CHAPTER 1 — THE CHOSEN BRIDE
The night the shadows came for Lyara, the sky bled silver.
Lanterns flickered in the village square as people gathered in trembling silence. Every hundred years, the Shadow Realm demanded one thing from the mortal world:
A bride.
Chosen by the ancient flame.
Offered to the darkness.
Taken before dawn.
No one ever returned.
Lyara stood at the edge of the crowd, heart pounding like a trapped bird. She had always lived quietly — healing the sick, tending to herbs, avoiding attention. She was no warrior, no noble, no beauty meant for royal courts.
Which was why she prayed — desperately — that the flame wouldn't choose her.
"Please," she whispered. "Anyone but me."
The High Priest lifted the sacred bowl. Dark fire roared inside it, twisting like a serpent trying to escape. The moment it spilled over, it would leap toward one soul.
The chosen bride.
Villagers held their breath.
Mothers clutched daughters.
The air tasted of fear… and fate.
"Let the flame decide," the priest announced.
The fire burst upward — black and crimson — swirling in a violent spiral. People stumbled back, screaming.
Lyara froze.
The flame had turned.
It was looking at her.
"No…" she breathed.
The fire stretched, elongated, reaching across the square like an arm of living smoke.
Before she could move, the flame slammed into her chest with a shattering roar.
Lyara gasped as power rushed through her — cold, ancient, hungry. Her knees buckled. The villagers dropped to the ground in terrified prayer.
"The flame has chosen!" the High Priest cried. "Lyara of Eldervale… you are the Shadow Bride!"
Her world tilted.
This couldn't be happening.
Not to her.
Not the quiet healer who never belonged anywhere.
Two armored Shadow Sentinels stepped out of the mist — tall, faceless warriors forged from darkness itself. Their presence crushed the breath from the air.
One spoke, voice echoing like a dead star.
"By decree of the Shadow King, you will be taken to the Obsidian Court by dawn."
Lyara shook her head, her voice breaking.
"I'm not a bride. I'm not— I didn't ask for this!"
The sentinel didn't move.
Didn't care.
"The flame asks. Mortals obey."
As the villagers bowed in fear, Lyara felt her life slipping away — every dream, every sunrise, every familiar face.
This was the end of everything she had known.
And the beginning of a fate sealed before she was born.
The shadows gathered around her, swirling like a cloak. She was lifted off the ground, weightless, helpless.
And before darkness swallowed her completely, she heard the sentinel's final words:
"Prepare yourself, mortal.
You are to marry Prince Kael — son of the Shadow King, heir of darkness…
and the cursed prince who kills anything he touches."
The world went black.
And Lyara's fate was sealed.