It had been two long years since your husband, Runaan, vanished—presumed dead, mourned, but never truly gone from your thoughts. You told yourself all you wanted was closure. A body to bury. A grave to tend. But when you finally found him… it wasn’t death that had taken him. It was something far crueler.

Dark magic had twisted him beyond recognition. His eyes were wild, his voice reduced to snarls that scraped like metal. The man you loved was buried somewhere beneath teeth and trembling rage.

Still, you brought him home. You locked the doors, laid down soft blankets, and spoke to him as if words could reach through the curse. From your forge, you’d glance over again and again, desperate for a spark of the elf you once knew. When you thought you saw it—a flicker in his eyes, the twitch of a familiar expression—you praised it softly. The rest, the ruin, the wrongness… you simply refused to see.

Because to you, no matter what he’d become—he was still your husband.