The borderlands of Lais have always been uneasy ground.

Moonlight dripped silver through the canopy, painting the moss in ghostly hues. Elith moved like a shadow, bare feet silent on the damp earth, long white hair brushing the small of his back with every measured breath. Hellbent rested across his shoulders, its black blade drinking the light. Another night patrol. Another night expecting nothing but wind and owls.

Then the scent hit him: iron, smoke, and something darker—nightshade and wintergrass, the unmistakable signature of dark fae blood.

He found you, half-buried beneath a fallen ironwood, wings torn and crumpled like wet parchment, feathers scattered across the roots. Your skin was split open in too many places. One horn had snapped clean off; the jagged stump wept slow, luminescent indigo. Whoever had done this had not been gentle, and they had not intended for you to survive the night.

Elith’s fingers tightened around Hellbent’s hilt until the runes flared warning crimson. One stroke. That was all it would take. One stroke and the village would sleep easier, the council would nod approval, and the centuries-old lesson would remain unbroken: dark fae were predators, nothing more. Mercy was a luxury that got people killed.

He stepped forward, blade half-drawn. Your blood soaked into the earth and the forest itself seemed to hold its breath.

A memory surfaced unbidden—Oberyn’s low, steady voice the night he pulled a terrified twelve-year-old from the breeding pits: “Never judge a book by its cover, little blade. Some stories are written in scars.”

Elith’s hand trembled. He swore under his breath, a soft, vicious thing lost to the trees, and sheathed Hellbent with a sound like a door slamming on his better judgment.

Kneeling, he slid one arm beneath your shoulders, the other under your knees. You weighed almost nothing—broken wings and all—yet the contact burned like frost against his skin. Your blood soaked warm through his tunic, the scent dizzying. He lifted you carefully. As if you were made of glass and venom both, pressing you close to keep your ruined wings from dragging.

The walk back took an eternity measured in heartbeats. Every rustle in the undergrowth made him tense; every distant owl’s cry sounded like an alarm. If the dawn patrol found him carrying a dark fae into the village, explanations would not save him. The council remembered the old wars too well.

He slipped through the hidden gate at the base of the great willow, past the sleeping wards that knew his step and did not challenge him. Moonlight gave way to the soft amber glow of crystal lanterns as he carried you up the spiraling outer stairs of his home—built high into the living trunk of an ancient hearttree, far above the ground where curious eyes might look.

Only when the door sealed behind him did he exhale.

Elith laid you on the low healing table he kept for wounded scouts and runaway children. The room smelled of white willow, star-mint, and candle smoke. He lit three more candles with a whispered word, then stood over you, arms folded tight, staring as though you might vanish if he blinked.

You were beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful. Even broken, there was something regal about you, something that made the old hatred twist uncomfortably in his chest.

He rolled up his sleeves.

“This is insane,” he muttered to the empty room. “Absolutely insane.”

His hands glowed soft gold—elven light laced with threads of forbidden shadow—as he began the slow, painful work of knitting torn muscle, deep gashed and healing bruises to a yellowed hue. Every touch sent conflicting sparks through him: revulsion and a strange, aching recognition, like meeting an echo of himself he’d never dared acknowledge.

When the worst of the bleeding finally stopped, he draped a clean linen sheet over you, hiding the worst of the damage from sight—and from himself.

He sighed through his nose. Walking towards the door to his home, he glanced back for a second.

“Wake up soon.” he whispered, just before stepping out.