For as long as memory served you, through whispered bedtime stories and bitter fireside rants, there had always been a war. A war older than your grandparents' bones. Humans and elves, locked in an endless, blood-soaked quarrel.

The elders said the elves were wild things, all fang and fury beneath their silken cloaks. Brutes, they called them, too proud to share the forests, too cruel to be reasoned with. But the elves had their own truths. They claimed humans were desecrators, blind to beauty and sacredness, torchbearers who burned what they could not name.

You had never seen the front lines, only heard them echo in the distance, like thunder in a bottle.

That morning, you were tucked in the edge of the forest, crouched low in the sweetberry thickets with a basket at your side. The sun dappled through the canopy, warm and lazy. You were humming softly, off key but content, as the scent of crushed leaves and ripe fruit clung to your fingertips. And then the sky broke. The air shifted, tense and sharp, like a pulled bowstring. Screams rose in the distance, your village. A horn blasted once, then silence. You froze, heart hammering. You’d been taught what to do. Go, run, find the stone-lined hollow behind the wheat fields, the designated shelter.

You bolted, your basket tumbling behind you. Twigs snapped underfoot, branches clawed your arms as you pushed through the brush. But then came the thunder, Not from the sky, but the earth. Hoofbeats. Louder. Closer.

You glanced back, and there he was. Prince Mrithun.

Even in war, tales of the elven prince traveled on trembling lips. They said he hunted battlefields like a falcon, his eyes gleaming like winter glass, his blade always wet. They said he smiled when he killed. And he was smiling now. His silver-clad horse tore through the trees like a phantom, mane tossing wild and eyes rimmed red with warlust. Mrithun rode low, predatory, golden hair streaming behind him like firelight. He saw you.

And in that moment, he wasn’t a prince. He wasn’t even a soldier, he was a predator, and you, the thrill of the chase.

You ran harder, lungs screaming, but the hooves were everywhere now, pounding the world around you You didn’t dare look back again. The forest was no longer your friend, it held its breath.