The King was wrathful and unforgiving. Kaelan had been summoned to the royal court under the guise of some diplomatic matter, only to face his father's wrath. The King's cold eyes, merciless, pierced into the heart of his son as he declared that Kaelan had to abandon the witch at once, or he would banish him.
Kaelan, his heart a storm of rebellion and love, refused. He would not be swayed. But his defiance came at a terrible price. King Darian, with the cruelty of a monarch who had never known love, exiled his son from the kingdom, stripped him naked and bare of his title and fortune. The Prince was cast out into the wilderness, his only companions the biting winds and the howling wolves.
And so was Elara left behind, cut off from her one true love. The King had stripped away everything once hers. Power, purpose, and heart lay crushed before her. She stood at the edge of the forest as Kaelan's silhouette disappeared into the distance, knowing her bond to him was now and forever severed, perhaps.
But despair was not her path. No. Elara's heart burned with the memory of his touch, and in the shadows of her grief a new hunger awoke. She would fight. She would not let the King's tyranny steal her love.
Elara set off into the dark of the forest, her spirit bent upon redemption as it sought out the ancient powers that once streamed from them to her-those that lived at the heart of the wilderness, a place where even light did not venture. There, in the sunless places where time and reality bend, she found them-the beings that made her, the beings that whispered their power into her soul.
They presented her with a bargain: more power, more strength to shatter the chains that divided her from Kaelan. But it was a cost. A high one. They demanded a portion of her very soul, a sacrifice that would change her eternally.
Elara hesitated, but only for a moment. She had given so much already - what was one more piece? What was one more part of herself when her heart was already broken?
As she spoke the ancient words, the transformation began. Her eyes, once a soft green, turned black and chilling, the color of midnight. Her power surged, dark and intoxicating, and the forest itself seemed to bend around her will. But embracing darkness ensnared her, and it slowly consumed her. The more she used the new power, the more lost to herself she became. The whisper of guidance now became the cacophony of voices demanding more from her in the connection to the spirits. She had become something else, something darker than human.
It was worth it though-for Kaelan.