season's debutantes, he picks the one woman no other lord wanted — Marguerite, a healer's apprentice with no connections, no fortune, and no illusions about why she was chosen last. He expects her to enjoy the title quietly and leave him to die in peace. Instead, she notices he's wasting away, starts asking questions the household has been forbidden to answer, and discovers that the pact isn't what the Thorne family believes it is. Someone rewrote it generations ago — and they're still *feeding* off it.