Elara's POV
The child is dying in my arms.
"Please," the mother begs, tears streaming down her dirty face. "Please save him. I'll give you anything."
I look at the boy—maybe six years old, burning with fever, his lips turning blue. The sickness has spread to his lungs. He has hours, maybe less.
My hands hover over his chest. I can feel the magic tingling in my fingertips, desperate to burst free. The light magic that could heal him instantly. The forbidden magic that will get me killed if anyone sees.
"Everyone out," I say quietly.
The mother's eyes widen. "But—"
"Out. Now. Or I can't help him."
She stumbles backward, pulling the other family members with her. The door to my tiny apartment closes. I'm alone with the dying child.
I take a deep breath and let the magic flow.
Golden light erupts from my palms, pouring into the boy's small body. I watch the blue fade from his lips. His breathing steadies. The fever breaks. In thirty seconds, he's sleeping peacefully, completely healed.
I pull my hands back fast, making the light disappear. My heart pounds. That was stupid. Dangerous. Someone could have seen through the window. Someone could have felt the magic from the street.
But I couldn't let him die.
The mother rushes back in, gasping when she sees her son breathing normally. "How did you—"
"Herbs," I lie smoothly. "Very rare herbs. He'll be fine now."
She tries to pay me with the few coins she has. I refuse. She's poorer than I am, living in the worst part of the Outer Districts where people come to disappear.
People like me.
After they leave, I collapse on my bed—really just a thin mat on the floor. My whole body shakes. Using that much light magic was risky. In the Kingdom of Umbraveil, light magic is forbidden. Anyone caught using it is executed as a traitor.
Just like my mother.
The memory hits me like a knife to the chest. Five years ago, standing in the crowd, watching as they dragged her to the execution platform in the palace courtyard. She was so beautiful, even with her hands chained. Even with blood running down her face from where they'd beaten her.
"She's a traitor!" the guard had shouted. "She conspired against the Dark King! She used forbidden magic!"
I was twenty years old, screaming for them to stop, trying to push through the crowd. My father grabbed my arm, his grip so tight it bruised.
"Don't," he hissed in my ear. "Don't make a sound or they'll take you too."
I watched my mother die. I watched her look straight at me in those final moments, her lips moving in words I couldn't hear. Then the executioner's blade fell.
That night, my father vanished. Just... gone. No note, no goodbye, nothing. Some people said he ran away like a coward. Others whispered he was arrested too.
I never found out. I was too busy running for my own life.
For five years, I've hidden in this tiny apartment in the worst part of the city. For five years, I've pretended to be a normal healer, using only basic herbs and dark magic that everyone accepts. For five years, I've buried the light magic deep inside, letting it out only when I'm absolutely alone and someone's about to die.
For five years, I've survived by being invisible.
I look around my apartment—one room with a leaking roof, walls covered in mold, a single window with broken glass. But it's mine. It's safe. No one bothers me here.
I'm about to blow out my candle when I hear something.
Footsteps. Heavy boots on the stairs outside.
My blood runs cold. Nobody comes up here at night. The building is half-empty, full of squatters and drug addicts who keep to themselves.
The footsteps stop. Right outside my door.
I hold my breath. Maybe they'll move on. Maybe it's just someone looking for a different apartment.
Then comes the banging. Loud. Violent. The whole door shakes.
"Open up!" a man's voice barks. "By order of the Shadow Guard!"
My heart stops. The Shadow Guard. The king's personal soldiers. They only come when someone's being arrested.
They found me. After five years of hiding, they finally found me.
"We know you're in there, Elara Veylan!" another voice shouts. "Open this door or we break it down!"
How do they know my name? How did they find me?
I scramble backward, looking for an escape. The window—but I'm three floors up. The fire escape rusted away years ago. There's nowhere to run.
The door explodes inward. Wood splinters fly everywhere. Six soldiers in black armor pour into my tiny room, surrounding me instantly. They move like predators, perfectly coordinated.
And then he walks in.
The man from the doorway is massive, over six feet tall, with cold gray eyes and a scar running down his jaw. He wears the silver wolf insignia of a captain. His hand rests on the sword at his hip.
"Elara Veylan," he says, his voice like gravel. "You're coming with us."
"I haven't done anything!" I shout, but my voice shakes. "I'm just a healer! I haven't broken any laws!"
"The Dark King has been poisoned," the captain says flatly. "An assassin used a cursed blade. The poison is spreading through his body. Every healer in the capital has tried to save him. They've all failed."
My mouth goes dry. "What does that have to do with me?"
The captain's eyes narrow. "You're the only healer in this city who can work with corrupted magic. The only one who's healed curse-sickness before."
"I don't know what you're talking about—"
"Don't lie." He steps closer. "We've been watching you. We know what you can do. We know about the light magic."
Terror shoots through me. They know. They've always known.
"So here's your choice," the captain continues. "You come with us and heal the king. Or we arrest you for using forbidden magic and execute you in the same courtyard where your mother died. What's it going to be?"
I stare at him, my whole world crashing down. After five years of hiding, five years of surviving, it all ends here.
"If I heal him," I whisper, "will you let me go?"
Something flickers in the captain's expression. It might be pity. "That's not my decision."
"Then I guess I don't have a choice."
"No," he agrees. "You don't."
Two soldiers grab my arms. They're not gentle. One of them pulls a black hood from his belt.
"Wait—" I start to say.
The hood goes over my head. Everything goes dark.
I feel them dragging me toward the door, my feet stumbling over broken wood. I hear my neighbors' doors slamming shut—everyone hiding, pretending they don't see anything.
As they pull me down the stairs and into the freezing night, one thought keeps screaming in my head:
I'm going to the palace. The same palace where my mother was executed. The same palace ruled by the Dark King everyone fears.
And somehow, I'm supposed to save his life.
The last thing I hear before they throw me into a carriage is the captain's voice, cold and emotionless:
"If the king dies, you die with him. So you'd better be as good as they say you are."
The carriage door slams shut.
And I realize with sinking horror that I'm not just being arrested.
I'm being taken to heal the most dangerous man in the kingdom—the immortal tyrant who's ruled for three hundred years, who kills anyone who displeases him, whose dark magic is so powerful it blacked out the sun.
The man whose curse killed my mother when she tried to help him.
And now it's my turn.