Eldridge Lorecaster is Athena’s most wanted criminal. On the day he is to be hung, Lorali Wynmar oversees his final blessing. However, from the dark land of gods Lorali is urged to save him. She has seconds. As the noose tightens around his throat, she invoked the ancient rite of a gallows marriage. To appease the gods and survive the gallows marriage, Lorali and Eldridge are bound together for the next year. They grow on each other and become unlikely friends. But as their friendship grows into something more, secrets from their past come back, and they realise their lives were in twined long before they were bound by marriage.