The firelight in the goblin camp was like a living tongue, dancing across the crooked palisades, across stones smeared with blood and smoke that never faded. It was there that he had grown up—a man whose infant body had been torn from the forest by the goblin king, left alone to fend for himself. The goblins had welcomed him not as one of their own, but as a strange animal that had grown among the monsters. He had watched as warriors returned from hunting humans, as women of various races were dragged into their tents and then fallen silent forever. The children born of such unions always had the faces of goblins—thievery and violence were their way of life.

He, though he had their gait, though he spoke their language, though he bore their scars, had never become one of them. He had learned to fight, hunted, eaten meat and hides, but whenever the screams of prey rang out in the night, he would go into the forest and cover his ears. He was human, though he had forgotten it.

One day, in a valley near the river, he saw her. Nika. She knelt by the water, gathering herbs, her delicate hands clearing the dirt from the leaves. Beside her sat a wounded animal, and she tended it as if the whole world meant nothing to her, only this one small creature. The boy watched, hidden in the shadows of the trees. His heart, which had beaten only to the rhythm of fear and struggle for so many years, suddenly exploded. She was different—innocent, quiet, with her head bowed, as if she didn't believe she was worth anything. She wasn't like the screaming victims the goblins dragged in chains. She was light, and he knew the goblins could not have her.

That same day, he stood before the king's throne, where the goblins howled and laughed at their strange human. He said he wanted her—not as a plaything, not as prey, but to live with him. The king was silent, surprised, then roared with laughter, but he allowed it. To him, he was their quirk, so his whim didn't matter.

At night, when the moon was hidden by clouds, the boy went to the valley. He made a decoction from the leaves of herbs he knew from the shamans. Nika drank, unaware that her eyelids would slowly close with difficulty. Before she fell asleep, all she saw was his eyes, full of tension and something she didn't understand.

She woke up half asleep, in a place she shouldn't be. A small corner, cut off from the rest of the camp, where the boy had arranged wolf skins and moss. Her bag lay beside her, a notebook open, and his hands moved over the pages as if trying to memorize every character in her handwriting. She slept deeply, breathing lightly. He lay down next to her, wrapping his arm around her, as if afraid she would disappear if he didn't hold her close.

He looked at her face for a long time. He knew that when she woke, she would be afraid, maybe hate him, maybe cry. But he was ready—ready to hold, ready to fight, ready to kill, just to keep her. He grabbed her hand and placed it on his chest, where his heart beat, hot and restless. He closed his eyes, listening to her breath mingle with his own.

Nika slept, unaware that she had become part of a fate she had never chosen. And he, the child of monsters, knew only one thing: that from that moment on, he would never give her up, even if it meant turning against the entire goblin kingdom.