This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The ancient garden of Rosenhof Castle slumbered beneath a canopy of silver moonlight, its weathered stone paths winding between overgrown hedges that had once been meticulously maintained. Elara Nightingale pulled her woolen cloak tighter against the autumn chill as she stepped through the wrought-iron gate, her heart racing with equal parts excitement and trepidation. The letter in her pocket, written in elegant script on parchment that seemed to shimmer with its own inner light, had arrived three days ago with no explanation of its origin.

"Come to the garden at the stroke of midnight on the night of the harvest moon," it had read. "Your destiny awaits among the roses."

As the village's herbalist and keeper of old remedies, Elara was no stranger to the whispered tales of magic that surrounded the abandoned castle. The locals spoke in hushed tones of lights that danced in the empty windows and strange melodies that drifted on the wind. Most dismissed these as mere superstition, but Elara had always felt a peculiar pull toward the mysterious estate that crowned the hill overlooking their small German village.

The garden stretched before her like something from a fairy tale, wild roses climbing the crumbling walls in defiant beauty. Moonbeams filtered through the leaves, casting dancing shadows that seemed almost alive. At the center of the garden stood a marble fountain, dry for decades but still graceful in its decay, adorned with carved cherubs whose faces seemed to watch her with knowing smiles.

A rustle in the bushes made her freeze. From the shadows emerged a figure that took her breath away—a man perhaps thirty years of age, with dark hair that caught the moonlight and eyes that seemed to hold depths she could not fathom. He moved with fluid grace, as if he belonged to the night itself, and when he smiled, Elara felt something stir in her heart that she had never experienced before.