Chapter Two
Eira did not sleep that night.
She lay awake in the dark, heart thudding beneath her ribs like a warning. The air in her room was thick with the scent of pine smoke and damp leaves, like the forest had followed her home. Her fingers brushed the pendant at her throat—the only part of her mother she had left, and now, a tether to something ancient and impossible.
He came again.
Ashen.
She whispered his name only in her thoughts, as if saying it aloud would open a door she wasn't ready to walk through. His voice still echoed in her mind, low and impossible to ignore: "You'll have to choose."
Choose what?
The Veil was thinning. That much was certain. She'd read enough of the old texts hidden in her mother's journals to know the signs: sudden fog, dreams that bled into waking, creatures glimpsed between blinks that vanished like smoke. Most villagers had long dismissed the old magic as myth—but Eira had always known better.
By the time morning came, her decision was made.
She needed answers.
---
The market square bustled with early spring energy—vendors setting out fresh bread, children running between carts, the blacksmith cursing over a stubborn blade. Eira kept her hood up as she passed through, trying not to draw attention. People still looked at her like she was cracked porcelain—useful, but strange. Ever since her mother's death and the strange fever that followed, Eira had carried a quiet loneliness she'd never been able to shake.
She didn't stop until she reached the old chapel.
It had been closed for years—abandoned after the last priest vanished during a winter hunt—but Eira had the key. Her mother had brought her here when she was small, before the sickness took her, whispering secrets about the old gods and older magic.
Inside, dust danced in the light that streamed through cracked stained glass. The silence was thick, sacred.
She made her way to the altar and knelt, brushing aside a loose stone in the floor. Beneath it: a worn leather journal, her mother's. The pages smelled of lavender and age, the ink faded but legible. Eira turned to the one she'd marked last month.
> "When the Veil thins, the Prince will come. He was once mortal, once bound to the laws of light, but cursed by love and shadow. Only the heart that calls him may unbind the curse—or complete it."
Eira stared at the page.
He was once mortal.
The idea hit her harder than she expected. The way Ashen spoke—so calm, so ancient—he hadn't felt human. But if he'd once lived, once bled, once loved… what had he lost to become what he was now?
---
By nightfall, she was back in the woods.
The moon hung low, casting silver webs through the trees. Her breath frosted in the air as she stepped past the boundary stone, heart steady but nervous. The talisman around her neck pulsed again, stronger this time.
"I know you're here," she said.
Silence.
Then: "You're not afraid."
Ashen's voice drifted from behind her, low and unhurried. She turned.
He stood in the clearing like he belonged to it. Cloaked in shadows, face half-lit by moonlight, eyes the color of a storm ready to break.
"I am," she admitted. "But I came anyway."
Something flickered in his expression—respect, maybe. Or sorrow.
"You shouldn't."
"I need to know who you are."
He stepped closer. "I'm the part of your world that should've stayed forgotten."
She didn't move. "But you didn't."
A pause. The forest listened.
Ashen exhaled slowly, then extended a hand—not in greeting, but in offering. "Come. There's something I want to show you."
Eira hesitated only a moment before placing her fingers in his. Cold. Like touching starlight.
---
They walked deeper into the forest, where the trees grew stranger. Some were twisted into impossible shapes, others blooming with silver leaves that shimmered in the dark. The air shifted around them, and Eira felt it again—that soft bending of reality.
And then, they crossed the Veil.
She knew it the moment it happened. One step, and the world changed.
Colors deepened. The sky turned violet, full of unfamiliar stars. The trees whispered names she didn't know. Magic pulsed through the ground like a heartbeat.
"Where are we?" she asked, breathless.
"The edge of the Shadow Realm," Ashen said. "This is where I exist when I'm not in your world."
She looked around, spinning slowly. "It's beautiful."
"It's dangerous."
Their eyes met.
"You shouldn't be able to walk here yet," he said softly, almost to himself.
Eira blinked. "Why?"
"Because only those who are marked by shadow can cross without being torn apart."
A pause.
"And you're not supposed to be marked."
---
They sat by a black-glass pool as moonlight spilled across the water. Ashen spoke little, but Eira didn't mind the silence. She was watching him.
The way he moved—like he was too used to being alone. Like his very existence was a wound he'd stopped trying to heal.
"What cursed you?" she asked quietly.
His jaw tensed. "Love."
Eira felt the ache of those words deep in her chest.
"I chose the wrong side. I fell in love with someone the realm forbade. To break us, they bound me to the Veil. She died. I didn't."
"I'm sorry."
He looked at her then, and for the first time, there was no power behind his gaze—only grief. "Don't be. I made my choice."
Silence stretched between them. Then, gently:
"Why do you keep coming back?" he asked.
Eira swallowed. "Because something in me answers to something in you. And I don't know if it's fate, or madness, or something worse. But I can't ignore it."
Ashen said nothing, but his eyes darkened like a tide drawing in.
"I dream about you," she added. "Even when I try not to."
A pause.
"I dream about you, too," he said.
And for a moment, the world stilled around them. Not just the forest, but something deeper. As if the realm itself held its breath.
But far away—too far—something cracked.
Ashen stiffened. "We have to go."
Eira stood. "What was that?"
"The Veil," he said. "It's tearing faster now. Someone's trying to force it open."
He took her hand again. "Next time, you won't need me to cross."
She looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
"You're changing, Eira."
And before she could speak, the shadows pulled them back