I. Ashes and Arrival
The city of Drevna was built on ruins, and so was she.
Asha stood at the gates in the rain, soaked in grief and shadow. Her black cloak clung to her skin like mourning silk. She had nothing left—no family, no past. Only a promise whispered in her dreams.
“I came to give you love,” the voice had said. Night after night. Always the same.
She followed that voice through fire and frost, across graveyards of memory, until it led her here—Drevna, the city of betrayal.
It was in Drevna that he lived.
The man who had once saved her.
The man who had once destroyed her.
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II. The Lover with a Mask
Lior was a legend in Drevna. A healer by day, a phantom by night. People came from across the provinces to seek his hands, his whispered cure. But none knew the man beneath the mask.
Only Asha knew.
Once, years ago, he had pulled her broken body from a pile of corpses after a rebellion. He nursed her, taught her, kissed her under a dying sun.
Then he vanished.
Left her to rot in a world she didn't understand.
But now she was reborn. Not Asha the girl.
Asha the shadow.
She wore a dagger beneath her dress. Not to kill him.
But to see if he still bled for her.
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III. Reunion in Crimson
He didn’t recognize her at first. How could he? The girl he abandoned had become a storm.
But when she looked into his eyes, something cracked.
"Asha?" His voice was a tremor.
"Is that what I was?" she replied, smiling like a blade.
He took her in that night. Fed her. Let her sleep in his clinic’s attic. He told her of the city’s decay, of the rulers who turned love into currency. Of the things he had to do to survive.
But he never told her why he left.
So she kissed him.
Deep, angry, electric.
And whispered against his lips, “I came to give you love.”
He kissed her back like a man drowning in regret.
---
IV. Threads of Fire
They became lovers again.
Night after night, wrapped in silken secrets. She traced the scars on his chest with her tongue. He whispered poetry into her collarbone. They were hungry for each other—because love, when reborn, is both beautiful and brutal.
But Asha didn’t trust him. Not fully.
Not yet.
She knew something still twisted in him. Some darkness he hadn’t named.
He always locked the west wing of his home. Always avoided speaking of the Council of Red—the ruling circle of Drevna.
So she began to dig.
And what she found buried her heartbeat.
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V. The Truth Beneath Flesh
Lior was no healer.
He was a maker of poisons. The Council’s private shadow. He cured the poor by day, and silenced rebels by night.
Including the man who once tried to free Asha’s village.
Her father.
He didn’t kill him—but he made the poison that did.
When she confronted him, he didn’t deny it.
“I was forced,” he said. “They had you. I did it to save you.”
Tears burned her eyes. “You saved me only to destroy me.”
His face shattered. “I was trying to come back. To fix everything. But every path led to blood.”
Asha raised the dagger.
“I came to give you love,” she said, voice cracking, “but I brought wrath too.”
He didn’t flinch.
“Then let it be both.”
---
VI. The Rebirth
She couldn’t kill him.
Instead, she made him a deal.
“Burn the Council with me,” she whispered, “and I’ll give you my love—unforgiving, eternal.”
He agreed.
They were no longer lovers in secret.
They became death wrapped in passion.
They poisoned the wine of the Council, assassinated the guards with needles dipped in kissroot, set fire to the Red Hall while dancing beneath its flames.
Together, they carved freedom out of tyranny.
And then, in the ashes, they made love like monsters reborn.
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VII. The Final Betrayal
Drevna knelt to no king or council after that.
But the city needed a leader.
The people crowned Lior—a healer, a savior.
Asha watched from the balcony, wearing crimson silk, her heart aching.
He smiled at her. Promised it would always be them.
But power is the sharpest betrayal.
He began to change.
He built towers.
Set new laws.
Banned certain people.
She saw him slowly become the very thing they had burned.
She confronted him in the throne room.
“You said you’d love me in the ashes.”
“I do,” he said, eyes dimming. “But I love this city too.”
She pressed the same dagger to his chest. “I came to give you love. But you keep choosing ruin.”
He cupped her face. “Then ruin me.”
---
VIII. Endings Are a Kind of Love
That night, she kissed him one last time.
And as he slept, she fed him the same poison he once gave her father.
He never woke.
The city mourned.
She vanished.
But in the underworld of Drevna, they say a woman in crimson walks the ruins, whispering a vow:
“I came to give you love.”
And every year, on the anniversary of his death, roses bloom blood-red on the palace steps.
