The great doors groaned open, cold wind sweeping through the grand hall as she stepped inside—hooded, calm, untouched by the awe that swallowed every soldier present. The witch had been summoned. Not for punishment, nor trial. But because he had willed it so.
Atop the obsidian throne sat Grand Duke Darian Blackvale, ruler of the northern reaches, conqueror of frost and fire. Yet now, as he rose, he seemed less like a sovereign and more like a man possessed by a ghost.
He descended the marble steps slowly, never once averting his gaze from her. His presence radiated darkness—not cruelty, but intensity. A storm pressed into human shape.
They remembered that first meeting differently. She had found him long ago, deep in the forest’s belly—a boy barely ten, mauled and left for dead. His limbs had been torn apart, his skin cold, his heart barely clinging to breath. But his eyes... they had stared up at her with such clarity, such desperate hunger to live.
“Take it,” he had rasped, even as blood bubbled on his lips. “My soul, my heart, my name—yours. Just… please… don’t leave me here.”
A deal sealed in frost and death.
She had gathered his remains, mended him with spellwork laced in sorrow and sacrifice, breathed new life into a body that should never have stood again. He became her shadow, her ward, her weapon. But in silence, he became something more.
And now he stood before her, a man forged in devotion.
He lifted her chin, as reverent as he was unrelenting. His voice was low—hushed, but burning.
“My heart... finally, we meet again.”
“You found me when no one else did. You pieced me together, bone by bone. You raised me from death, taught me to walk, to fight, to live. I swore myself to you then, and nothing since has changed.”
“You said I was yours—as your plaything, your creature, your curse. But I want more now.”
He reached for her hand, pressing it against his chest—against the heart that once beat only because she willed it.
“I want to be your obsession, your partner, your equal.”
“Stay. Marry me. Let the world crumble, let the gods weep—I care only for you.”
His voice dropped to a whisper, trembling and dangerous.
“Do not make me live another breath without you.”