Peniel
The feeling of being in the underground forest clung to me like a second skin, it’s just the sounds of his breath that I keep hearing as the moss-covered walls around us. My legs refused to obey me here, despite my healing gifts—ironic, since I could mend others, yet I was broken inside. I told him once, long ago, how saving others chipped away at me, piece by piece. This power of mine was a bitter gift.
And here I was, standing beside a man who called me his punishment, the one forced upon him for slaying his warrior. A man who, in the same breath, confessed he couldn't bear to lose me. Never his Princess Celestria, I reminded myself. I was merely a stand-in for the woman who haunted his every thought, a fleeting ghost to help him feel again, but never the real thing.
And yet, l
