ARIELLA'S POV
The Border Forest doesn't want me.
I know this because the moss withers beneath my fingertips. Because the birds fall silent when I stumble past. Because even the ancient trees seem to lean away, their branches curling back like they can smell the corruption bleeding from my skin.
I drag myself forward another foot. Then another. My legs shake with each step, muscles screaming protests I can barely hear over the roaring in my ears. The fever makes everything distant and sharp at the same time—colors too bright, sounds too loud, my own heartbeat thundering like war drums.
Twenty-three years of perfection. Gone. Destroyed by one moment of curiosity.
My hand reaches for my throat, searching for the royal pendant that's always hung there. My fingers close on empty air. They tore it from me at the gates. The High Priestess herself ripped the silver chain away, her face twisted with disgust.
"Shadow-touched. Corrupted. Irredeemable."
The words echo in my skull with each stumbling step.
I should stop. Should give up. My body is begging me to lie down, to let the curse finish what it started. But some stubborn part of me—the part that made me touch that tree in the first place—refuses to surrender.
The shadows beneath my skin writhe like living things. I can feel them testing boundaries, pushing against the walls of my veins, searching for weaknesses. It feels like ice and fire breeding something new inside me, something that wants out so badly it's willing to tear me apart to escape.
I collapse beside a stream, the impact jarring bones I didn't know could hurt this much.
The water looks clear. Clean. Everything I'm not anymore.
I try to cup my hands, to drink, but they're shaking so violently the water slips through my fingers. Three attempts. Four. On the fifth, I give up and lower my face directly to the stream, lapping at it like an animal.
The water tastes like ash in my mouth.
When I lift my head, I catch my reflection in the surface.
I don't recognize the creature staring back.
My silver hair—the mark of Luminara's royal bloodline—is streaked with black like someone spilled ink across silk. My eyes flicker between their natural blue and something darker, something that swallows light instead of reflecting it. And the veins. Gods, the veins. Dark lightning spreads across my pale skin, pulsing with alien power, mapping corruption in exquisite detail.
My mother would weep to see me now. Actually, no. She already wept. I watched her cry as the guards dragged me to the border. But those weren't tears of grief—they were tears of shame. Tears for the daughter who'd humiliated her, who'd destroyed their perfect legacy with one reckless touch.
"We raised you better than this, Ariella."
My father's voice. Cold. Disappointed. Final.
The memory sends fresh pain lancing through my chest, worse than the fever, worse than the curse. Because that hurt is old and familiar. I've been disappointing them my whole life—asking too many questions, challenging too many traditions, wanting too much to be seen as something other than a symbol.
I just never expected them to throw me away for it.
The curse flares suddenly, violently. Shadows explode from my hands, spreading across the stream's surface like oil. The water beneath them turns black, then starts to freeze. Ice creeps outward in jagged patterns, beautiful and terrible.
I watch it happen with detached fascination. So this is how I die. Alone in a forest that hates me, turning everything I touch into frozen darkness.
At least no one will find my body. The Border Forest keeps its secrets.
The fever spikes again, and the world tilts sideways. I'm falling, I realize distantly. Falling and there's nothing to catch me.
My cheek hits cold earth. Moss withers beneath my face.
This is it, then. This is the end of Princess Ariella Wynn. Not with ceremony or grace. Not mourned or remembered. Just another exile claimed by the Border Forest, another cautionary tale for elven children about what happens when you disobey.
This is how I die. Alone. Monster. Forgotten.
My vision narrows to a tunnel. The edges go dark first, then the center starts to fade. I can still hear things though—my own labored breathing, the stream gurgling around the ice I created, something moving through the underbrush.
Footsteps.
Someone's coming.
My heart lurches with irrational hope. Maybe they sent someone after me. Maybe they realized their mistake, maybe—
"Oh, for the love of—not another one."
The voice is male. Irritated. Definitely not elven.
Not a rescue, then.
I try to turn my head, to see who found me, but my body won't obey anymore. The curse has me pinned like a butterfly to a board, still alive but unable to move.
The footsteps come closer. Stop. I feel someone kneel beside me.
"What did you do?" The voice sounds closer now, resigned rather than angry. "Let me guess. Touched something you shouldn't have? Played with forces you didn't understand? And now you're dying in a forest because your people would rather exile than explain."
He's talking to himself more than me. I want to tell him he's wrong, that I knew exactly what I was doing, that the curse was worth it for one moment of feeling real. But words won't come.
"Your magic signature is all wrong," he mutters. "Shadow Binding. Haven't seen that in years. Nasty bit of work, that curse. Usually kills within hours."
Usually. That means not always. That means maybe—
Darkness takes me before I can finish the thought.
My last conscious sensation is being lifted—strong hands, careful despite the irritation in his voice. Someone carrying me like I weigh nothing, like I matter, even though I'm corrupted and dying and everything the world fears.
Then nothing.
Just shadows and the distant whisper of the curse, promising this isn't over.
Not yet.