Hollow Croak

A princess's kiss was meant to break the curse. Instead, it awakened it.

When drought threatens to destroy the kingdom of Aeridor, a desperate queen makes a blood pact with the ancient entity sealed beneath the Old Well-trading her lineage for salvation. Generations later, Princess Elara, trapped in a gilded cage of political marriages and royal duty, discovers the horrifying truth behind the fable that founded her bloodline.

She seeks freedom in the one place forbidden to her: the Petrified Grove. But what rises from the black water is not a prince. It is something older, colder, and patient. Something that has waited centuries for the royal blood to return.

What begins as a desperate bargain spirals into a slow, horrifying metamorphosis as Elara becomes both witness and vessel to an ancient god's resurrection. The rains may have returned-but so has the rot. And it is spreading.

The Hollow Croak is a dark fantasy of body horror and creeping dread, where fairy tale tropes curdle into nightmare. For fans of The Witcher, Mexican Gothic, and The Last Unicorn, this novel blends lush prose with suffocating atmosphere and explores the cost of freedom, the weight of inheritance, and the monstrous things we invite when we ask to be saved.