One drop of magic. One stolen kiss. And then, she was chained to a monster.
The sob sliced through the night—thin, desperate, clawing through iron.
Sylvera froze. Bare feet sank into cold earth, firelight dying behind her. For a breath, she thought it was a dream.
Then a voice curled behind her. Low and dangerous."You shouldn't be here."
Three Weeks Ago.
The first time Sylvera saw King Lorian, she knew trouble had found her.
He rode into the village on a white horse, sunlight pouring like molten gold over his armor. The square roared with cheers, petals spinning through the air. Children chased soldiers with sticky fingers and loud laughter.
Everyone smiled. Everyone except her.
Sylvera stood behind her stall, hands busy stacking vials of potion that suddenly felt pointless. Just a hedge witch in a brown dress, trying to disappear in plain sight.
Don't look. Don't draw his eye.
She looked.
And the world shifted.
Those eyes—cold as starlight, deep as old water—found her across the noise and color. A flicker of recognition that made no sense slid down her spine like ice.
Who… is he?
The villagers called him a hero. A king. But there was nothing human in the way his gaze pinned her, still and certain, as if fate itself had reached through the crowd and set its hand on her shoulder.
Her first mistake as a mage.
The second? She didn't look away.
The next time she saw him, the king wore no crown. No soldiers. No gleaming armor.
Just a dark cloak, the hood shadowing black hair—and yet even dressed like that, he didn't look ordinary. There was a gravity to him, a sense that the air bent when he moved.
"I've had headaches," he said, his voice a low hum. "They tell me your hands work miracles."
She stared a moment too long before fumbling for a vial. "You need rest more than miracles."
His mouth curved, not quite a smile, more like the suggestion of one. "You sound certain."
"I'm a healer," she said, sliding the vial across the counter. "Certainty is the least you should expect."
"Then I'll trust you." He dropped silver coins into her palm, his fingers grazing hers like a spark caught in the dark.
Sylvera could not move right away, 'Why does he look at me like that? Like he sees something… like he's waiting… for something.'
And then he lingered.
He asked questions—soft, curious ones no one had asked her before. About her craft, her favorite flowers, and whether she had ever been in love.
Sylvera did not answer the last question.
When he left, she stood alone behind the stall, the silver heavy in her hand, her breath heavier still.
And he came back. Again. And again.
Bringing rare roots from the royal gardens, staying until the sky burned orange. Once, he picked up a mortar and tried to help her grind herbs—awkwardly, clumsily, until she laughed despite herself.
That laugh lingered in the air, and when she looked up, he was smiling. Really smiling this time. And the thought came, unbidden and dangerous:
'What would it feel like if he never left?'
And then one day, he looked at her differently—like she was the only secret worth knowing.
"Your eyes," Lorian murmured, his voice like distant thunder, "are like the storm clouds. I could drown in them."
Sylvera's breath faltered. Her heart stuttered like a bird against glass. No one had ever spoken to her that way—with wonder and something heavier, like grief.
As if he already knew the story would end in ruin.
'Don't believe him. Don't.'
But she did.
She hadn't meant to fall in love. She told herself she wouldn't.
But love, like magic, rarely asked permission.
That night, she stood by the hearth, staring at the vial in her hand. The liquid inside gleamed a soft rose—innocent, almost beautiful. A love potion. Not strong enough to enslave a mind, just enough to plant a thought, a gentle weight in the heart.
Enough to make him remember her when he returned to his castle.
'It's harmless. Just harmless.'
She told herself that a dozen times. She told herself she wouldn't use it.
And then she did.
Three drops. That was all. Shimmering like dew as they slid into his goblet, the next time he came to her cottage. Her fingers trembled as she passed him the drink, her pulse drumming so loud she could barely hear his voice.
He drank without hesitation, his eyes never leaving hers.
That day, he didn't speak of headaches. He didn't pretend to be just a man wandering a market. He sat close—close enough that their knees brushed when she handed him tea. His fingers grazed hers and didn't pull away.
The silence between them was warm.
Thick.
Unspoken things blooming like vines around her ribs.
"Stay with me," he said at last, his voice low and rough, his gaze unbearably soft.
Sylvera's throat tightened. She should have said no. She should have remembered the sheep near the forest, the feverish children of the village still waiting for her, the life she'd sworn to protect.
But her heart—loud, reckless—drowned out reason.
The next morning, she left everything behind.
No note. No goodbye. Just a basket of herbs on her apprentice's doorstep: rosemary for protection, lavender for peace, and a lock of her hair tied with a spell as fragile as hope: be brave.
She rode behind Lorian through the shadowed woods, away from everything she had built, into something unknown. The trees blurred to dark smudges. The palace towers rose on the horizon like ghosts.
She had never gone beyond the forest. She had never wanted to. Until now.
They left at dawn.
Sylvera rode behind him through the mist-wrapped forest, her hands clutching the edges of his cloak as the horse tore through paths she had never dared to walk. The air was sharp with pine, the world unfolding wider and stranger with every mile—the towering woods giving way to golden fields, then silver rivers, then roads that bled into the horizon.
'I should turn back. Gods, I should turn back.'
But each time the thought rose, she felt the steady strength of his back beneath her fingers, the warmth of his hand brushing hers when he guided her reins, and the words dissolved like smoke.
From that day, everything changed.
Village after village, her magic spilled like starlight in the open. She healed broken limbs, banished curses older than bones, and every time the whispers grew louder—Who is she? Offerings appeared outside their tents: sprigs of sage, carved tokens, prayers scrawled on scraps of cloth.
The nameless hedge witch was gone.
In her place stood someone woven from myth and marvel.
And Lorian—oh, Lorian—made sure she never forgot it. His hand always found hers, grounding and claiming all at once. In places heavy with eyes, he would bow to kiss her knuckles, a gesture so tender it felt dangerous. At feasts, he brushed stray strands from her face, his fingers lingering as if memorising her.
One night, far from the torches and the gossiping dark, under a sky torn open with stars, he lay beside her on a lonely hill. His voice fell against her skin, quiet and absolute:
"You see? No king has ever loved as I love you."
She wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wanted to. She wished the moment could stretch forever—just the two of them, the hush of grass, the hush of his breath.
But magic, like love, always demands a price.
It began with whispers.
Mothers searching for children who had vanished like mist. Fathers pacing fields with lanterns burning low, voices cracking in the dark.
"They've run off to play," Lorian said, his tone smooth as silk, but his gaze glinting like the edge of a blade. "Or bandits, perhaps. I'll send patrols."
And the villagers believed him. Why wouldn't they? He was the king—the hero on the white horse, riding beside the famed healer.
But Sylvera saw the truth too clearly.
Every village they left had one less child. Always after the fires burned low. Always after Lorian raised his glass, laughter spilling like wine into the night.
Then there was the chest.
Iron-bound, bolted, dragged by two guards who never spoke. She barely noticed it—until one night, when the camp slept and the world was nothing but shadows and breath.
She heard it.
A sound that split the night in two. Thin, broken. A child's sob muffled by iron.
Her pulse slammed like a drum. She crept toward it—slow, careful—until two guards rose from the dark like statues come alive.
One shook his head. Once. Slowly.
She didn't ask again.
And then came the hunger.
Lorian stopped eating at feasts. Ignored bread, meat, fruit—even when silver platters bent under the weight of abundance. But when the fires dimmed and the night curled close, he ate alone.
Sylvera watched from the threshold of their tent, silent, her throat tight as she glimpsed the red gleam on his teeth.
The change in his eyes. The cold bloom of hunger behind them.
'It's nothing,' she told herself. 'Stress. The burden of a crown.'
But magic knows the truth.
Deep in her bones, she felt it: something was wrong.
The man who had whispered love beneath the stars was no man at all.
And Sylvera—the foolish hedge mage who brewed a potion for fate—had walked into the arms of a monster.
She had cast the spell.
She had whispered the lie.
And now, the truth was unspooling like thread in her hands.
Everything was unravelling.