WHEN A MONSTER LOVES

CHAPTER TWO : THE CROWN OF THORNS

---

The dead woman was still warm.

Arla crouched beside the body, pale fingers pressing to the victim’s throat in some futile gesture of ritual, even though they both knew she wouldn’t find a pulse. Blood spread beneath the corpse like spilled ink, soaking into the gravel path that cut between the skeletal trees.

“She couldn’t have died more than twenty minutes ago,” Arla murmured.

Kael scanned the woods with narrowed eyes. Nothing moved. The forest was too quiet—no birdsong, no insects, not even the wind through the canopy. “Then whatever did this is still nearby.”

“She looks like she was reaching for something.” Arla tilted the woman’s hand. Her fingers were curled around empty air.

Kael looked at the face, once serene. Lips parted. Rose petals again. A single thorn lay across her tongue like a cruel joke.

Arla stood. “That’s two now. Two hearts ripped clean out. No struggle. No blood trail. Same damn flower.”

Kael didn’t reply. His gaze had drifted to the tree line.

He saw it.

A figure, watching.

It stood impossibly still between the trees, cloaked in shadow and fog. Its eyes shimmered like mirrors catching moonlight.

And then it was gone.

Arla turned. “What?”

“Something was watching us,” he said. “I saw it again.”

Again.

The same figure that had haunted him since the cathedral. Since the whisper. He didn’t know if it was the same entity, but it felt familiar — like breathing smoke from the same fire.

---

They buried the woman by the old well, marking her grave with a shard of stone. There were no prayers this time. Not even from Arla.

They walked the rest of the way into Thornmere beneath a sickle moon.

The village greeted them like a dying man — quiet, hollow, resentful of its own lingering life. Buildings sagged inward, their roofs bowed by age and rot. A few lanterns flickered behind shuttered windows, but no one came out to meet them.

“Smells like mildew and despair,” Arla muttered.

“No fires. No livestock. No children.”

“They’re hiding.”

Kael nodded. “Or they’re already dead.”

---

The tavern was the only building still open, its sign creaking overhead: The Hollow Bride.

Inside, it was darker than expected. A few candles on the bar, a single hearth with half-hearted flames, and silence.

All heads turned as Kael and Arla entered. Half a dozen villagers sat in silence, drinks untouched. Their faces were sallow, their eyes sunken. One woman held a rosary so tightly her knuckles were bone-white.

Kael stepped up to the barkeep, a tall man with gray-streaked hair and the look of someone who hadn’t slept in years.

“We need a room. And answers.”

The barkeep’s gaze flicked to Kael’s coat — the runes, the scars, the gleam of the blade.

“You’re hunters,” he said.

“Of a sort.”

The barkeep slid a key across the counter. “Room’s upstairs. End of the hall.”

Arla raised an eyebrow. “No questions?”

“No point,” he said. “You’re either going to die, or you’re going to make it worse. Same as the last ones.”

Kael leaned in. “Tell me about the woman with the crown of thorns.”

The barkeep stiffened. Silence dropped like an anvil.

A patron near the fire spat into the hearth and muttered, “You shouldn’t speak of her. Brings her closer.”

Another hissed through his teeth. “She hears. Always.”

“She was loved once,” someone whispered.

“Too deeply,” said another. “And look what it made of her.”

Kael’s voice was low. “What is she?”

The barkeep stared at him, eyes hollow. “She’s what happens when love festers.”

---

Upstairs, their room was small, cold, and smelled of rot. The single window overlooked the woods.

Kael sat on the edge of the bed, sharpening his blade. Arla paced like a caged animal.

“They know more,” she said. “They’re just too scared to say.”

Kael nodded. “That fear runs deep.”

“She wears a crown of thorns. Has eyes like mirrors. Rips hearts out and leaves roses behind. That’s not just a monster. That’s a curse.”

Kael stopped sharpening.

“What?”

He pulled the journal from his coat — the one taken from the earlier victim. The last entry again echoed in his mind:

She wears a crown of thorns. Her eyes are made of mirrors. I loved her once. I think I still do. God forgive me.

Arla read it over his shoulder. “So he knew her?”

“Or thought he did.”

“Do you think she’s… human? Or was it?”

Kael didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure. But something inside him — something deep — whispered: yes.

---

That night, Kael dreamed of fire.

He stood in the cathedral again, but now it burned. The stained glass melted in crimson streaks. The pews were ash. The altar wept blood.

And she was there.

The woman.

Tall. Terrible. Beautiful.

Her hair was black as storm clouds, her skin a pallid gold, and her eyes… gods, her eyes. Like polished mirrors, reflecting back everything — his face, his blade, his fear.

She wore a gown of torn lace and rusted chains. Thorns coiled around her brow like a queen of sorrow. Her feet didn’t touch the ground.

“Why do you hunt me?” she asked.

Kael couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

She stepped closer. Her voice was windy and weeping.

“Did you come to kill me, Kael?”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came.

Her hand lifted.

She touched his chest — over his heart.

And it burned.

---

He woke up gasping, sweat slicking his back.

Arla was already up, bow in hand.

“You screamed,” she said.

Kael stared at the window. Frost had bloomed across the glass, and a single rose lay on the sill.

Fresh.

Arla stared. “How did—?”

“No one got in,” Kael said.

“Then how—?”

Kael stood, heart pounding. “She knows we’re here.”

They found the third body just past dawn.

It hung from a tree behind the tavern, suspended by vines that hadn't been there the night before. The man’s eyes had been removed, and his chest was carved open with care. Another rose lay in his mouth.

Arla turned away to retch.

Kael just stared. The tree itself seemed to weep. The bark had split and bled sap like tears, and thorns had grown across its trunk overnight, curling in unnatural patterns — spirals, symbols, letters in an old, forgotten tongue.

Kael traced one with his fingertip, barely touching.

Old Veil script.

He hadn't seen it in years — not since the southern war, when witches still walked freely and the Veil between life and death had thinned to threads.

Arla spat on the ground. “This is no wild creature. This is a ritual.”

Kael’s voice was low. “This is a message.”

“To who?”

He didn’t answer.

Because he feared he already knew.

---

They burned the body, ignoring the glares from the villagers who watched from behind closed shutters. Kael knew they hated him for it. The old ways still held sway here, and fire was a desecration to them. But they didn’t understand what they were dealing with. Or maybe they did — and feared it too much to act.

Arla handed him a flask. “So. Want to talk about the screaming?”

Kael took a long drink, throat raw. “Dream.”

“Another one?”

“She spoke to me.”

“Same woman?”

He nodded.

Arla crouched by the ashes. “You’re sure it’s not just your guilt talking?”

Kael didn’t flinch. “What guilt?”

“You’ve been chasing monsters for years, Kael. You bury everything else, but I know the look. You saw something once — something that stayed.”

Kael stared into the fire. “What I saw loved me.”

Arla said nothing. The silence spoke for her.

---

Later, they returned to the tavern.

The barkeep said nothing. Just poured Kael a drink and nodded toward the corner, where an old woman in gray sat hunched over a cracked mug of tea.

“She was here before the curse,” he muttered. “Might speak to you. Or not.”

Kael approached the woman slowly.

She looked up, and her eyes startled him — clear, sharp, too knowing for her age. A dozen silver rings clinked on her fingers as she gestured to the seat opposite her.

“You’ve seen her,” she said.

Kael sat. “You know who she is?”

“I knew who she was.” The woman’s voice was brittle as parchment. “Before she drowned.”

Kael frowned. “Drowned?”

The woman nodded. “Sixty-two years ago. The Lady of Thornmere — daughter of Lord Harren. She was beautiful. Wild. The kind of beauty that curses itself.”

“What happened?”

“She loved a man beneath her station. A hunter. They were to run away. But the lord found out. Killed the man. Tossed his body into the Hollow Lake. She threw herself in after him.”

Kael felt something inside him twist.

The woman sipped her tea. “The villagers say she cursed herself. That grief turned her spirit foul. That love twisted into something monstrous.”

Arla had joined them now, listening with arms folded.

The old woman met Kael’s eyes. “But I think she came back because she still loved him. Still does.”

Kael leaned forward. “And now?”

“She walks the veil. Neither dead nor living. Her sorrow feeds on hearts. And she hates any love that survives.”

---

They left the tavern as the sun dipped behind the trees.

Kael walked alone for a time, down toward the lake. The fog was thick tonight — curling in tendrils along the path, brushing his boots like reaching fingers. He followed instinct more than memory, driven by a pull he couldn’t explain.

When he reached the Hollow Lake, he stopped.

It was mirror-still.

Not a ripple. Not a sound.

A woman stood on the water.

Not in a boat.

Not on a dock.

On. The. Water.

Kael’s heart still.

Her gown flowed around her like smoke. The crown of thorns glistened with dew or blood — he couldn’t tell which. Her face was pale, lips blue, and her eyes…

Still mirrors.

She didn’t speak.

She simply watched.

Kael stepped forward.

“Why me?” he asked.

The fog swirled.

“You came,” she whispered.

“I hunt monsters.”

“I was not always one.”

“I don’t care what you were.”

“You should.”

Lightning crackled silently in the clouds above. The lake’s surface trembled beneath her feet, yet she didn’t move.

“I loved him,” she said.

“I know.”

“Do you believe love can break the world?”

Kael hesitated. “Yes.”

She tilted her head. “Then you understand me.”

Kael took a breath. “I understand you need to stop.”

A pause.

A flicker in her eyes. Not anger. Not malice.

But grief.

“I can’t.”

The water beneath her shattered — and she vanished.

Kael stood alone, heart pounding, eyes searching the fog.

He wasn’t sure if she’d threatened him… or warned him.

---

Back in the village, chaos had broken loose.

The tavern’s windows had been shattered. The barkeep was missing. A villager screamed in the square, pointing at the well.

Arla met Kael at the base of the hill. Her hands were bloodied.

“She took a child.”

Kael’s blood ran cold. “Who?”

“A girl. Eleven, maybe twelve. Gone without a sound. No broken door. No signs of entry.”

He clenched his fists. “She’s escalating.”

“She left something behind this time,” Arla said, voice tight.

She held out her hand.

In it was a locket.

Kael opened it.

Inside was a portrait — hand-painted, faded.

A man and a woman. The woman in a green gown. The man is hunting leathers.

The same eyes.

The same smile.

The woman was the spirit.

The man was…

Kael.

No.

Not him.

But his face.

His ancestor.

Kael stared at the locket until the edges bit into his palms.

The paint was old, cracked with time, but the resemblance was undeniable. The man in the portrait could’ve been Kael’s twin—same dark hair, same scar just beneath the jawline. The woman stood beside him, hand resting lightly on his shoulder, her smile soft and sad.

“You recognize him,” Arla said quietly.

Kael nodded. “I think… I think it’s my great-grandfather. Corin Vale.”

“The one who vanished.”

Kael exhaled slowly. “I was told he disappeared during the Witchfall. No grave. Nobody. Just a whisper that he’d fallen in love with someone he shouldn’t have.”

“You think she’s the one?”

He said nothing.

Because he already knew.

---

They sat in the ruins of the chapel near the village edge, the one whose steeple had fallen inward like a broken spine. The sky had turned a sickly green-gray, and thunder rumbled in the distance, though no storm approached.

Arla sat with her knees drawn up, picking at her bowstring. Kael stood by the altar, the locket still clutched in his fist.

“She doesn’t kill at random,” he said.

Arla looked up. “No?”

“No. Think about it. Three victims. All young. All recent lovers, or in love. The girl she took—what do we know about her?”

Arla frowned. “Not much. The barkeep’s daughter. Quiet. Sickly. But… she was sweet on a boy from the next village over. Talked about running away with him. Her father didn’t approve.”

Kael met her gaze. “Sound familiar?”

“She’s killing echoes,” Arla murmured. “Reflections of her own story.”

Kael nodded. “She doesn’t want revenge. She wants remembrance.”

“And when she sees love in others…”

“She tears it out.”

---

The villagers refused to help.

Even after the girl’s disappearance, no one spoke up. No search parties. No torches lit. No prayers offered.

“It’s not cowardice,” Arla said, watching them retreat behind their doors. “It’s defeat. They’ve lived under her shadow too long.”

“Then we end it,” Kael said.

She turned to him. “You really think she’s your great-grandfather’s lover? After all this time?”

“I don’t think so.” His eyes were distant. “I know.”

Arla was quiet for a long moment. “Then maybe you’re the reason she’s still here.”

---

They followed the scent of roses.

It drifted through the forest like a trail of ghosts—sweet and cloying, unnatural. It led them past dead trees, across frozen streams, through hollows where the wind never blew. The deeper they walked, the quieter the world became.

Finally, they found it.

A glade.

And at its center: a grave of thorns.

A mound of earth, overgrown with vines and briars, with dozens—hundreds—of roses blooming across it. Fresh. Blood-red.

A single stone stood at the head of the mound.

Corin Vale.

Kael knelt beside it, his throat tightening.

“This is where she buried him,” he whispered. “She brought him here. After death.”

Arla approached carefully. “What does this mean?”

Kael traced the letters carved into the stone, old but still sharp.

“She loved him enough to preserve him. To mourn him for decades. To build her curse around his grave.”

He turned, eyes hardening.

“She’s not haunting this village.”

“She’s protecting this place.”

---

That night, Kael returned to the lake.

Alone.

He didn’t bring a blade.

Didn’t bring a lantern.

Just the locket.

The water was still as glass again.

And when she rose, she did not walk.

She floated—upward from the depths, her gown streaming like smoke underwater, her thorns catching moonlight. She did not speak at first. Just watched him.

He held out the locket.

“I know who you are.”

A pause.

Then: “Say it.”

“Your name was Elyria.”

Something in her face cracked.

A faint twitch. A flicker in the mirrors of her eyes. The water around her feet rippled.

“I remember you,” Kael said, voice low. “Your portrait hung in my house for years. My father used to whisper that you were cursed, that you dragged Corin into the lake to rot beside you. But they were wrong.”

“You came for me,” she whispered. “He promised he would.”

Kael shook his head slowly. “He didn’t. But I did.”

A silence stretched between them—thick with time, grief, and something too old to name.

She floated closer. The scent of roses hit him hard.

“I kept him safe,” she said, voice trembling. “They tore him from me. They said I couldn’t love him. But I did. I do.”

“I know.”

“And now they all love,” she hissed, “and they forget. They forget what love costs. What it takes. So I remind them.”

Kael took a step forward.

“You took a child.”

Elyria’s face twisted. “She would have run away. They would have died like us. Love is a knife. I tried to save her.”

“Where is she?”

Another silence. Then:

“In the hollow chapel. Beneath the altar. I didn’t hurt her.”

Kael exhaled.

“But I will,” Elyria said softly, “if you leave me.”

He froze.

“What?”

Her eyes shimmered. “You look like him. Sounds like him. Walk like him. I waited for him, Kael. For decades. Now I have you.”

He felt it now—the pull.

A thread of something ancient winding between his blood and hers.

The curse wasn’t just grief.

It was binding.

Elyria wasn’t just mourning Corin.

She’d tethered herself to his line.

To Kael.

---

Back in the village, Arla was already searching the chapel.

She found the hatch beneath the altar—sealed by rose vines.

She cut through them and pulled the girl free—dazed but unharmed.

Then she heard the whisper behind her.

“Why do you take what I love?”

Arla spun, arrow knocked and drawn before the whisper had finished echoing.

But there was no one behind her.

Only shadows coiled at the edge of the chapel’s ruined walls, deeper than they should’ve been — darker than the night outside.

The child whimpered in her arms, small fingers clutching Arla’s coat with desperate strength. Arla didn’t waste time searching the shadows. She shouldered the girl and ran.

The chapel groaned behind her as the curse stirred.

Roses bloomed on the broken pews, fast and furious, petals opening with soft, wet sighs. Vines writhed along the stone like serpents.

And behind her, the voice came again — soft, sorrowful, wrong.

“You always take them from me…”

---

Kael ran.

He’d felt the pull in his blood — a lurch in his gut like gravity had twisted. Elyria had vanished from the lake in a rush of petals and wind, and he knew where she was going.

Back to the chapel.

Back to the girl.

Back to Arla.

His boots pounded the forest trail, mist breaking around him like waves. Thorned vines reached from the trees, tearing at his coat, but he didn’t slow.

He reached the chapel just as Arla burst from the door, the child in her arms, breath ragged.

“Go!” she shouted.

Kael caught the girl, swinging her into his arms.

“Where is she?”

Arla didn’t answer.

She just turned and drew another arrow.

Elyria stepped from the shadows.

She was no longer floating.

She walked now — slowly, with deliberate grace, as if the ground bent for her. Her gown trailed behind her like fog. Her eyes were brighter than ever, the mirrors shimmering with memories that didn’t belong to this world.

“Don’t hurt her,” Kael said, voice low.

Elyria tilted her head. “I never wanted to hurt any of them.”

“You killed three.”

“They were echoes,” she said, almost defensively. “They would’ve suffered. Like we did.”

Arla moved to stand between Kael and the specter. “What do you want?”

Elyria’s gaze fixed on Kael.

“I want him.”

Arla’s jaw clenched. “He’s not Corin.”

“No,” Elyria whispered. “But he carries him.”

She took another step, roses blooming in her wake.

“You look at me the way he did. You speak like he did. You came when he did not. That means something, doesn’t it?”

Kael stepped forward, slowly placing the child down behind him.

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “I do carry him. But that doesn’t mean I’m his. And it doesn’t mean I belong to you.”

Elyria’s face twisted — not with rage, but anguish.

“Then why did you come?”

“To end this.”

Her breath caught.

“You came to kill me?”

Kael nodded, but there was grief in it.

“You’ve suffered enough. But this thing you’ve become — it’s not love anymore.”

“I don’t know what else I have!” she screamed.

The sky split.

The roses shrieked.

Thorns burst from the ground around them, lashing in every direction. Arla fired her arrow — it whistled through the vines and struck Elyria in the shoulder. She barely flinched.

Kael drew his blade.

“I don’t want to do this.”

Elyria stepped forward, pulling the arrow from her flesh without bleeding.

“Then don’t.”

“You’re killing innocents.”

“I’m saving them,” she snapped. “From love that ends in ruin. From devotion that turns to dirt. From promises that fade.”

Her voice broke.

“I was beautiful once. I was loved. Then he died, and I was forgotten. I won’t be forgotten again.”

Kael's voice cracked. “He didn’t forget you. He died loving you.”

Elyria