In the mountains where oaths outlive their makers, love is both spell and undoing.
Magic still hums in the Blue Ridge Mountains, tucked behind the church bells and gossip of Briar Gap. Mara Hollis runs the local occult shop with her lifelong coven and her feline familiar, Poe, whose silences speak volumes. But when a protection spell meant to banish her obsessive ex goes wrong, it calls something ancient across the Veil—and a cursed fae guardian answers.
Eiranthiel—ancient, bound, and beautiful—owes her protection until she’s “safe.” Trouble is, nothing in Briar Gap is safe anymore. Her ex refuses to let go, and an authoritarian president’s crusade against witches threatens her livelihood and her life. The magic she called to defend herself begins to unravel the thin places around her home, drawing forgotten powers back into the world.
As zealotry spreads through the hills and old magic stirs in answer, Mara—bolstered by her coven, her cat, and the reluctant guardian she never meant to summon—must decide whether to hide, fight, or reclaim the mountain’s memory before it devours its own.
A story of witches and weather, sovereignty and devotion, The Withered Crown explores the cost of safety, the defiance of remembrance, and the dangerous grace of being truly seen.
