Where the Marshlight Burns

On the edge of the Greyfen marsh, Widow Maren Ashwick tends her peat-claimed cottage and her newborn son alone, until the night the marshlight reveals a stranger standing at her door. Tomas Greywick has returned after seven years abroad, and he carries a secret: somewhere beneath the silverwort beds lies something worth killing for. He claims he has come for Maren, but the village remembers how he left. Alderman Pike demands back-taxes she cannot pay, and Brother Aldric warns her that the marshlight shows things best left buried. Then Caelum Blackthorn appears, offering a different escape, a place at the Blackthorn estate, protection for her son, and a future beyond the drowning fields. Lady Isolde Blackthorn signs the invitation herself, though her letters speak in riddles and her generosity masks old wounds. The newborn son becomes a stake in a quiet war between two houses. When the marsh swallows a villager and the silverwort begins to wilt, Maren realizes both men want something from the peat, and from her. The treasure, the truth, and the man she trusts may all be one and the same. With her son's future and her own heart in the balance, she must choose before the marshlight burns out and the ground takes its final toll.