The night the curse began, the stars refused to shine.
The castle of Elarion, once a crown of silver above the cliffs, was swallowed by shadow and smoke. The moon hung low and crimson, bleeding across the sky like an open wound. Bells tolled through the storm — not for celebration, but for death.
Inside the grand hall, Prince Auren D'Amar stood over the fallen body of the woman he loved.
Her name was Evelyn, a court sorceress of unmatched power, and she was dying by his hand.
He hadn't meant to kill her.
He hadn't meant to love her, either.
The blade glimmered with enchantment, humming softly as it drank the last of her magic. Her eyes, pale as dawn, fixed on his trembling face.
"You were never meant to love me," she whispered. "You were meant to destroy me."
Auren's chest tore open with a silent scream. "No—Evelyn, please—don't say—"
"Love," she choked, blood staining her lips, "is the cruelest curse of all."
When she fell, the moon broke. The castle windows shattered in unison, and a howling wind ripped through the hall. The curse unfurled like smoke — dark, eternal, and binding.
Auren's heart turned to ice. His veins burned with her dying words.
He could feel his soul fracture, tethered to the void where her spirit fled.
Then came the voice — soft and cruel — whispering through the storm:
"Every kiss you give shall drain your life.
Every love you touch shall die.
Until the one born of both light and dark binds your curse with her own blood."
And so the centuries began.
Elarion became a ghost kingdom, trapped in perpetual twilight. The prince roamed its halls, neither living nor dead, cursed to wander with the memory of every heartbeat he'd stolen.
Until, one thousand years later, a witch with storm-gray eyes entered the ruins — and everything changed.