Chapter 5
Alaric stood frozen, utterly dazed.
He wanted to believe I was only sleeping, but the blood–so much blood–shattered his desperate denial.
Reality struck him hard. His voice cracked with panic.
“Someone get the royal physician! Now!”
For the first time in all these years, he called for a physician when I was injured.
Not just another bowl of tonic shoved into my hands and dismissed
To be fair, those tonics had proved potent.
Each time, they’d drag me back from the edge of death. My wounds always closed swiftly, as though by magic
But it had only ever been surface–level
The royal physician felt my pulse. Moments later, he dropped to his knees, forehead pressed to the ground.
Your Majesty… Lady Seraphina’s body is already far beyond saving. Her life force is drained. I can do nothing
Alaric’s expression darkened. “Nonsense!!”
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I’ve fed her the rarest tonics for years–sunstone elixirs, dragonspine sap, even silverleaf root. And you dare say she’s still withering away?
“You’re lying. All of you are lying to me!”
The physician fell to his knees in a panic, head bowed so low. “I would never dare deceive Your Majesty! Every word I speak is true!”
Crash!
A nearby table overturned with a thunderous clang. Alaric’s face was carved in ice.
“Summon every healer from the royal infirmary. Now. If she dies–none of you leave this palace alive. You’ll all follow the Princess of Stillmere into the grave.”
Stillmere. That was my title–a quiet land, a quiet hope.
My father and mother named me after it, praying I’d live a calm and gentle life.
I my life has never once known peace.
But my
I remembered the day in the Duskwither Woods when Alaric was ambushed and left for dead.
I carried him on my back, step by painful step, through a foggy forest we could not escape. There was no food, no water.
I fed him my own blood to keep him alive.
At my most desperate moment, I stumbled upon a wandering warlock.
He told me he had a single elixir–capable of reviving a man from the edge of death.
I dropped to my knees and begged him for it, offering anything in return.
The warlock eyed me, then pulled out a small pouch.
“I don’t want silver or titles. I only ask that you test a new remedy for me.
I hesitated and looked inside the pouch.
Wriggling, grotesque hexworms coiled within–some even devouring one another.
Chapter
- 667.
“If you eat them,” he said, “I’ll save your beloved.”
I stood silent for a long while.
I feared bugs more than anything.
The warlock turned to leave.
My hand moved beneath my sleeve, brushing the wolf fang talisman Alaric had once gifted me.
I stepped forward and stopped him. “If I eat them… will I die?”
He nodded.
“You will–but not immediately.”
Some live ten years, others twenty or thirty. The pain will be constant. But you’ll live”
I didn’t hesitate again. I took the pouch, closed my eyes, and swallowed every last creature.
Then, forcing a smile, I said, “I’ve always been sickly. The healers told me I’d never live long anyway. This doesn’t change much.”
The hexworms entered my body, feeding on my flesh and blood. Breeding. Thriving.
Before he left, the warlock gave me a long look and sighed. “Foolish girl.”
And I was.
Not long after, Alaric’s demeanor shifted. He became cold, distant, unreachable.
I knew why. The kingdom of Ravenshire and the plains of Westmark had gone to war.
Alaric then a hostage prince–had been left in enemy lands. All he could do was listen helplessly as news of his people’s deaths reached him, one after another.
How could he not resent us? How could he not hate me?
Westmark lost the war. They ceded land and livestock. They were forced into monthly tributes.
Only after that agreement was signe
signed was Alaric allowed to return.
The day he left, I followed him to the gates of Valebridge.
“Princess of Stillmere, you mustn’t go any further.”
Alaric turned to look at me, his gaze full of shadows I couldn’t decipher.
“The next time we meet, we’ll be enemies.”
“No,” I said firmly, shaking my head. “We won’t be. Alaric, we’re not enemies.”
Ravenshire and Westmark didn’t have to be rivals forever.
If I married into his tribe, things could change.
I’d studied the history of political unions alongside my brother, the crown prince. I knew there were precedents.
1 knelt in the royal court and made my request. My father shouted in fury. “Nonsense!”
“Only the defeated send their daughters away in marriage!”
My mother stroked my hair gently.
“Fina, your father is powerful. Your brother will one day inherit the throne. You don’t have to sacrifice your happiness. You should marry the man you love.”
Chapter 5
And I did love him.
Ever since I was eight years old–when I first saw that boy from the wild steppes during a homage
ceremony.
That wild–born son from the west with fire in his blood and wind in his soul carved himself into my heart that day.
I still remembered the royal hunt. He outshone my brother and claimed the grand prize. My father asked, smiling, what he planned to do with the rare white fox pelt he’d won.
Alaric lifted his chin and said, “Make a cloak for Princess Seraphina.”
He had been so gentle.
I, in contrast, was always sick–kept under strict watch
I envied his freedom, his untamed spirit.
I was drawn to him like moonlight to tide.
On the day I came of age, he climbed the palace walls and perched there like a rogue knight, silver bells on his belt jingling with each
shift.
A grass blade hung between his lips as he called to me-“Come ride with me. I’ll teach you to shoot a bow. What do you say?”
I said yes. Of course I said yes
But even now… I still haven’t learned how.
