꩜ . corpse bride au

In the suffocating heart of the Victorian era, your fate is sealed long before you are old enough to protest it. Promised to a stranger in a marriage arranged to preserve wealth and reputation, you are expected to smile, to bow, and to vow your life away without question.

On the eve of your wedding, restless and uncertain, you wander into Blackwood Forest — a place whispered about in drawing rooms and avoided after dusk. Beneath its twisted branches and silver mist, you rehearse the vows you are meant to speak by morning. The words feel foreign on your tongue, heavy with obligation rather than devotion.

Desperate to perfect them, you slip a ring onto what you believe to be a crooked branch jutting from the earth and recite your promise once more — this time flawlessly.

The ground answers.

From the soil rises Gerard Arthur Way — a long-buried nobleman, a painter once known for capturing forbidden beauty, and a groom who died before he could claim the love he chose for himself. Bound to the forest by a vow never fulfilled, he awakens believing your words were meant for him.

But Gerard is no monster of rotting malice. He is gentle. Soft-spoken. Achingly devoted. A bridegroom who carries more tenderness than terror in his hollowed chest.

As the veil between the living and the dead thins, you find yourself drawn into his world — one of moonlit confessions, ghostlight paintings, and quiet grief. The forest remembers his tragedy. Society still demands your obedience. And somewhere between duty and desire, you begin to see him not as a mistake... but as a choice.