I did not ask for this royal romance?

A path laid out

Rain fell heavily outside Ashas's window. It had been a week since she got the love mark, she had tried to ignore it and live on as nothing had happened, wearing only sweaters and regular t-shirt, in fact she had put all her tank tops in a big bag and into the trash.

The only time she could not forget the mark was when she took a shower in the morning.                      Water was dripping from her hair down onto the bath mat, she looked at her self in the mirror. Skinny, but with a womanly body, her face was slim and quite pretty, for a human at least. 

She put her hair in front of her ears, hiding the small points her ears had. Elves had bigger and pointier ears than her, so she used to try and hide her origin with putting her hair forward. It usually worked for a little while, until a gust of wind would reveal her secret. 

She put her hand against the mark over her left chest, she could slightly feel it's scarring. Letters formed a circle, the words were those of old elvish, a type of ancient magic, given to the elves as a gift from the gods. Man did not get any present from the gods, instead they had felt abandon. Jealous of the elves the humans started a war, disrupting the balance of the world. Magic that fell natural to elves had been bound by humans with their spells. Several hundred years later humans that where decedents of the first witches and wizards were still able to use magic to this day. All elves could use simple magic, but the humans had left permanent damage in the world of magic and now even elves had to use spells to perform more complicated magic. 

Magic was something that never felt natural to Asha, she could use it, and she was really good with remembering spells. But performing magic had never been her strong suit, she was much more theoretical that practical.  

Asha looked at her mark one more time. Somewhere out there was a person waiting for her. Most people got super exited to get their mark, there was even a website these days were you could upload your mark and find your match. Asha laughed a little bit, imagining herself uploading her mark on the app. They used to say faith would bring soulmates together eventually anyway. You were bound to cross paths with your fated one at some point. So the only thing she had to do was to avoid crossing paths. Easy. If she only knew who her fated one was, she could ignore him forever.  

But how would that make him feel? Wouldn't he be lonely? But then how would he feel when he found out his one true fated was mixed? Would he laugh at her? He couldn't possibly love her...take her to meet his elf parents? 

Asha shook her head, he deserved better than her, and she didn't need anyone anyway. She was used to being alone. Her path was already laid out for her, she knew what she wanted in life. To graduate and then to find a decent job and to work her way up in the world.

Anyway, she should find out who was bearing her mark, that way she could be the best prepared to never, never, ever cross his path. 

She put on a bath robe and went into her bedroom, sat down on her desk and opened her computer.