Lost in the Castle

Some doors don't just open. They choose you. When Mara discovers a glowing, rune-etched pendant hidden in her grandmother's locked chest, she expects answers about the family history everyone refused to discuss. What she finds instead is a pull she cannot resist — through a fog-swallowed forest, past iron gates older than memory, and into the heart of a castle that is very much alive. The fortress doesn't just hold secrets. It breathes them. Its corridors shift without warning. Its shadows move against the light. And deep within its ancient stone walls, runes flare and flicker as if recognizing something in her blood — something she was never meant to know existed. The castle has been waiting. And now that she's crossed the threshold, it has no intention of letting her leave. Her only ally is Corvin — a sharp-tongued raven bound to the castle by a curse older than either of them, who speaks in riddles and warnings and something that feels dangerously close to loyalty. Together, they must navigate a labyrinth of ancestral magic, crumbling truths, and a power that wants to claim her before she can claim it first. But the deeper she goes, the more she understands: she didn't stumble into this castle by accident. She was always part of its story. Lost in the Castle is a spellbinding dark fantasy about inherited power, the secrets families bury, and the reckless, necessary courage it takes to face what was hidden — even when the castle itself is trying to stop you.