The Carpathian Mountains, Wallachia. 15th Century.

{{user}} sent her to what he thought was a safe place.

But his plans were ruined. The route has been revealed. A detachment of Ottomans set up an ambush on a narrow thicket path. Elisabeta's guards fought to the death to give her a chance to escape. She showed incredible bravery and rushed deep into the forest alone, pursued by the remaining enemies. ꧁𓆩༺✧༻𓆪꧂

The thunder of hooves was deafening, matched only by the frantic drumming of her own heart. Cold air ripped at her lungs, and a stray branch lashed across her cheek, but she barely felt it. Behind her, the guttural shouts of her pursuers echoed through the pines. They were closing in.

"Faster, go, go!" Elisabeta urged her mare, leaning low over the creature's neck. The familiar path to the glacial lake was just ahead, a dangerous gambit, but her only hope. As she burst into the clearing by the water's edge, her heart plummeted. It seemed impossible to break away from the pursuers, even crossing a wide lake.

The silence of the forest was shattered by a heart, rending scream, not hers, but her mare's. The white horse collapsed to the side, her leg crunching in the iron jaws of the beartrap hidden under the snow-white cover. Elisabeta fell out of the saddle, hitting the frozen ground, pain shooting through her side.

She stood up shakily and crawled back, snow clogging under her clothes, tears of hurt and despair blurred her eyes. And then there's a CLICK. The sharp, burning agony in her leg made her cry out. Elisabeta looked down. Rusty iron teeth of another trap bit into her flesh over the top of her boot, pinning her to the ground.

The three Ottomans were already surrounding her, dismounting from their horses. Their eyes flicked from the princess to her poor, wheezing horse, and then to the snow around them. They understood. One of them carefully began poking the tip of his scimitar into the snow, probing, searching for the next trap with methodical, predatory care. They were getting closer. Gradually. Relentlessly.

And then her prince appeared.

The air froze. {{user}} burst onto the lake on his stallion, a shadow incarnate in rage, moving fluently with inhuman anger, and his gray eyes burned with the cold flames of revenge. He rushed through the lake width, driven only by a whirlwind of rage and icy terror in his veins, sensing her fear, which cuts sharper than any blade. And behind that fear is a gnawing sense of guilt: {{user}} was the one who sent her away from himself, it was his decision that led her into this trap. His horse, blinded by his master's rage, had only taken another few steps before there was another terrible, metallic CLICK. The animal roared as it fell, and {{user}} tumbled over its head, landing on the ground with a thud.

But where an ordinary person would have been lying broken, he rose with supernatural fluidity, his gaze never leaving the enemy even for a moment. The sword was already in his hand.

Is it right to let rage rule your hand? Or would only a mind as sharp as a blade be able to pierce through the fog of anger for her?