ARIELLA'S POV
I wake to the sound of someone humming tunelessly.
For one blissful moment, I think I'm home. Back in my chambers in Luminara, and this has all been a terrible dream. The tree, the curse, the exile—none of it real.
Then I try to sit up, and reality crashes back with brutal clarity.
My body feels wrong. Not in the dying way it did before, but wrong like I'm wearing someone else's skin. Lighter and heavier at the same time, power thrumming beneath my flesh that shouldn't exist, that feels both foreign and intimately mine.
The curse is still there. I can feel it coiled in my chest like a sleeping serpent. But it's muted now, caged, held back by something I don't understand.
I force my eyes open.
A man sits across the fire, watching me with dark, unreadable eyes. He's lean and scarred, dressed in black leather that's seen better days. A wizard from the Guildlands—I recognize the style even if I've never met one before.
My enemy, by every law I was raised to follow.
"You're awake," he says, not moving. "That's either very good or very bad. Haven't decided which yet."
I bolt upright, ignoring the way the world spins. My hands move on instinct, reaching for weapons I no longer carry. He notices and smirks.
"What did you do to me?" My voice comes out hoarse, raw.
"Saved your life. You're welcome, by the way."
"I didn't ask you to."
"No, you were too busy dying to ask for anything." He pokes the fire with a stick, casual as discussing weather. "Shadow Binding curse. Nasty bit of work. You touched something you shouldn't have."
Heat rises to my cheeks—anger and shame mixing. "That's none of your concern."
"It became my concern when you nearly died in my forest."
"This isn't your forest."
"Neither is it yours anymore, princess."
The word hits like a slap. Princess. What I was. What I'll never be again.
I force myself to breathe, to think. He saved me, which means he wants something. Everyone wants something.
"What did you do?" I ask again, slower this time. "The curse is still there, but it's different. Changed."
"Suppression spell. Temporary fix, not a cure. Keeps the curse from eating you alive, but you'll need regular treatments or it comes right back."
"Treatments you'll provide."
"For a price."
Of course. There's always a price.
I study him properly now—the scars on his hands, the weariness around his eyes, the way he holds himself like someone used to pain. A dark wizard living alone in the Border Forest. An exile, like me.
"What do you want?" I ask, keeping my voice level.
"Not what you're thinking." He actually looks offended. "I want you alive and functional because, inconveniently, we need each other now."
"Explain."
He does. The words are clinical, matter-of-fact: how my curse and his unstable magic complement each other, how performing the suppression ritual revealed that we balance each other's power, how separating now would kill us both.
I listen with growing horror.
"You're lying," I say flatly when he finishes. "You did something to bind us without permission."
"The binding was a side effect, not the goal. Trust me, I'm not thrilled about it either."
"Then undo it."
"Can't. Magic doesn't work that way." He leans forward, firelight casting sharp shadows across his face. "Look, princess—"
"Don't call me that."
"—we're stuck with each other. You can accept it and make the best of a bad situation, or you can run off and we both die slowly and painfully. Your choice."
It's not a choice. It's a trap disguised as options.
I stand abruptly, ignoring his warning. "I don't need you. I don't need anyone."
I make it three steps before the curse flares.
Pain drops me to my knees like someone cut my strings. Shadows explode from my hands, spreading across the ground in wild patterns. My veins feel like they're trying to escape my body, the curse clawing for freedom through my skin.
I can't breathe. Can't think. Can only feel the curse devouring me from within—
Hands on my shoulders. Words in a language I don't recognize. Dark magic flowing into me, meeting the curse, wrestling it back under control.
The pain recedes slowly, reluctantly.
I'm on my hands and knees in the dirt, gasping. The wizard—Rhys, some distant part of my brain supplies—kneels beside me, blood trickling from his nose.
"Told you," he says, not unkindly. "Your curse and my magic are linked now. You run, we both die. Slowly and painfully, in case you're curious."
I hate him in that moment. Hate him for being right, for saving me without asking, for looking at me without fear or disgust—just pragmatic assessment like I'm a problem to solve instead of a monster to flee.
But I'm not stupid. Survival comes first. Pride can wait.
"Fine," I force out through gritted teeth. "What do you want in return for keeping me alive?"
His grin is sharp and knowing. "How do you feel about a little trip to a legendary temple?"
I stare at him. "What?"
"The Moonlight Crystal. Artifact supposedly capable of curing curses and stabilizing unstable magic." He extends a hand to help me up. "It's in the Temple of Silver Night, high in the Whispering Mountains. Weeks of travel through dangerous territory. Interested?"
I look at his offered hand—scarred, steady, belonging to someone who just saved my life and bound us together in the same breath.
I have no weapons. No supplies. No home to return to. Just a curse eating me alive and a dark wizard offering impossible hope.
I take his hand.
"When do we leave?"
His grin widens. "That's the spirit, princess."
"I told you not to call me that."
"And I told you we need each other. Guess we're both going to have to compromise."
I pull my hand away once I'm standing, ignoring the way his touch felt steady when everything else is chaos.
This is temporary, I tell myself. Just until we reach the temple. Just until the curse is cured.
Then I'll never have to depend on anyone again.
But even as I think it, I know I'm lying to myself.
Everything has changed. And there's no going back to who I was before.