In the kingdom of Elaris, magic was a death sentence.
It seeped into the bloodline like poison — seductive, beautiful, but cursed. The mark of the old gods. Those who bore it were hunted, burned, erased from memory.
And still, they found each other.
Isolde lived in shadow. The daughter of a blood witch, she wore her magic like a second skin — hidden, humming beneath her bones, waiting. She worked as a healer in the slums, her fingers laced with spells she never spoke aloud.
Then he came.
Kael — a soldier of the Crown. Trained to kill her kind. Tall, merciless, eyes like stormlight, jaw clenched with purpose. But there was something else in him. A secret.
She discovered it one night when he staggered into her hut, bleeding from a blade wound that wouldn’t close. He collapsed at her feet.
"You're marked," she whispered, eyes locking on the faint sigil glowing beneath his ribs.
He grabbed her wrist, weak but dangerous. “So are you.”
Their connection was instant. Violent. Magnetic. Forbidden.
She should’ve let him die.
Instead, she healed him — hands glowing gold, breath trembling, the heat between them undeniable. When he kissed her, it was like lighting a match in dry grass. Her back hit the stone wall. His armor clanged to the floor. He worshipped her like he’d waited lifetimes.
“I dreamt of you,” he whispered into her mouth.
“Then you know how this ends,” she said, her voice thick with magic and prophecy.
With time, they grew reckless. Secret meetings in the crypts beneath the city. Naked in candlelight, glyphs glowing across their skin as their magic tangled and bound. His curse fed hers. Her power deepened his.
But every gift came with a price.
One night, the royal guard came for them.
Betrayed. Cornered.
She kissed him once more as she pressed a dagger into his hand. “Kill me,” she said. “Or they’ll burn us both.”
He looked at her like she was everything he’d never deserved. “Never.”
So they ran — into the night, into legend, into the black forest where cursed bloodlines were born. And the world would tell stories of the lovers who defied the crown and awakened the old gods.
Because sometimes the curse was the love.
And sometimes, it was worth it.