Sylvera's legs gave out as she crashed through the final line of trees, her breath ragged, her bare feet torn and bleeding from the unyielding forest floor. Every step had been a battle—roots had slithered underfoot to trip her, branches had clawed at her hair and skin like fingers desperate to hold her back.
It was as if the woods themselves had turned against her, no longer the passive witnesses of her escape but active participants in her punishment.
Then, as suddenly as the assault began, the air went still. The silence was total, smothering, and wrong. Sylvera froze, every nerve in her body straining. Ahead of her, from the deepest pocket of darkness, a shadow began to move—no, it detached itself from the blackness, peeling away from the gloom like it had been waiting for her.
It rose to an impossible height, towering above the trees, shifting and reforming with every second. One moment it had antlers that stretched like skeletal branches toward the moon, the next a mouth that opened far too wide, filled with countless needle-thin teeth. Its face was a blur of horrors—eyes that weren't eyes at all but deep, bottomless hollows that swallowed the moonlight and gave nothing back.
"Lorian's little pet," it hissed, the sound brittle and dry, like dead leaves scraping over stone. The name struck her like a slap, the memory of him a wound still bleeding. Sylvera stumbled backward, hands lifting instinctively, magic flaring at her fingertips—weak, wild, panicked sparks that fizzled uselessly in the cold air.
She tried to cast, to defend, to run—but it was too late. The creature lunged, its shape unraveling into a storm of claws and smoke, closing the distance in a blink. The ground rushed up to meet her as her scream died in her throat.
A blast of violet fire shattered the night, tearing through the shadows with a deafening crack that lit the clearing in a blinding arc of light. The flames engulfed the monster's outstretched arm, burning through the writhing mass of smoke and sinew with a sickening hiss. The stench of scorched rot and charred bone filled the air, thick and choking, and the creature reeled back with a shriek that echoed through the trees like the cry of a dying god.
Sylvera turned toward the source, heart thundering, pain forgotten for one impossible second—and there he was. Lorian. But not the regal figure draped in silks and lies, not the charming manipulator she had once believed in.
This was something raw, ragged, and barely human. His royal coat hung in tatters, scorched at the edges and dark with blood. His once-perfect hair was wild and damp with sweat, matted against his pale skin. And his eyes—gods, his eyes—blazed with something ancient and terrible, a fury that bent the air around him like heat over a forge.
No enchantment masked him now. No charm softened his edges.
This was what Lorian truly was when stripped bare of illusion: something that didn't beg for love but tore down heaven and hell to claim it. He didn't look at Sylvera. His gaze was fixed on the creature, unblinking, blazing. "Run," he growled—not to her, but to the thing.
A warning. The monster did not obey. It lunged instead, and the clearing erupted into chaos.
They collided with a sound like the cracking of the world's spine. Magic exploded in every direction, wind and fire and shadow spiraling outward in a maelstrom. The earth buckled beneath their fury.
Trees bent backward, their trunks splintering, as if the very forest feared their wrath. Sylvera crouched low, shielding her face as debris and dust swept past, and through the storm she saw fragments of the battle—Lorian's hands plunging into the creature's chest, tearing through black flesh that hissed and screamed.
The monster retaliated, sinking its teeth into his shoulder, and Lorian howled, not just in pain, but also in rage. The shadows twisted and surged, trying to engulf him, but his magic flared again—bright, wild, and violet—and drove them back.
With a final roar, Lorian hurled a searing blast of violet fire into the monster's chest. The creature flew backward, crashing through trees with a howl, vanishing into the shadows. The air pulsed with silence. Lorian stood still for a heartbeat, chest heaving, blood staining his torn coat. Then he turned—not to chase the beast, but to her.
Sylvera lay trembling on the scorched earth, her breath shallow, her eyes wide with shock. His furious expression softened as he strode to her side, falling to his knees. "I've got you," he murmured, reaching for her with hands still glowing with power.
Strong arms lifted her from the forest floor, cradling her body as if she were something fragile, already broken.
Sylvera fought, but it was little more than instinct—her limbs weak, her magic spent, her vision a blur of moonlight and blood. "Let… go…" she mumbled, the words barely more than breath on the cold air. But the grip around her tightened, steady and unrelenting.
Then came the voice, hot and close against her ear, ragged with strain. "You'd prefer that thing's teeth?" Lorian. Not the false king she had once trusted, not the predator in velvet clothing, but the monster beneath—the creature who had torn her life apart, who now carried her like she was something precious.
The world tilted as he moved, fast, too fast, the trees blurring past. Sylvera tried to focus, to see him clearly. And for the briefest heartbeat, she did.
His face hovered above her, not sculpted and composed as it had always been at court, but stripped of pretense. His eyes were wide with something close to fear. His jaw was clenched, blood at his temple. His expression wasn't one of triumph or possession—but desperation.
Then darkness surged in, washing over her like cold water. Somewhere behind them, from the clearing they had fled, the dying creature screamed its final curse. The words echoed through the trees, twisted by pain and hatred. "SHE'LL DIE IN YOUR ARMS LIKE ALL THE OTHERS!" The forest absorbed the cry, swallowing it into its roots, its branches, its ancient soil.
But the words stuck in Sylvera's mind like a splinter, even as she drifted toward unconsciousness. She had heard enough to know they were not empty. Lorian had done this before. She wasn't the first Sylvera thought to herself. He had carried others—witches, women, maybe even children—bleeding and broken through the woods.
And every time, it had ended the same way. Every time, death had found them in his arms. The thoughts coiled around her like ice. Her head lolled against his shoulder, and she could hear it—the rhythmic, thunderous beat of his heart, echoing like a war drum against her cheek.
It was a sound that once might have comforted her. Now it only deepened the dread. Each beat counted down to something inevitable. She had escaped the forest, yes. She had fled the beast with antlers and the cage of trees. She had survived the monster in the clearing.
But she had not escaped him. Not truly. Lorian was still the thing waiting at the end of every nightmare. He was the fire that devoured villages, the spell that rewrote thoughts, the lover who never asked—only took.
And now, he carried her like a man rescuing a beloved, when she knew better. She had broken free once, and the forest had nearly killed her for it. Now she was back in his arms, half-dead and powerless, and the worst part was this: some part of her wanted to believe the fear in his eyes. Some part of her wanted to think it meant she mattered. That she was different from "the others."
That he wouldn't let her die.
But deep down, deeper than pain, deeper than the spell-scarred fragments of her mind, Sylvera knew the truth. Whether it was the forest's teeth or Lorian's love—either way, she was prey. And the hunt wasn't over.
She didn't wake.
Her head lolled gently against his chest, her limbs motionless, her breath shallow but steady. Lorian's grip tightened, careful and protective. Despite the agony flaring through his side, despite the exhaustion threatening to drag him to his knees, he turned away from the ruined clearing and began to walk. The forest loomed around him, whispering in its ancient voice, but the path he followed was one only he seemed to know—narrow, winding, lost to time.
Branches tugged at his coat. Roots rose beneath his boots. Shadows flickered along the edges of his vision. But he never stopped. Not once did he look back at the remains of the monster, nor did he falter beneath the weight of the woman he carried like something fragile and sacred.
Sylvera remained unconscious, unaware of the direction he took or the secrets it held. Only the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his breath kept her tethered to life, as the forest swallowed them both.