The city no longer kneels to storms. Bowls are back on shelves, mirrors have learned to be furniture, and dawn arrives with work instead of omens. Yet the old oath still breathes in the cracks—an inheritance of red rain, whispering that love can be measured in sacrifice.

Elion, the scarred king the world keeps forgetting, wakes to a morning with no crown and no shadow of his legend—only callused hands and a stubborn belief that consent is stronger than prophecy. Across the fasting light walks Serath, returned without a shadow and tired of being anyone's miracle. Once enemies, always inconvenient, they have become something rarer: partners who will trade spectacle for survival, poetry for policy, and knives for vows that hold.

But the bloodbound oath won't die quietly. A new church tries to dress absence in sleeves and call it a prince; mirrors flirt with becoming throats; and the seam over the valley twitches, eager to remember how to break. If the city is to remain free, the vow that once demanded blood must be rewritten in daylight—witnessed by wind, bread, and honest work.

Standing between altar and door is Lys, Aven's heir, the "hollow" girl who turns worship into valves and windows. She will not be holy when policy will do. With vinegar and chalk she audits every miracle, refusing any magic that cannot survive a morning market. To seal the future she loves, she must risk her one unspent thing—until consent becomes the grammar of every spell and love is the only witness that counts.

As rain reaches for its old cruelty, Elion and Serath climb to the ridge and choose the harder salvation: a vow made with light, not blood. Every touch is a hazard; every choice has a receipt. Yet in the hush after the storm, petals fall where blood once stained, and the city learns the most dangerous miracle of all—two men allowed to be ordinary together until the world admits it has been saved.

Bloodbound Oath is a darkly tender romantasy of shadow and shine, enemies-to-lovers tempered into partners, and a kingdom rebuilt by consent. Expect knife-sharp banter, aching restraint, and kisses that close wounds instead of opening them. Expect a crown that learns to be a tool, a city that behaves when asked correctly, and an oath that refuses to spend another life to prove its power.

Perfect for readers who want:

When the legends are pared down to what deserves to remain, only one truth is left to pass from rooftop to market stall—their promise, kept in daylight:

the vow of two hearts.