The Princess Inside the Old House

Mara has spent her life running from the strange warmth in her hands.Where others see an affliction, Mara knows it as something far more mysterious: when she touches old wood, stone, or forgotten structures, she can awaken the memories buried inside them. In ordinary towns, this gift has brought her suspicion, fear, and accusations of blight. So she has learned to keep her hands hidden and travel alone.But when Mara crosses into the abandoned realm of Oakhaven, she discovers that the silence surrounding the kingdom is not the silence of death.Three hundred years ago, Oakhaven vanished beneath a terrible magical stasis. Its buildings remained perfectly preserved while its people were trapped inside the architecture itself-souls imprisoned in floorboards, walls, wheels, doors, and foundations. When Mara touches them, they awaken long enough to remember fragments of the lives they once lived.One of those voices belongs to Tristan Everhart, a smith whose consciousness survives within a great waterwheel. Through him, Mara begins uncovering the truth behind Oakhaven's fall and the mysterious Princess Arabella Kingsley, who willingly entered the doomed kingdom rather than abandon her people.But the deeper Mara travels into the ruined kingdom, the more dangerous her gift becomes. Every awakening brings another piece of Oakhaven's history to light-and another reminder that the sleeping citizens may not remain trapped forever. What was once called salvation may actually have been a prison built from fear, mercy, and the desperate desire to preserve life at any cost.Mara must finally confront the architect of the ancient stasis and decide whether releasing the kingdom is worth the risk of unleashing the violence that caused its destruction.As the buried magic begins to awaken, Mara discovers that she was never merely a stranger who wandered into Oakhaven. Her strange warmth, her ability to hear the memories of dead structures, and the choices she has made throughout her lonely life are all connected to the kingdom's unfinished fate.To save Oakhaven, she must teach an entire kingdom how to breathe again.And for the first time in her life, Mara may discover that the gift that made her an outcast is the very thing that can finally bring her home.