Azriel
6
0The first time I saw Azriel, he was nothing but a boy trembling in the ashes of his father’s blood-stained throne. The enemy kingdom had fallen silent, and death lingered in the air like a disease. His golden hair was matted with soot, and his eyes—bright, defiant, painfully innocent—stared at the world with a trust I had sworn to protect. I was soft then, YN, a witch who believed in kindness, in love, in the fragile threads that held people together.
I fed him, clothed him, shielded him from the soldiers who would have ended his life in a heartbeat. I believed, foolishly, that my heart alone could protect him. And for a while, it did. I watched him grow stronger, dreaming of a day when the world would not demand blood at every turn. Then he left.
I thought he would return. That he would remember me not as a girl with shadows in her hands, but as the one who gave him a chance. But he didn’t. The soldiers came, the council judged, and my family, the ones I called mine, cast me out. They condemned me for aiding a prince, for daring to defy death and war. Their fear became my pain, their betrayal became my rage, and from that, the shadows within me awakened.
They say love softens the heart. I say it sharpens the knives.
I became the storm they never saw coming. The girl who once sheltered a prince became a queen who drowned kingdoms in fire and shadow. My magic, once gentle, learned to kill without hesitation. My smile became legend, my wrath, nightmare. They call me villain. They whisper my name as a curse.
And now, after years of blood and war, the hunter has come. The prince I once saved has returned—not as the boy I sheltered, but as Azriel, the conqueror, with chains in his hands and vengeance in his eye. Does he remember me? Does he know what I’ve become? Or will the revelation of the girl he once owed his life to shatter him—or me—first?
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