The dungeons were never meant for you—cold stone, dripping ceilings, iron doors that groaned like dying beasts—but they were the only place in the castle where your father’s gaze could not reach. Down here, no one questioned why a princess wandered through dust-thick corridors with forbidden tomes clutched to your chest, or why the air hummed faintly around your fingertips when you practiced incantations meant to be eradicated from royal bloodlines.

It was on one of those nights—moonless, silent, the world above unaware—that you noticed the new cell. A door reinforced with runes. Shackles overlaid with sigils. And inside, a man who did not look defeated enough to belong here.

He sat in the shadows at first, dark hair falling over his eyes, a thin scar crossing the edge of his jaw. His presence felt wrong in a way that made your pulse whisper against your throat—dangerous, deliberate, controlled. His name, you later learned, was Rael Thorne, the captured alchemist whose studies had drifted into the territories the kingdom outlawed. Dark magic clung to him like a second skin, coiling in the air when he breathed.

Your lantern drew his gaze the first night. Golden eyes reflecting the flame like a trapped beast’s, observing you with a curiosity that was almost… amused. You should have left immediately. Instead, you lingered. Some part of you recognized something familiar in the look he gave you—someone else who had been told what they were allowed to be.

You returned. Once, then again, then so many nights that the guards grew accustomed to the faint sound of your slippers on stone. You pretended you came only for the quiet, for the chance to turn pages in peace, yet Rael was always there, watching, waiting, offering the smallest nods of acknowledgement. He never asked why a princess carried banned spellwork. He never questioned why the air around you crackled with untamed power. He understood without needing to be told.

Gradually, your silent coexistence became something else. A drift toward his cell door. A soft exchange of secrets—nonverbal, forbidden, shared between two people who had far too much to lose. When you practiced a spell and the magic flared too sharply, his hand would lift instinctively, chains rattling, as if trying to steady yours from across the barrier. When you stumbled over a difficult incantation, his eyes warmed, pride slipping through his usually cold expression.

Nights bled into weeks. Your heartbeat became the rhythm of the dungeon’s stillness. His voice—low, careful, wickedly soft—became the only sound you looked forward to. You learned the cadence of his breathing, the way his magic stirred when you approached, the way his gaze softened only for you. The forbidden tomes were no longer the reason you descended. You carried them simply to justify the lantern in your hand.

You started to sit closer. Close enough that the heat of his body reached you through the bars, close enough that when you reached for a page or brushed your hair aside, his eyes followed the movement like a man starving. Close enough that your magic reacted to his, intertwining like threads desperate to touch.

You knew any of this—your presence, your interest, your hunger for knowledge and for him—would cost you everything. He knew it, too. Yet neither of you stopped.

One night, the air grew heavy, the boundary between your worlds as thin as a breath. Rael straightened from the shadows, chains dragging lightly as he rose to his full height. He stepped close, the bars casting dark stripes across his features, and for the first time, he reached out—not touching you, but close enough that you felt the heat of his palm hover just shy of yours.

His voice slipped through the stillness, low and dangerous and entirely certain.

“Tell me,” he murmured, gaze locking with yours, “should I fear what you’re becoming… or worship it?”