Chapter one: Whispers Beneath the Moon

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# Cursed Heart

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The night spread itself across Ebonvale like a velvet shroud. Clouds clung to the stars, and the moon, half-veiled, cast a pale, ghostly glow over the trees. The forest was alive with the rustle of unseen creatures, the groan of branches bending in the cold wind, and the occasional flutter of wings from birds that should have been asleep.

Ash Crowhurst pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. The lantern in his hand threw out only the faintest circle of light, swallowed by the pressing dark. He wasn’t supposed to be here—his mother had warned him, as she always did—but something in his blood pulled him into the woods tonight, a tug that refused to be ignored.

Legends whispered that Ebonvale was cursed. That centuries ago, a betrayal had stained its soil and bound wandering souls to its roots. To walk too deep was to tempt fate itself. Ash didn’t believe in legends, not really. But he believed in the silence that hung like a blade, and in the way his heartbeat thundered when the shadows seemed to close in.

He wasn’t afraid of the forest.

He was afraid of what he might find.

A flicker caught his eye. At first, he thought it was a trick of the lantern. Then he saw her.

She stood where the fog was thickest, as if she had stepped out of it and belonged to it all at once. A girl, no older than him, with hair black as ink cascading down her shoulders. Her dress shimmered faintly, like the mist itself had woven it. But it was her eyes that held him captive—violet, luminous, sorrowful, as though they had seen centuries of night.

Ash’s breath caught.

She didn’t move, not at first. Just watched him, silent as a statue. The forest around her grew hushed, as if waiting for something—waiting for him.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said at last. Her voice was soft, lilting, but carried an undertone that made his skin prickle.

He swallowed hard. “Neither should you.”

A fleeting smile curved her lips, delicate but haunting. “You have a choice. I don’t.”

Ash frowned, stepping closer despite the weight in his chest urging him back. “What do you mean?”

The wind stirred suddenly, sweeping through the trees with a howl. His lantern guttered. Shadows swayed like restless spirits, and the girl’s hair whipped around her pale face. She didn’t flinch. She looked at him as though the storm was nothing compared to the storm inside her.

“Go home, Ash Crowhurst,” she whispered, and his name on her tongue felt like both a warning and a plea.

“How do you know my—” He stopped short.

But she was gone.

Vanished, as though she had never been there, leaving behind only the mist and the echo of her voice.

Ash stood rooted to the ground, heart pounding, his skin cold. The forest pressed in tighter than before, its silence suffocating. He turned in circles, searching, but there was nothing—no footprints, no sign of her. Just emptiness.

And yet he felt her. Deep in his chest. A strange pull, a heaviness. It was as if she had reached into him and left something behind.

By the time he stumbled out of Ebonvale, the moon had fully broken free of the clouds, bathing the world in silver. Ash’s lantern had long gone out, but he hardly noticed. He walked with her image burned into his mind: her eyes, her voice, her sorrow.

He knew, without understanding why, that his life had just changed forever.

And that the curse of Ebonvale was no longer just a story.

It was in him now.

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