Age: 13
Kaelith
They said I was born to rule.
Born with a crown in my bones and war in my breath.
But all I ever felt was hunger.
Not the kind food could cure. Not thirst or sleep or touch. No—it was something deeper. Older. Something that stirred in my blood and whispered in my skull. The creature. The Varethos. My other self.
And lately, it had been whispering louder.
She's here.
The voice cut through my thoughts like a blade.
I didn't react. Couldn't. Too many eyes were watching.
The council droned on, their words dripping with false respect. None of them truly served me. They served the throne. They feared the Varethos. Feared what I might become.
But I felt her before I saw her.
That familiar spark in the air. The scent I never forgot—jasmine and smoke, sun-warmed skin and honeyed breath.
Mirelle.
I turned my head as the doors opened, forcing myself to keep my expression neutral. Years had passed. I expected a child.
I was wrong.
She walked in and the world stopped.
Not because she was beautiful—though she was, in a wild, unshaped way. Not because she stared straight at me like I was both salvation and sin.
But because something inside me growled.
Mine.
I didn't move. Didn't blink.
I looked away.
I had to.
Because if I hadn't, I would've taken her right there in front of them all.
And I couldn't afford to want her.
Not now.
Not when they'd brought the princess for me to marry.
Kaelith
She didn't bow.
Not the way they all did, heads low, eyes averted, mouths dripping with rehearsed flattery.
Mirelle walked like she belonged here.
Like she remembered the boy who used to pull her hair and catch her from trees, not the prince with fangs beneath his smile.
And gods help me, I wanted to snarl.
Not at her.
At the rest of them—every advisor, every noble, every simpering courtesan who dared to breathe the same air she did.
She shouldn't be here.
Not in this court. Not in this world.
This place chewed up innocence like hers and spit it out in shards.
"Mirelle of House Ash," the herald announced, his tone sour with distaste.
I clenched my jaw.
Of House Ash. A name not noble. A name they thought unworthy. That's why they made her leave all those years ago. Because I was royal, and she wasn't.
She shouldn't be here now. But she'd come back. And not as a girl anymore.
As a woman. One with fire behind her eyes and the scent of freedom on her skin.
And my creature—my Varethos—stirred again.
She's ours.
No.
I pressed the voice back, swallowing it whole. My fingers dug into the stone armrest of the throne. I didn't dare look at her again, not fully.
The longer I stared, the harder it became to breathe.
Because I knew what I'd see.
Not a child. Not my little shadow. But a woman who had no idea she was walking into a cage built with gold and rules and blood.
"My prince," Mirelle said, her voice calm, steady.
But not soft. Never soft.
There were blades in her tone, and I didn't know whether I wanted to laugh or pull her into my lap and bury my face in her neck.
"Lady Mirelle," I said, managing civility. "You've grown."
Understatement of the century.
She dipped her chin. "As have you."
The crowd murmured behind her, curious. Some even whispered, sensing the shift in the room. No one missed the way my eyes lingered. No one dared speak of it aloud, not yet.
And then she was escorted away—ripped from my view like a fever dream. I couldn't watch her leave. If I did, I'd follow. And if I followed, I wouldn't stop.
Not until I had her again.
But I didn't move. I couldn't afford to.
Especially not with her watching.
Princess Elowen.
The one they brought for me.
She stood in the gallery like a serpent in silk, her lips curved into something between curiosity and calculation. She'd heard the whispers. She saw my reaction.
And she wasn't pleased.
Later, in the war room, I paced like a beast in chains.
I could feel Mirelle's presence still—down the hall, in the garden, in the walls. My control frayed, snapped, stitched back together only by sheer force of will.
"You cannot let her distract you," my uncle said beside me.
I turned on him. "She's a guest. Not a distraction."
He arched a brow. "She's the girl you once refused to eat without. The one you protected in the barracks. Don't lie to yourself, Kaelith. Your creature stirred. We all felt it."
Silence.
I couldn't deny it. Wouldn't.
"She is not royalty," he said coldly.
"She is mine," I answered before I could stop myself.
The words left my mouth like a curse. Like a truth I had buried too long.
My uncle stiffened. "You forget your duty."
I never forget.
It haunts me.
I walked to the edge of the room, fingers twitching, eyes burning. I could see the Varethos in the glass—the faint outline of the other me. The monster cloaked in shadow and gold, with claws itching beneath the skin.
"She will ruin you," my uncle said, quieter this time.
I almost laughed. She already had.
The moment I saw her again, everything inside me cracked.
And that crack would soon become a fracture.
Mirelle
Age: 17
I could feel him before I saw him.
The air always changed when Kaelith entered a room—charged, like the first crackle before a storm. My skin tightened. My lungs forgot what to do with air.
Seventeen.
That's how long it took for me to see him not as Kael—the boy who used to drag me up trees and call me a menace—but as the man with a voice that could command armies and eyes that made me ache.
He walked into the atrium like a living myth. Cold, composed, cloaked in black and gold. Every pair of eyes snapped to him. But his barely flicked to anyone.
Until they found me.
A beat.
A flicker.
That was all.
But it set something wild loose in my chest.
I hated him a little for that.
The throne room encounter had left me shaking for hours. He hadn't changed, and yet… he had. Something inside him had grown darker, deeper. But it still knew me. I felt it.
The creature in him.
The one no one spoke of, but everyone feared.
They called it a curse. They called it a crown. But to me, it had always just been part of him.
And tonight, it was watching me.
"Don't stare," Aranith hissed beside me, my cousin and the only one stupid enough to speak her mind in court.
"I wasn't," I lied.
She gave me a look. "You always stare."
I turned away. Bit the inside of my cheek.
I had no right to stare. I was nothing here. A daughter of a broken house, reaccepted only because my blood still held some use. I wasn't meant to be seen—especially not by the prince they were parading princesses in front of like polished baubles.
Especially not by Kaelith.
Still, his eyes burned across the room.
Like they were trying to remember the shape of me.
I slipped out of the atrium before the feast began, needing air. Needing space.
The corridor was colder than I remembered. Sharper.
The garden doors were open, and I ran—because walking wasn't enough. Not with my lungs full of him and my heart full of what ifs.
I found the old alcove. The one we used to hide in.
Collapsed against the wall and let the silence stretch.
But it didn't last.
The shadow came first. Then the scent—wild pine and metal.
"Running again?" His voice wrapped around me like midnight silk.
I didn't look up. "You're following me now?"
A pause. "You ran. I noticed."
"You used to hate when I ran."
"I still do."
I lifted my eyes then.
He was so close.
Closer than he should've been.
Too close for my ribs to contain the way my heart leapt.
He studied me—slow, devastating.
And I knew that look.
I'd seen it once, when we were children. After I fell and bloodied my knee. He'd looked at me then like the world might crack if I cried.
He looked at me the same now.
Only there was no blood. Only breath. And heat.
"I heard you returned," he said finally.
"And yet you didn't come."
"I couldn't."
"Couldn't or wouldn't?"
His jaw ticked.
"I'm not a child anymore," I whispered. "I don't need you to protect me."
His eyes narrowed. "That's the problem."
And just like that—he turned and walked away.
Again.
Mirelle
Age: 17
He left again.
Like it cost him nothing.
Like I hadn't spent years replaying the last time he walked away.
I stood in that alcove long after his footsteps vanished, heart thudding against my ribs, throat tight with words I hadn't known I needed to say. But they were wasted now. Swallowed by stone and silence.
This palace didn't feel like home anymore.
And maybe it never had.
I wandered back through the gardens, avoiding the torchlit halls where lords and daughters laughed over things they didn't understand. My dress clung to my skin, the night breeze turning sharp. I welcomed it. I needed something cold. Something to anchor me before I made the mistake of running after him again.
The moon was low by the time I returned to my chambers.
A single candle flickered on the table, and a folded piece of parchment rested beside it.
My name—written in his hand.
I didn't open it right away. My fingers trembled too much. I stared at the seal—his family crest scorched into the wax—and waited until my pulse slowed.
Then I broke it.
Mirelle,
I wasn't meant to see you tonight.
I wasn't prepared.
There are things inside me I've spent years trying to bury. You bring them to the surface too easily.
I don't know what to do with that.
–K*
I read it twice.
Then again.
He wasn't supposed to write to me. Not with the court watching. Not with a princess already chosen to warm his throne and bear his heirs.
But he had.
And the worst part?
I wanted to write back.
I didn't sleep.
Instead, I sat by the candle, rereading the note until the ink blurred and my chest ached.
At dawn, there was a knock.
Soft. Hesitant.
I rose, heart in my throat, hoping and dreading in equal measure.
It wasn't Kaelith.
It was the princess.
Elowen.
Radiant. Calculated. Poison wrapped in silk.
Her eyes scanned my room before settling on me. She smiled like a serpent. "Good morning, Lady Mirelle."
I didn't curtsy.
She didn't seem to mind.
"I wanted to introduce myself," she said, stepping inside without invitation. "We'll be seeing quite a bit of each other, I imagine."
My hand curled at my side. "Why?"
"Well…" She turned slowly, running her fingers along the back of my chair. "Because I'm going to be his wife."
I said nothing.
She stepped closer. "He told me about you. The little girl who used to follow him around. Sweet, stubborn Mirelle."
She said my name like it was a curse.
I met her gaze. "Then he must've also told you how much I hate snakes."
Her smile twitched.
She moved to the desk, fingers brushing the edge—almost touching the letter. My breath caught.
But she didn't look down.
"I'm not here to fight," she said smoothly. "I just thought it would be wise to lay out the rules of court. And your place in it."
I stepped forward. "Is that so?"
Her eyes glittered. "You've been gone a long time. Things are different now. He's different. You can't possibly think…"
She trailed off, but the meaning hung heavy between us.
That he would choose me.
That he even could.
She was right.
And yet, I saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes—the whisper of something she couldn't quite name. Because somewhere deep inside her, she knew…
I wasn't the little girl anymore.
And Kaelith had looked at me like he remembered exactly who I was.
Elowen didn't wait for a dismissal. She turned on her heel and left with grace and venom dripping in equal measure.
I waited until the door clicked shut before I touched the letter again.
Kaelith had written to me.
And Elowen knew it.
Let the court whisper.
Let the palace hold its breath.
Because I had spent years pretending not to want him.
I wasn't going to pretend anymore.
Mirelle
Age: 17
I didn't answer Kaelith's letter.
Not with ink.
But I answered him in every way that mattered.
By walking into the training ring the next morning wearing my old boots, hair braided tight, a practice blade strapped to my back. The old commander choked on his water when he saw me step into the dirt.
"You're not—Mirelle?"
"Let me train."
His mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.
Kaelith wasn't there.
I knew he wouldn't be.
He didn't need to see me fight to remember what I could do. He already knew. He always had. And maybe that's what scared him most—because the moment he truly saw me, he wouldn't be able to look away.
I'd been his shadow once. Now I wanted to be his reckoning.
The sparring partners rotated fast, and I stayed through every round.
Sweat stung my eyes. Blood ran from my knuckles. But I didn't stop. Not until the sun was high and the whispers started.
"Is that the girl from the river provinces?"
"She used to be close with the prince."
"She fights like she's trying to kill a ghost."
I was.
His.
When I finally stepped out of the ring, muscles aching and throat raw, Kaelith was there.
Leaning against the post.
Watching.
His tunic was black again. Shadows clung to him like they were afraid to let go. His gaze tracked every drop of blood down my arm, every breath that came too sharp, too fast.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"I've earned my place."
His jaw ticked. "Mirelle—"
I walked past him. Didn't stop. Didn't flinch.
But I heard him follow.
The garden we slipped into was overgrown, the roses wild and biting. No courtiers here. No Elowen. No masks.
"Why didn't you write back?" he asked.
"Why did you write at all?"
That silenced him.
I turned, looking at him fully now. "You left. For years. And when you came back, you acted like nothing changed. Like I hadn't changed."
He stepped closer. "You were a child."
"So were you."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then say what you do mean, Kaelith. Because I'm tired of being the only one who speaks like any of this matters."
He stared at me, eyes shadowed and bright all at once. "It matters too much."
The wind shifted.
I felt it before I saw it—the golden sheen bleeding into his pupils, the silent roar of something ancient stirring beneath his skin. Varethos. His bonded.
The creature inside him wanted me closer.
And Kaelith... Kaelith was losing the war with himself.
"I'm promised to someone else," he said, like it hurt.
"She's not carrying your heart."
He flinched. I saw it. Felt it.
"Say it," I whispered.
"I can't."
"You mean you won't."
A pause.
Then: "If I do, I won't be able to stop."
I took a single step closer. The distance between us fizzled, scorched with a tension that had no name. His hand twitched at his side like he wanted to reach for me but didn't trust himself to let go after.
My voice dropped. "Then don't."
Silence.
But his eyes said everything.
And for the first time, I wasn't the little girl at the brook. I was the storm rising in his path.