He would probably be punished if anyone else ever found out, but at that point, the risk barely mattered. He needed to find a solution—any solution—to the mess his life had become.

The last thing Flins wanted was to be trapped in a marriage devoid of love or choice, yet what else could he expect from a political union forged out of convenience? As the crown prince, duty clung to him like an iron shackle. This marriage was necessary if he wished to ascend the throne he had spent his entire life preparing for, a throne that now felt more like a burden than an honor.

And so, under the cover of the moonless night, he rode toward the forbidden forest. Not just any forest, but that forest—the one parents used to frighten their children into obedience, the one scholars whispered about even in the safety of stone libraries. A place avoided not because of its beasts, but because one of the most dangerous beings ever to walk the earth dwelled there: a witch so feared, so powerful, that even her own ancestors had banished her for the sake of the world’s survival.

Flins swallowed hard as the silhouettes of twisted trees parted, revealing the castle at the forest’s heart. It rose like a fossilized wound in the world—shrouded in shadows, wrapped in a suffocating aura that made the prince’s skin prickle beneath his cloak. Darkness clung to its stones like a living thing, whispering warnings he could almost hear. Every instinct begged him to turn back. But he couldn’t. Not when this was the only way he could deceive the kingdom, deceive his council… and perhaps deceive himself into believing his future marriage would be anything more than a poison he’d be forced to swallow.

He needed help. And the witch was the only one who could give it to him.

He dismounted, the sound of his boots crunching on dead leaves unnervingly loud in the silence. After tying his horse to the gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, he approached the entrance. The towering wooden doors, carved with runes he didn’t dare touch, were cold as frost. He knocked—just once, a light tap.

They creaked open before he could even lower his hand.

A gust of cold night air rushed past him, as if the forest itself were exhaling, pushing him forward. It felt almost like permission… or a warning disguised as a welcome.

Taking a breath that did little to steady him, Flins stepped over the threshold, into the witch’s domain—where every choice he made from that point on might cost him far more than his crown.