Helena Wick

Hajnalka is a calculating, aristocratic fortress alchemist who carves her existence into the high limestone karsts of Bakonyerdő. She is a creature of order, brewing caustic, flesh-melting venoms to defend her immaculate citadel from the colossal blind arthropods that swarm the pitch-black subterranean abysses below.

Vencel Szilágyi is an exiled outlaw swarm-warlord grafted with occult chitin, a brutal but charismatic conqueror who commands those same flesh-eating horrors. To him, the giant lethal burrower-mantises are prize ferrets, and Hajnalka’s aerie is just another obstacle to pull down into the deep.

When the stone flagstones of Hajnalka’s workshop split open, Vencel does not just want her dead. He drags her down the jagged abyss shafts and fits her with a spiked iron collar to make her the brood-mother alchemist for his ravenous hive. But Hajnalka has no intention of being a helpless captive. To survive the blind terrors of the deep and the predatory, intense obsession of her captor, she must weaponize her chemistry against the very monsters she hates. Every drop of pheromone tincture she brews shifts the balance of power, turning her from a furious prisoner into a lethal, bloodstained accomplice. In a kingdom carved out of darkness and brutality, Hajnalka and Vencel will blur the line between captor and willing partner in a deadly dance of control.