Chapter one
The night was alive with whisper, though I could see no one. Only the blackened ruins of Varyn Castle, its jagged spires clawing at the moonlit sky. The stories had been wrong. Or maybe they had been true once, before the curse had frozen this kingdom in a nightmare of stone and silence. Either way, every step I took on the crumbling marble floor made my pulse pound in a rhythm that belonged to no one but me.
I should have been afraid. Every fiber of my being screamed that I was walking into a death trap. And I was. But fear alone had never stopped me before. Not when my family’s freedom hung on the edge of a knife, not when my brother's disappearance had left me with nothing but vengeance to fill the void.
“Keep your eyes open, Elara Thorne,” I muttered under my breath, my boots scraping against cracked tiles. My hand instinctively brushed the hilt of the dagger at my waist. This wasn’t just any mission. If I failed… if I hesitated… they would take them all, and I would be left with nothing.
Nothing!
I had heard the rumors. Everyone had. Rhaziel Varyn. The Stone King. A monster. A tyrant. A man whose touch could turn flesh to stone. They said he had killed armies, swallowed cities, and petrified entire towns with nothing more than a glance. Some claimed he was immortal. Some whispered he was already dead and only his shadow remained, haunting the land as punishment for sins no one could name.
I didn’t care about the legends. Only the target mattered.
My path took me through the grand hall, its ceiling caved in decades ago. sunlight long since banished by shadowed ruins. Statues... stone soldiers frozen mid-strike lined the corridors like silent witnesses to centuries of cruelty. Their expressions were grotesque, mouths open in silent screams. I fought a shiver that wasn’t just from the chill.
I was close. I could feel it. The air shifted, heavy and thick, almost as if the castle itself had drawn a breath and was holding it. My hand tightened around the dagger.
And then I saw him.
He was seated on a throne carved from black stone, impossibly tall, his presence alone demanding attention. Darkness seemed to bend around him, and yet there was a magnetism I could not deny, a pull that made my skin prickle. His eyes... silver flecked with black, fixed on me, and in that instant, I understood why he was feared. He did not move to attack; he simply watched.
And yet I felt it. The weight of his gaze pressed against me, heavy, suffocating. Every of my instincts screamed to run, to strike, to flee! but I did none of those things. I was frozen, not by fear, but by the magnetic certainty that I had never encountered anything. Or anyone, like this before.
“Do you know why you are here?” His voice was low, a growl that vibrated in the floor beneath my feet. The castle seemed to respond to him, a subtle tremor through the stone tiles.
“Yes,” I managed to whisper. “I’ve come to...”
He tilted his head. One perfectly arched brow lifted, and suddenly I felt absurdly naked under his scrutiny.
“Kill me.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them. He was staring at me, unflinching. And then he did something I had never imagined possible: he stood. Not with the clumsy power of a man preparing for battle, but with the fluidity of a predator, controlled, precise. The air in the room seemed to bend around him, and my fingers tightened on my dagger.
I lunged.
I had trained for this my entire life, every swing, every feint practiced until instinct and muscle were one. My dagger should have found its mark. It should have plunged through him, ending the mission before it had truly begun but...
It did not!
His hand shot out, impossibly fast, and caught my wrist mid-strike. My breath caught in my throat. Not from fear, not from surprise, but from the impossible truth: I did not turn to stone.
I looked at him, eyes wide. His silver-black gaze bore into mine, and I saw something flicker there. Curiosity. Astonishment. Something dangerous and unspoken.
“You… you are not like the others,” he said, voice low, almost a growl of disbelief. “No one has survived a touch.”
“I…” My throat closed. I had no words. All my training, all my preparation, and now I was reduced to a shivering, uncertain girl facing a man who could have ended me with a single gesture.
He released my wrist but did not step back. His eyes lingered, fixed on me as if he were measuring, weighing, determining something I could not comprehend. “Interesting,” he said finally. “Very interesting.”
I stumbled back, regaining some composure, but I could not tear my gaze away. He was impossibly tall, impossibly broad, and every inch of him radiated danger. Yet, there was something else something buried beneath that lethal presence. Pain. Loneliness. A hunger I could feel but not name.
I needed to escape. I had to. My family’s lives depended on it. But something in the depth of his gaze, something primal, rooted me to the spot.
''You are…” he paused, as if tasting the word. “…alive.''
''I...'' My voice caught. ''I came to..."
“To kill me,'' he finished, his smile faint, almost sad. ''I expected that.''
Then, in a motion too fast to follow, he stepped closer. I stumbled backward, my hand instinctively raising the dagger again. But his presence filled the room, a tangible force pressing against my chest, and I found that the words, the strikes, the mission...all of it felt suddenly… inadequate.
“Do you know what happens if I touch you?” His voice was a whisper, yet it rolled over me like thunder.
“Yes,” I said, almost too quickly. “I… I survive.”
He raised a brow, amusement flickering briefly across his otherwise unreadable features. “Survive? Or are you… compatible?” The word hung between us, impossible to define, yet undeniably heavy.
My stomach twisted. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. I only knew that the air around him seemed to hum with danger and promise. And that I wanted to run, even as my legs refused to move.
“I… I don’t know what you mean.”
He stepped closer again, the faintest sound of his boots echoing in the vast, broken hall. The air quivered. The stone soldiers lining the walls seemed almost alive under his gaze. “Perhaps I will find out,” he said, low, a smile curving his lips in a way that made my heart stutter. “Perhaps you will show me.”
I wanted to scream. I wanted to strike. I wanted to run. And yet… I could not. Something in his presence, something in the dark pull of his eyes, kept me rooted.
“You... should leave stay away from me, I..." I managed to whisper, voice trembling despite my effort to sound steady and made to leave.
He tilted his head, studying me. “You cannot go. Not yet.”
My pulse hammered in my ears. Every instinct screamed danger. And yet, for the first time in my life, I hesitated. Because I had glimpsed something in him. A vulnerability beneath the terror. A loneliness beneath the monster. And a hunger for connection that was terrifyingly… human.
“You will be my prisoner,” he said finally, his voice resolute. “Not because I wish to harm you, but because I must understand why… you are immune.”
I swallowed hard. Prisoner? No! I must leave... My mission. My family. And yet… his presence wrapped around me like a vice, thrilling and suffocating all at once.
I wanted to resist. I wanted to fight. I wanted to complete my mission and avenge my brother. But every fiber of my body screamed that tonight, the battle was no longer just about life and death. It was about something darker, something forbidden.
And I had no choice but to step into the unknown. He didn't wait for the words that was stuck in my throat to come out before holding my wrist to pull me away.
The last thing I saw before he led me away through shadowed corridors was the ruin of the throne room, the silent stone soldiers, and the glimmer in his eyes. A spark of something ancient, powerful, and utterly dangerous.
Something that would change my life forever.
