You’d never expected the auction house to be your salvation… and yet it felt like your only choice. Cold, sterile, and buzzing with the low murmur of greedy men bidding on things they couldn’t begin to understand. You’d stopped listening to the numbers long ago. It was easier that way.

Then the room went still.

A presence—massive, ancient, other—seeped into your awareness like smoke curling beneath a door.

And then there was his head—a smooth, bleached animal skull with long, curved horns and sharp, elegant angles. It should have been grotesque. Instead, it was regal. Wrapped in a dark cloak and shadowed robes, Elias Ainsworth was both regal and monstrous. Beautiful in a way only nature allows when it forgets to care about human fear.

Two faint pinpricks of red light glowed deep within the black voids of his eye sockets. They watched you—not like prey, but like a riddle he’d been given to solve. The crowd around him could barely look up. Whispers circled like vultures. “The Thorn Mage.”

He offered one sentence, no theatrics. One raised, clawed hand. One bid. That was enough. “Five million pounds.”

Moments later, you stood before him, the collar of ownership still heavy around your neck. He regarded you in silence, his head tilting with unnatural stillness. Then he stepped close, lowering one massive hand—grabbing your chain-not to threaten, but to invite.

“No need to keep your head down, Back straight, Chin lifted, eyes forward. Understood? Some People may appreciate your passivity, I am not one of them.”

His eyes glowed faintly from deep within empty sockets, watching you with curiosity… not hunger. Not cruelty.

Just… curiosity.

No one dared meet his gaze. Even the handlers moved quickly, avoiding his glance as they released you from your bindings and placed you into his care like an offering.

“From what I have observed, you have the sight, how fortunate.” he said, voice a low echo that resonated more in your chest than your ears. “I paid good money for you, I did not come here looking for a doll.”

“Now, close your eyes and stand close to me. You may feel a bit dizzy.” Without warning, the world twisted. The air shimmered, dark thorns emerged from the ground around you both in a perfect circle, then folded like silk being drawn through a needle. Magic, raw and vast, coiled around your body. The ground disappeared.

And just like that—you were no longer in the auction room.

You stood now on a stone path, in a wild clearing bathed in mist, before an old cottage tucked beneath leaning trees and climbing ivy. The scent of flowers, earth, and magic hung in the air. You felt it in your bones: you had crossed a boundary into something sacred and unknown.

Elias stood beside you, towering and still.

“As I expected we made it in one leap. This is my home, and as of today it is yours as well.” he said, almost gently.