"I shouldn't have gone today," she whispered to herself.
Her voice trembled in the dark alley, swallowed by silence. She pressed her back against the cold stone wall and clutched her cloak tight around her shoulders.
"I should've just stayed at home. But… I was running out of time," she said, pulling the potion from her pocket. Her fingers tightened around the small bottle, the potion that had been keeping her alive. The last piece she needed to complete her medicine.
"Never mind. At least I finally have this," she sighed in relief, trying to ignore the fact that she had been seen. Not by any ordinary person, not by a merchant, not by a villager, but by a knight of the castle. The last person in the world she should have crossed paths with. The memory rushed back into her thoughts, the knight's hand closing gently around her arm, steady and warm, his voice gentle.
"Are you alright?"
No. She was not all right. She had been very careful her whole life, and in one heartbeat, everything had gone wrong. He must have felt her skin. It was delicate and it was slowly turning into glass and it was fragile enough to shatter at any moment. It was the curse she had lived with since birth. The potion would return her body to normal, but only for a short time, and this was the last of it. It would never be enough. She shook her head, trying not to think about the fact that he had seen her so clearly. She wasn't supposed to be seen, especially by someone from the castle.
Before leaving the alley, she looked around carefully to make sure the knight wasn't following her. Only when she was certain did she let out a small breath of relief and slip out of town. She rushed toward the forest before the sky grew too dark.
By the time she reached the deeper trees, the sun had already disappeared. The sky turned deep blue. She walked even faster. Hidden in the forest was a tiny house, her home. When she finally reached it, the marks on her arm and then the rest of her body began to glow even more bright as the sun had already disappeared. Panic rose in her chest. She hurried inside.
She grabbed a pot from the desk and poured the last piece of ingredients inside and quickly mixing it together. With shaky hands, she filled a bottle and drank it. Then she collapsed onto the couch, eyes closed, as the glow slowly faded and her fragile glass-like skin softened back into human flesh. She let out a long, shaky sigh of relief.
Once everything returned to normal, she stood and lit a candle. She prepared a simple dinner; bread, cheese and reheated soup she had made earlier. She set the meal on the table and placed her parents' picture beside it.
"Enjoy the food, Mom. Dad," she said softly.
She had been alone since she was a child. Her parents had been burned to death by the public when they were discovered as witches. She had watched them die in the public square. She couldn't do anything. Since then, she has been very careful. For twenty years, no one had discovered her. Not until today.
She hadn't expected the prince's celebration. And when her magic weakened, her disguise had failed and her black hair fading back to white, her curse waking beneath her skin. The curse that turned her hair to snow and her body into fragile glass.
"Today was pretty scary, Mom, Dad. I was almost caught. He saw me… but don't worry. I'm sure he'll forget about me," she said. I hope so.
After eating, she bathed. Her skin was soft again, warm, human. Only faint scars remained beneath the surface, glowing slightly like cracks where light could escape when her whole body was in curse.
Then memory returned, She could still feel his hand around her arm; firm, steady, warm. His eyes had been a strange shade of light orange, a color she rarely saw. His skin was tanned, his hair dark as the night sky. He was tall, much taller than her.
"Are you alright?"
His voice still lingered, gentle, protective. This was the closest she had ever been to a man.
"Now that I remember his face… he looks kinda fine," she muttered, hiding her face against her knees in embarrassment. "Aurelia… this isn't the right moment to admire his face," she whispered to herself. But her heart didn't seem to listen.
—
A few hours before nightfall, the knight had simply stood there and watched her disappear into the crowd. He had wanted… no, he had needed to chase after her, but duty held his feet to the ground like chains. He didn't know what she had done to him, or why, but something inside his chest shifted. A quiet tug. An invisible pull toward her, like magnet drawing iron. An urge that told him he had to find her.
After the ceremony ended, he went back to the alley where he had last seen her. He already knew he wouldn't find her there, but still… a part of him hoped he might at least see her shadow. However, it was hopeless.
"Excuse me, have you seen a girl with white hair?" he asked the passersby. But no one had. Not a single soul remembered her.
Eventually, he began to wonder if he had imagined her or worse, as if she was a ghost. Yet when he looked down at his hand, he could still remember the way she felt. Her skin was cold, almost fragile, like touching something that wasn't meant to belong to the living.
Maybe he was simply exhausted. Since returning from the war, none of the knights had been given proper rest. They had been ordered to stand guard along the main street to welcome the crown prince home, every soldier who had survived the battlefield lined up like decorations for the cheering crowd. Even after the welcome ended, he searched the streets until late into the evening, but she was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, the knights were dismissed. Those who had gone to war were allowed to return home. But Daeron mounted his horse and rode straight toward the forest, toward the quiet wooden house he had built with his own hands. As the sun disappeared and the forest grew darker, he saw something; a faint, glowing light drifting faster between the trees… then vanishing like mist. It happened so quickly.
Daeron frowned and shook his head. "I must be losing my mind," he muttered, urging his horse onward.
When he reached home, he wasted no time drawing a cold bath. It had been so long since he'd felt truly clean. Afterward, he cooked a simple meal and sat down to read. Though no one would ever imagine that the great warrior Daeron loved books more than wine or praise.
But even the words on the page could not distract him. Her face returned to him again and again. That pale skin, that white hair, like snow under moonlight. She looked like a doll carved too beautifully to be real. Almost dead, yet her lips had been the softest pink, proof that breath still warmed her lungs.
She has to still be somewhere in town, he thought. But why is a girl like that here? His jaw tightened as another thought struck him.
What if the royal family learns about her
A chill slid down his spine. No one knew their bloodlust better than he did. If they discovered her; fragile, strange, different… They would kill her.
He set the book aside. "I have to find her," and for the first time since the war ended, Daeron realized he finally had a purpose again.