The restlessness didn't start in her head. It started in her bones.
For two years, Seraphine's life had been a clockwork of survival—wake, gather, brew, endure. But since Kael had vanished back into the sun-drenched world beyond the trees, the rhythm was broken.
Every time she reached for a jar, she remembered him watching her. Every time she sat by the fire, she heard the ghost of his laughter. The hut, once her fortress of solitude, had become a cage of memories.
She needed to leave. She needed the noise of the world to drown out the silence he had left behind.
Seraphine prepared for the trek to the border with the mechanical precision of a soldier going to war. She donned her sturdiest boots and wrapped her moss-green cloak tightly around her frame, pulling the hood so low it cast her upper face into a deep, impenetrable shadow.
She checked her gloves twice, ensuring the laces were tight at her wrists. Not a single petal of the black rose on her collarbone was visible; not a single jagged thorn of the ink on her neck peeked through the fabric.
To the world, she was a wraith. To herself, she was a secret that could never be told.
The journey to the edge of the Forbidden Forest took hours. As she walked, the air began to change. The heavy, magical humidity of the deep woods—scented with rot and ancient magic—thinned out, replaced by a crisp, salt-tinged breeze that blew from the neutral territories.
The market, known to the locals as "The Grey Hollow," sat in a dip between two jagged hills. It was a lawless, bustling scar on the landscape where the three kingdoms met in a tentative, greedy truce. Here, names were discarded like old rags. Here, a person was only as valuable as what they carried in their basket.
Seraphine stepped into the Hollow, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
The sensory assault was overwhelming. The smell of roasting meat clashed with the pungent scent of unwashed bodies. The clinking of copper coins fought against the sharp, aggressive shouting of merchants. It was a symphony of humanity that she both loathed and craved.
She kept her head down, her single visible emerald eye scanning the mud-slicked ground as she navigated the crowd. She moved toward a small stone stall at the far end of the market, tucked away from the main thoroughfare.
"Old Silas," she murmured, her voice a low, raspy thread.
The man behind the counter was as weathered as the stones of the forest. He didn't look up from the ledger he was squinting at.
"You're late, Shadow-Girl," he grunted. "I thought the forest finally ate you."
"The forest is more patient than you, Silas," Seraphine replied, her voice regaining a sliver of the aristocratic chill that was her birthright.
She placed her basket on the counter. Inside were bundles of dried silver-leaf, jars of glowing fungi that could only be harvested during a lunar eclipse, and a small vial of essence from the Weeping Willow—a tree that grew only in the heart of the Forbidden zone.
These were ingredients that court mages would kill for. And Silas knew it.
The old man's eyes sharpened as he inspected the goods. He didn't ask how she got them. In the Hollow, curiosity was a terminal illness.
"High quality," Silas muttered, pulling a heavy sack of grain from beneath the table. "I've got your salt, the oil you requested, and a tin of tea from the south. It's not imperial grade, but it'll warm your bones."
"And the book?" Seraphine pressed, her voice tight.
Silas sighed, reaching into a wooden crate and pulling out a battered, leather-bound volume.
"Not many ask for poetry in a place like this," he said, eyeing her with a rare flicker of interest. "Most people here just want to know how to keep their heads on their shoulders. But I found it. The late works of Master Thorne."
Seraphine's fingers twitched with a sudden, sharp longing. She took the book, the weight of it in her hand feeling more precious than the gold coins she lacked. It was a piece of civilization. A piece of the mind she used to have.
As she turned to pack her supplies, the wind shifted.
It caught the loose corner of a parchment pinned to a central wooden post—the Hollow's unofficial bulletin board. The paper was fresh, creamy and white, not yet stained by the mud or the soot of the market.
Seraphine's gaze drifted toward it casually.
In a heartbeat, the world stopped turning.
It was a royal decree, stamped with the golden Sun-Crest of the Valenor Kingdom. Below the crest was a charcoal sketch—a portrait drawn with such exquisite detail that it felt as if the man were staring back at her from the paper.
The messy, dark hair. The strong, noble jawline. The eyes that, even in black and white, seemed to hold a hint of that persistent, amber warmth.
MISSING: PRINCE KAELEN OF VALENOR.
REWARD: 10,000 GOLD CROWNS FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO HIS SAFE RETURN.
The blood drained from Seraphine's face. The grain sack in her hand suddenly felt like lead.
Prince Kaelen.
She hadn't just saved a noble. She hadn't just saved a "stubborn hunter."
She had harbored the Second Prince of the most powerful kingdom in the southern territories. The man who had sat in her humble chair, who had eaten her porridge and left sugar cubes under her pillow, was a person whose life was a pillar of international politics.
A cold, visceral terror washed over her.
In the Empire of Aethelgard, interacting with Valenorian royalty without the Emperor's consent was considered a gesture of high treason. For an exiled villainess, it was an invitation to the chopping block.
He's safe now, she told herself, her breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps. He's back with his knights. He's probably forgotten the 'spirit' in the woods already. To him, I was just a strange adventure.
But as she looked at the reward—a fortune that could buy a city—she realized how precarious her sanctuary truly was.
Ten thousand crowns. People would burn the Forbidden Forest to the ground for that kind of gold. If anyone found out he had been with her...
"Hey! You okay, Shadow-Girl?" Silas's voice broke through her panic. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I'm fine," Seraphine snapped, her voice trembling.
She grabbed her supplies and turned away, practically running toward the dark, beckoning safety of the tree line. She didn't stop until she was deep within the shadows, where the light of the sun couldn't reach her.
She leaned against a gnarled oak, her hand flying to her throat. Beneath the wool of her cloak, the black rose on her collarbone was pulsing with a violent, rhythmic heat.
It felt as if the Goddess were laughing at her.
"A Prince," she whispered into the dark, her voice cracking. "Of all the people the forest could have sent... it sent a King's son."
She looked at the battered book of poetry in her basket, and felt the weight of the silver sun-crest dagger hidden in her boot.
She had wanted the noise of the world to drown out her thoughts. Instead, the world had just screamed a truth she wasn't ready to hear.
The Prince hadn't just left a debt. He had left a ticking clock.
And Seraphine knew, with the terrifying intuition of a woman who had already lost everything, that the world was coming for her again.
Coming Up in Chapter 7: The Persistent Guest
Just as Seraphine begins to reinforce the barriers around her heart and her hut, a familiar knock echoes through the woods. Kael is back, but he's not alone—he's brought gifts, laughter, and a determination that threatens to shatter Seraphine's resolve once and for all.