Where the ligth cannot reach

The days in Varrow’s End no longer followed the sun.

Ever since the veil tore, the skies above the city stayed trapped in a twilight haze, as if even the heavens were afraid to look down upon what had been unleashed.

Seraphina woke alone again.

But this time, a small, folded piece of parchment sat on her chest, pinned beneath another black rose.

She sat up slowly, heart hammering, and unfolded the note.

“Come to the Cinderwood. Midnight. Alone.”

There was no signature. There didn’t need to be.

Lucien’s darkness bled through every jagged line.

Seraphina rose, the black rose falling from her lap onto the floor with a soft thud.

She tucked the note into the pocket of her cloak and slipped silently into the misty streets.

The Cinderwood lay beyond the city’s bones — a twisted forest of ash-colored trees, where the ground was always too cold and nothing living dared stay long. It had been cursed during the last War of Shadows, or so the stories claimed. Some said the trees wept black sap at night. Others said worse things prowled between them, wearing the faces of lost loved ones.

But Seraphina had already made her choice.

At midnight, she slipped into the waiting arms of the Cinderwood, her dagger ready, her heart a battlefield.

The forest whispered to her as she moved, the dead branches brushing against her as if trying to hold her back. But she pressed on, following the faint silver thread of moonlight that seemed to guide her path.

She found Lucien waiting at the heart of the woods, standing before a ruined stone arch covered in thorns and ancient runes.

“You came,” he said softly.

“You asked,” she answered.

He smiled, but it was a sad, broken thing. “You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to, do you?”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Not if it means I stay with you.”

Lucien’s eyes burned. “Then come.”

He held out his hand.

Seraphina hesitated only for a breath — then placed her hand in his.

The stone arch pulsed with dark light as they stepped through, leaving the dying world behind — and entering a place where love and ruin were one and the same.

Whatever came next, Seraphina knew one thing with blinding certainty:

She was already his — and soon, she would belong to the darkness too.

Lucien’s kiss deepened, his hands tangling in her hair, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe. Yet Seraphina didn’t care. She wanted him closer. She wanted to drown in him, to erase the girl she had been before she met him — weak, afraid, alone.

When they finally broke apart, both gasping for air, Lucien pressed his forehead against hers, his chest heaving.

“You don’t understand what you’ve started,” he said, voice so raw it almost didn’t sound human. “Binding yourself to me… it’s a hunger that never ends. A chain that tightens with every touch, every look.”

Seraphina looked up at him, her fingers trailing along the scar on his cheek, a line carved by battles he never spoke about. “Then chain me,” she whispered. “I’m not afraid.”

Lucien let out a sound of pure anguish. “You should be. I was cursed long before you found me. There’s a darkness in me that even I can barely hold back. And if you stay…” His voice cracked, and he turned away as if the words tasted like ash. “I will destroy you.”

Seraphina stepped closer, refusing to let him retreat into his shadows.

“I would rather be destroyed by you,” she said, “than saved by anyone else.”

The confession hung between them like a blade, gleaming and irreversible.

Lucien’s hand trembled as he reached for her again, pulling her against him with a desperation that stripped away every mask he had ever worn. For a moment, there were no monsters, no curses, no broken vows — only two souls crashing against each other like waves against a crumbling shore.

“You are the cruelest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he breathed against her hair.

“And you,” Seraphina whispered back, “are the only thing that ever made me feel alive.”

A ragged sound escaped Lucien, half sob, half growl. He buried his face in the hollow of her neck, his hands gripping her so tightly she knew she’d wear bruises tomorrow. But she welcomed them.

She would wear every mark he left as proof that she had chosen this — chosen him.

In the distance, thunder rumbled over Varrow’s End, the sky bleeding gray into black. The veil was thin. The old magic stirred restlessly, recognizing what had begun between them.

They were no longer just man and woman, sinner and saint, monster and girl.

They were a bond written in pain and devotion, a love that would either defy fate — or be utterly consumed by it.

And as Seraphina clutched Lucien tighter, she knew she would never let him go.

Not until the darkness claimed them both.

To be continued.

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