One stunning bride. One wedding. One night with the king. One execution come morning. Rinse and repeat.
When the fae king of Naenden returns home to his palace only to find that his human queen has committed treason by conspiring to assassinate him, he has the queen executed and decrees that once every mooncycle, he'll marry a human woman from the kingdom, only to execute her the following morning. Unless one woman offers herself as a sacrificial bride for the rest. Asha isn't worried about being chosen, of course. The decree was quite clear about beauty being among the top criteria for being selected as one of the king's unfortunate brides. Asha is no beauty thanks to the illegal magic that inhabits her body, leaving her scarred and missing an eye. The same magic that occasionally possesses her voice so it can amuse itself by telling a never-ending story with a string of horrible cliffhangers. The problem is Asha might not be a beauty, but her sister Dinah is. When Asha realizes Dinah is in danger of being selected as the king's sacrificial bride, Asha decides she can't live with that risk. So she offers herself instead. Except on the night of their wedding the king grants Asha a final request. Naturally, she asks to tell her sister one last bedtime story. Naturally, the king eavesdrops. The question is, will the story save her life or ruin it? A tale of love and betrayal, vengeance and sacrifice, magic and romance, this imaginative retelling of 1,001 Nights will keep you guessing with each turn of the page.
