I paced from one end of the hall to the other, the cold marble biting into my feet as if punishing me. The jewels I had surrendered to the witch still lay on the table—gleaming, silent witnesses to my foolishness. Beside them, the little grimoire opened and closed on its own, like it was breathing, like it was mocking me.
I clutched the book with both hands, opened to the marked page, and whispered the spell. My voice faltered; every word felt like it tore a piece of courage out of me. The air grew heavy, thick, but nothing happened. No wind, no whisper. Only silence.
Then came the crack. A sharp, splintering sound, like rotten wood breaking. A sour stench flooded the room, acrid, suffocating. Smoke coiled upward in slow black spirals, and something began to take shape within it. My heart froze.
When the haze cleared, I saw what I had summoned.
It wasn't a knight.
It wasn't a friend.
It wasn't anything close to what I dreamed.
It was a goblin—pathetic, vile, with green skin crusted over with sores and scars. His flesh looked like waterlogged leather, stretched badly over thin bones. The eyes, small and yellow, gleamed like rusted blades—hungry, filthy, predatory.
The stench hit me before I could step back. It wasn't just foul—it was an assault. A hot, rotten wave that slid down my throat and stuck there. Sweat gone sour. Meat left to rot. Dried blood. Stagnant swamp water. It was like breathing inside a tomb.
I recoiled, hand flying to my mouth to choke back a scream.
"He… he's hideous…"
And yet, he stared at me.
Not like a servant. Not like someone bound to obey. He looked at me as if I were something to take. Hunger. Hunger for me.
No one had ever looked at me that way. Not with devotion. Not with reverence. This was different. Raw. Dirty. Direct. His gaze cut through me, burned into me, forced a reaction out of me that I didn't even understand.
My body answered before my mind could: skin crawling, stomach tight, a heavy strangeness settling in my limbs. It was like being touched without being touched, invaded without a hand laid on me.
I raised the book before me, clutching it like a shield.
"Stay where you are! I… I command you!"
He obeyed. Trembling, rasping, growling in guttural noises. But his eyes never left mine. They clung to me, glowing, smoldering, burning with a hunger I couldn't name.
I snapped the book shut, the sound loud in the hollow chamber. My hands shook so hard I nearly dropped it. The truth struck like stone: this thing was my guardian now. Bound to me. Forever.
The stench saturated the air, seeping into me. My shoulders sagged beneath its weight. I, daughter of a sorcerer king, heir to a throne, stood in front of a creature so foul, so repulsive, that I felt humiliated merely by sharing the same air with it. His presence clung to me like a stain.
I wanted to scream abomination. I wanted to spit the word, to banish him, but my father's voice echoed cold and sharp in my head: "I warned you." And he had. This ruin was mine to bear.
And yet… even disgusted, even shamed, a part of me clung to one pitiful, almost desperate thought:
A friend didn't have to be beautiful. Right?