The fields should have been golden.
At this time of year, Aria's village ought to be knee-deep in wheat that rippled like sunlight when the wind passed over. She remembered harvest festivals when she was a child: laughter in the air, ribbons wound around poles, songs sung as grain piled high in the barns. Those days felt like dreams now.
The stalks at her feet sagged, husks gray and shriveled. She crouched, fingers brushing across a brittle stem that snapped at her touch. The soil beneath was dry as ash. No amount of tending could coax life from it.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. She had come hoping for a miracle, but hope was in short supply these days.
"Any luck?"
The voice carried across the field, tentative. Aria turned to see her younger brother, Tomas, picking his way carefully along the furrows. His dark hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, though the sun was weak. He was fourteen, still gangly, though he tried to stand tall like their late father had.
She forced a smile. "Enough to stretch another few days." She held up a handful of withered grain, making it look heavier than it was.
Tomas's face lit with relief, and guilt stabbed through her. He wanted to believe her. Needed to.
The truth was cruel: there wasn't enough. Even if she ground every last stalk, they would barely have bread for two nights.
"We'll be fine then," he said, voice bright. "If the council keeps trading with the northern villages, we'll last till winter."
Aria dusted her palms against her apron. "If the northern villages still have grain to trade," she murmured. She didn't mean for him to hear, but his shoulders tensed anyway.
Everyone knew the truth. The famine wasn't just here. The land was sick.
And in the forest beyond their village, shadows had begun to stir.
──── ୨୧ ────
The path back wound between stunted apple trees that bore no fruit. The air carried the faint stench of rot even though the sky was clear. A flock of blackbirds wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and frantic.
"Do you think the stories are true?" Tomas asked as they walked.
Aria kept her eyes on the ground. "Which stories?"
"That the Shadow Prince is waking. That it's his curse killing the land."
The question made her stomach tighten. She'd heard those whispers her whole life. Children scared each other with them at night: tales of the monster king who lived in a palace of black stone, whose shadow stretched far enough to choke the crops, who demanded a bride every generation or the whole world would rot.
Folklore. Warnings meant to keep little ones from straying too close to the forest.
And yet…
The wheat, the livestock, the way darkness seemed thicker at the edge of the trees. The uneasy silence that had fallen over the nights lately, broken only by sounds no one wanted to name.
Aria glanced at Tomas. His face was pale, his mouth set in a thin line. He wasn't a child anymore. Lies would not comfort him for long.
She touched his arm gently. "Stories often grow in the telling. But something is wrong. We can't deny that."
He nodded once but didn't meet her eyes.
They passed the small shrine near the crossroads. Someone had left a bundle of wildflowers, already wilting. A prayer, perhaps. Or an offering.
Aria paused just long enough to straighten the bundle and whisper a wordless plea. It felt foolish—what good were prayers when the land itself seemed cursed?—but she couldn't help herself.
──── ୨୧ ────
The village square was already crowded when they arrived. Smoke curled from chimneys, though the air carried the sour tang of burned wood. Neighbors clustered together in knots, voices hushed.
At the center stood the angel statue, weathered by centuries. Its stone face was cracked, one wing chipped. Some claimed the statue had once protected the village from the Shadow Prince's wrath. Others said it only watched, powerless.
The heavy toll of the bell echoed through the air. Urgent. Ominous.
Aria's pulse stumbled. The bell meant the council had gathered. And the council never rang it unless the matter was dire.
She guided Tomas through the crowd until they found a place near the front.
On the raised wooden platform stood Elder Marrek, staff in hand. His hair was white, his shoulders bowed, but his eyes were sharp as iron. To his right stood the other council members, all equally grim.
When the final bell fell silent, Marrek lifted his staff. "People of Greythorne," he said, his voice carrying. "You know why we are here."
A ripple of unease moved through the crowd.
"The crops fail," Marrek continued. "Our livestock vanish. The monsters prowl ever nearer the forest edge. This is not the work of chance. It is the curse."
Murmurs broke out. "No—" "It can't be—" "It's only stories—"
Aria felt Tomas stiffen beside her. She clenched her hands together until her nails bit her palms.
Marrek's voice cut through the noise. "The Shadow Prince stirs in his palace. Twenty-five years have passed since he last walked, and the bargain that held him grows weak. If we do not act, the curse will spread until nothing remains."
The square erupted with shouts. Some cried in fear, others in anger. Mothers clutched their children. A man spat on the ground.
Aria's chest ached as if the air itself had turned heavy. The stories were supposed to be legends. Not truth.
"The bargain must be renewed," Marrek said, his staff striking the platform with a dull crack. "As it has always been. One bride must be given to the Shadow Prince."
The words hung in the air like a noose.
A bride.
Aria's heart slammed against her ribs.
The crowd broke like a wave crashing against stone.
"No—no, not again!" a woman's voice shrieked from somewhere near the front. "Not my daughter—please, not again!"
"They can't," another man spat, his fists shaking in the air. "That monster has no claim on us. Not anymore!"
Fear bled into anger, anger into despair. All around, voices rose and tangled until they formed an indistinguishable roar. Mothers pulled their daughters behind them, shielding them as if the very act might render them invisible. Men shouted at the council, demanding another way.
Aria stood rooted, Tomas clinging to her sleeve. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. A bride. The word clawed at her like cold fingers.
Elder Marrek didn't flinch as the shouts grew. He waited, staff planted firmly against the boards beneath his feet, eyes sharp as a hawk's. When silence finally returned in ragged, uneven patches, he raised his chin.
"You think we have a choice?" His voice cracked through the square like lightning. "You think we can bargain with famine? With death? The Shadow Prince demands what is his, and if we deny him, he will take far more than one bride. He will take every child, every soul, every field until only ash remains."
A heavy hush fell, broken only by the distant caw of crows.
Aria's heart beat so hard it hurt.
Was it true? Could one man's curse stretch across the land, rotting it from root to leaf? If it was only a story, why were the fields gray and brittle? Why had the woods grown so quiet at night, as though something darker than wolves prowled the undergrowth?
Her gaze flicked to Tomas. He was trembling, his lips parted. Too young for this. He should have been worried about chores and stolen apples, not brides and curses.
Aria bent close, her voice low. "Stay calm. Do you hear me? Whatever happens, we'll be together."
He nodded, though his grip on her sleeve tightened.
──── ୨୧ ────
A councilwoman stepped forward then—Elda, a sharp-eyed woman who had once been a midwife before her knees grew too stiff to climb stairs. Her face was lined, but her voice rang clear.
"We will follow the old ways," she said. "As our grandparents did, and theirs before them. One girl will be chosen, and in her sacrifice, the village will endure."
"Sacrifice?" someone barked. "That's murder!"
"No," Elda snapped. "That's survival."
A murmur spread through the crowd, heavy with dread.
Aria's throat was dry as sand. She wanted to shout, to demand why it always had to be this way—why the lives of girls were the price of peace. But her voice stuck like a stone in her chest.
Tomas whispered, "Aria… what if it's—" He stopped himself, but she heard the rest anyway. What if it's you?
She forced her expression steady. "Then it won't be."
But inside, her stomach twisted. Because she had seen the way fate liked to turn its cruel eye.
──── ୨୧ ────
The crowd slowly unraveled into smaller knots, people arguing, praying, weeping. Aria led Tomas away before the crush could swallow them. Her feet moved on instinct, carrying her toward the healer's cottage at the edge of the square.
Inside, the air was thick with the scent of dried herbs. Bunches of thyme and sage hung from the beams, though their leaves were shriveled from the same sickness that touched the fields. The hearth smoldered low.
Her mother sat in a chair near the fire, hands folded in her lap, eyes distant. She had grown pale in recent years, her body weakened by an illness Aria could only ease, never cure.
Aria knelt beside her. "Mama. Did you hear?"
Her mother's gaze flicked toward her, sharp with pain and memory. "Of course I heard. The bells carry through every wall."
Silence stretched. The fire popped.
Then her mother reached for her hand and squeezed it, surprisingly strong. "It must not be you."
Aria swallowed. "We don't know how they'll choose—"
"I don't care how." Her mother's voice cracked like glass. "You are not his bride."
The words struck deep. As if her mother could will it so. As if sheer force of love might protect her.
Aria bent her head, resting it against her mother's arm. She wanted to promise. Wanted to say she would never be taken, never step foot in that cursed palace. But lies pressed bitter on her tongue.
She stayed like that a while, listening to the fire crackle, listening to her mother's breath.
Until a knock at the door pulled her upright.
──── ୨୧ ────
It was Mira, the baker's wife, carrying her small son on her hip. The boy's face was flushed, his breaths ragged.
"Aria," Mira begged, her voice breaking. "He's burning up. Please—"
Aria ushered her in quickly, guiding her to the bed by the window. She pressed her palm to the boy's forehead. Heat radiated against her skin. Too hot.
"How long has he been like this?"
"Since morning. The fever climbed so fast. The herbs I had did nothing."
Aria glanced at the shelves, already knowing what she would find: empty jars, wilted sprigs. Supplies that had dwindled as the sickness spread and the land refused to grow more.
She swallowed hard. "I'll make a poultice. It might ease him."
Mira's eyes glistened with tears.
Aria set to work, crushing what herbs remained, mixing them with water warmed over the fire. As she worked, she forced her hands steady. She couldn't give in to fear now—not with a life depending on her.
When she laid the cloth against the boy's skin, he whimpered but stilled, his breath easing a fraction. Relief flickered across Mira's face.
"You're a blessing, Aria," she whispered.
Aria managed a smile, though it felt thin. She wasn't a blessing. She was only doing what little she could in a world unraveling at the edges.
And if the council chose her… who would tend to children like this? Who would keep her mother alive?
The thought made her chest ache.
──── ୨୧ ────
By the time Mira left, the square outside had grown quieter. People had gone home to shutter their doors, as though walls could keep the curse at bay.
Aria stood at the window, watching smoke curl into the twilight sky.
The Shadow Prince. The words were heavy, sour. A monster from bedtime stories, now spoken as fact by the council. A figure of nightmare who demanded brides in exchange for peace.
And somewhere in the forest, beyond the line of trees where the last light of day faded, she thought she saw something shift. A ripple in the darkness, too large for a fox, too fluid for a deer.
Her breath caught.
Nothing. Only shadows.
But the air felt colder.
──── ୨୧ ────
"Aria," Tomas said softly, appearing at her side. He'd been silent since they returned. His eyes searched hers, too wise for his years. "What if it is you?"
The question landed like a stone in her chest.
She didn't answer. Couldn't.
Instead, she drew him close, wrapping her arm around his shoulders as the last of the daylight died.
The bells did not ring again that evening, but the silence they left behind was worse.
Twilight thickened over the village, shadows stretching long across the dirt paths. Windows shuttered one by one, lanterns flickering to life behind thin panes of glass. The square, so loud with shouting only hours before, now lay abandoned—like a mouth suddenly closed against a scream.
Aria lit her own lantern and set it on the table. The flame wavered, thin and uncertain, as if it too feared the dark pressing against the walls.
Her mother had dozed into shallow sleep by the hearth, her breath uneven. Tomas sat cross-legged near the door, whittling at a piece of wood with his small knife, though his hands shook too much to shape anything.
Aria tried to busy herself grinding herbs that no longer had much potency. The pestle scraped against the bowl, a sound that grated more than soothed. She paused, staring down at the powder, and whispered under her breath, "What use is a healer with no healing left?"
Tomas's knife slipped, nicking his thumb. He hissed and dropped the wood.
Aria was at his side in an instant. "Hold still." She pressed a cloth to the tiny cut, though it hardly bled at all. Still, her chest tightened at the sight of red.
He looked up at her, eyes wide and too bright in the lantern light. "Do you think he's real?"
She froze. "Who?"
"The Shadow Prince," Tomas whispered, as though the name itself might summon him. "Some say he's only a story. But… the way Elder Marrek spoke…"
Aria forced her voice calm. "Stories have power, Tomas. They grow bigger every time they're told. But power doesn't make them true."
"Then how do you explain the crops?" His words tumbled out, desperate, searching. "And the woods—no birds anymore, no deer. Even the dogs won't go near the trees at night."
She had no answer.
Instead, she stroked his hair back from his brow, trying to anchor him. Trying to anchor herself.
──── ୨୧ ────
Later, after Tomas had curled on his pallet near the hearth, Aria slipped outside.
The night air was cool, scented with damp earth and woodsmoke. She pulled her shawl tight and walked toward the well in the center of the square. Her steps echoed far too loud in the emptiness.
The moon had risen, pale and thin, casting a silver glow over the rooftops. The forest loomed at the village's edge, its trees swaying like dark sentinels. Aria couldn't look at it too long without feeling as though it looked back.
At the well, she lowered the bucket, the rope creaking. The water's surface shimmered with moonlight. For a moment, she saw her own reflection, pale and uncertain. Then—
A ripple.
The face in the water blurred, stretched, darkened. Eyes glowed faintly in the depths, gold as embers.
Aria stumbled back, the rope slipping from her hands. The bucket dropped into the well with a hollow splash.
She stood frozen, heart pounding so loud she thought it might wake the whole village. But when she dared to peer again, the water was calm. Only her own face stared back, wide-eyed and frightened.
A trick of the light, she told herself. Shadows. Nothing more.
And yet, her hands wouldn't stop shaking as she hurried back home.
──── ୨୧ ────
By the time she returned, voices murmured in the distance. She paused, straining to listen. They came from Elder Marrek's house at the far end of the square.
A council meeting. Another one.
She lingered in the dark, close enough to hear the rise and fall of heated words though not the exact shape of them. Still, a few carried clear:
"…before the new moon—"
"…lottery must be fair—"
"…if we fail him, the whole valley will suffer."
Her stomach sank. A lottery. That was how they would choose. Not by volunteering, not by merit, not by age. By chance.
Any girl between sixteen and twenty-one.
Her age.
Aria pressed her fist against her mouth to keep from making a sound. The world seemed suddenly small, no bigger than the space between the council house and her door. A trap closing.
──── ୨୧ ────
When she slipped back inside, her mother was awake. She sat upright in the chair, eyes sharp even through her weariness.
"You heard," she said flatly.
Aria swallowed. "Only pieces."
"They'll draw lots."
It wasn't a question.
Aria sank to her knees beside the chair, burying her face in her mother's lap like she had when she was a child afraid of thunderstorms. "What if—"
Her mother's hand stroked her hair, steady despite the tremor in her fingers. "Then I will curse every god who allows it," she whispered. "And I will tear down the forest myself before I let him take you."
Aria's throat burned. She clutched her mother's skirt, clinging to the fierceness in her voice. But even as she tried to believe it, the shadows near the window thickened, stretching long across the floor.
And if she listened closely, beneath the crackle of the fire and the quiet breathing of her brother, she swore she heard something else.
A voice, low and velvet, curling like smoke.
"Aria…"
Her name. Spoken from the dark.
She snapped her head up, but the window showed only her own lantern's glow.
Still, the sound lingered, wrapping around her like a promise and a warning all at once.
──── ୨୧ ────
The next day dawned gray, as though the sky itself wanted no part in what was to come.
The village stirred reluctantly, doors creaking open, smoke rising in thin streams from chimneys. No one lingered in the square, not like on market days when laughter and bargaining filled the air. Today, every face was grim, every step heavy.
Aria felt it pressing on her chest even before she rose from her straw pallet. A weight that made it hard to breathe.
Her mother sat by the hearth, already awake though her eyes were shadowed by sleeplessness. Tomas picked at a crust of bread without appetite.
"You don't have to go," her mother said, breaking the silence.
Aria glanced up sharply. "Every girl must. You know that."
"They cannot force you."
Aria almost laughed—sharp, humorless. "They can. You've seen them drag girls before."
Her mother's mouth tightened, but she said nothing more.
Aria braided her hair with quick, rough movements, her fingers clumsy. The act felt surreal, as if she were dressing for her own funeral. She tied it with a strip of cloth, then slipped her shawl over her shoulders.
Her mother caught her hand before she could leave. "Listen to me. Do not look afraid. Do you hear me? Men like Marrek—monsters like him—prey on fear. Don't give them yours."
Aria nodded, though her pulse thundered in her throat.
──── ୨୧ ────
The square filled slowly, the crowd gathering like a storm cloud.
The council stood at the front, their faces carved from stone. Elder Marrek held the wooden box in which the lots had been placed. Beside him, Councilwoman Elda clutched her staff, lips pressed tight as if she, too, despised what they were about to do.
The girls stood together in a line, drawn from every corner of the village. Aria recognized each one: Mira's cousin Liane, only sixteen and pale with terror; Veya, the blacksmith's daughter, her jaw clenched in defiance; Salenne, a farmer's daughter who twisted her hands until her knuckles blanched.
Aria took her place among them, her knees threatening to buckle. The murmurs of the crowd pressed like waves against her ears.
"They should send one of the council's own daughters—"
"Don't speak such blasphemy—"
"Better one than all of us—"
The words tangled, harsh and desperate.
Elder Marrek raised his hand, and silence crashed down.
"You know why we gather," he said, his voice deep and steady. "The Shadow Prince demands his bride before the moon wanes. The curse spreads further each day. If we deny him, we all perish."
He opened the box. Inside lay slips of parchment, each bearing a name.
Aria's stomach twisted.
The councilwoman stepped forward, her wrinkled hand reaching into the box. The moment stretched unbearably, the crowd holding its breath.
Her fingers closed around a slip. She drew it out slowly, unfolding it with care.
The square seemed to shrink, the air turning to glass.
She read the name aloud.
"Aria of the healer's house."
──── ୨୧ ────
For a heartbeat, nothing moved.
Then a cry split the air. Tomas's voice, raw with horror. "No! Not Aria!"
Aria's legs went weak. The ground seemed to sway beneath her. She heard her mother's ragged sob, felt eyes turn toward her, hundreds of them, hot and pitying and relieved that it wasn't their name.
Her heart beat so hard it hurt, like it was trying to escape her chest.
Elder Marrek's voice cut through the din. "It is decided. By chance, by fate, by the will of the old ways. Aria will be given."
"No!" Her mother shoved forward through the crowd, her frail body trembling with fury. "She will not go! Take me instead!"
Marrek's gaze slid over her with the indifference of a butcher over a fly. "The Shadow Prince does not take what is not offered. The lot has been cast."
He turned back to the crowd, dismissing her anguish as though it meant nothing.
The villagers shifted uneasily. Some averted their eyes. Others whispered prayers under their breath.
Aria stood frozen, her breath shallow, her vision blurring at the edges. The world tilted, and for a terrible moment she thought she might collapse.
But then Tomas's hand found hers, small and shaking. His eyes were red, his face streaked with tears.
And she remembered her mother's words: Do not look afraid.
So she straightened her back. Lifted her chin. Even as her heart thundered, even as her hands trembled, she stood tall.
The crowd's murmur shifted, softening. A ripple of awe, perhaps, or guilt.
Inside, Aria was breaking. But she would not let them see.
──── ୨୧ ────
That night, the village prepared the offering.
Girls chosen in the past had been dressed in white, adorned with flowers, sent into the forest at dusk. Some never looked back. Some screamed until the trees swallowed their voices.
None ever returned.
Aria sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her bare hands. She could not imagine herself draped in white like some willing bride. She could not imagine walking into the woods knowing a monster waited.
Her mother knelt before her, holding her face in trembling hands. "I will find a way," she whispered fiercely. "I will beg the gods, curse the sky, strike down Marrek himself if I must. I will not lose you."
Aria wanted to believe her. But deep down, she knew the truth. The wheels of fate had already turned. The trap had closed.
Tomas burst into the room then, wild-eyed. "I'll go instead! They won't know—it could be me in your place—"
Aria seized his shoulders. "No. Don't even think it."
"But—"
She pulled him against her, holding him tight. "If you love me, you'll stay. You'll protect Mama. You'll live."
His sobs soaked her shoulder. She held him until his body stilled, though his heart still pounded like a trapped bird.
When he finally fell asleep curled beside their mother, Aria sat awake in the dark, staring at the flickering shadows on the wall.
And once again, she heard it.
Her name, whispered from somewhere beyond the window.
"Aria…"
A voice like velvet, like a promise wrapped in poison.
The shadows stretched long across the floor, reaching for her.
She pressed her hands to her ears, but the sound was already inside her, coiling around her soul.