Let's get something clear before we begin.

This is not a love story.

Yes, there is romance. It may sneak in when you least expect it, maybe even hit hard when emotions run high, but it will never be the centre of the tale. It's a thread, not the fabric. If you're here solely to read about soulmates exchanging vows under a blood moon or lovers kissing under falling stars within the first few chapter... you might be in the wrong place.

This is a story about survival. About clawing your way through pain, grief, and the things that try to swallow you whole. About strange beasts, fractured lands, magic that hums like a heartbeat under the surface, and a world that is as beautiful as it is cruel. There will be blood, there will be screaming. There will be choices that break people. There will be moments of peace too, laughter, warmth, the quiet safety of found family when you least expect it.

But love, romantic love, is not the goal here. It is not the destination, and it most certainly is not the solution.

This book is built on grit and endurance. On running when everything is chasing you, on standing still when it hurts the most, and on carrying others when they can't carry themselves. If that sounds exhausting already, you're not wrong. But it's real. At least in this world, it is.

Now, if you're the kind of reader who loves watching characters change slowly, painfully, truthfully, if you like peeling back the layers of a broken world, if you don't mind waiting for the kiss because you're too busy holding your breath in the middle of a battle or whispering "don't die" under your breath during a storm, then you're exactly where you need to be.

You'll notice the silence between lines. The tension in glances. The way fingers twitch or falter or reach out and don't quite touch, and maybe, just maybe, someday that'll become something more. But not yet.

This book isn't written with the pacing of a soft romance novel. It's structured with the bones of adventure and the heartbeat of fantasy. Its spine is made of danger, of daring, of fear. And every so often, romance might wander into the scene like a ghost, present, lingering, but not always acknowledged.

Characters in this world do not fall in love because they are meant to. They fall in love, if they do at all, because they survive long enough to. Because after everything they've been through, something in them still dares to hope.

So yes, you may ship. You may yearn. You may ache.

But don't read this expecting an easy romance arc.

Don't flip pages waiting for someone to whisper sweet nothings on the fifth chapter.

This world will give you scars before it gives you kisses. It will tear at your heart before it heals it. If you're still here, if you're willing to hold on despite that, then you might just find the kind of love that was worth bleeding for.

And one more thing, this book is for the patient. The reader who doesn't mind watching the world unfold slowly, who understands that connection is earned and trust takes time. There will be action. There will be magic. There will be heartbreak, mysteries, wild creatures, cities etched into cliffs, forgotten gods, and broken things still trying to be whole.

This is a fantasy epic. Romance, when it arrives, is a quiet companion on the road, not the path itself.

If you're impatient, if you're looking for fast-moving plot points, immediate gratification, or constant action, this might not be the story for you either. Let me explain.

I don't like short chapters.

Short chapters tend to feel rushed to me. Fast. Like we're sprinting through a world instead of sinking into it. Like we're brushing past moments instead of living in them. Because of that, the chapters in this book are long. Expect 6,000 to 8,000 words, maybe more depending on what needs to be said. (This goes for wattpad only, since tapas has a character limit, each chapter here is 1500-2000 words long. Check out my wattpad page for longer chapters.)

That also means this story takes its time. It lingers. It builds. Characters don't simply do things, they think about them, struggle with them, take five or six chapters to reach the moment you might've expected back in chapter one. That's intentional. Every moment matters. Every line is placed to tell you something, even the ones that seem soft, mundane, or quiet.

This is not a fast-paced book. It's a slow burn, in emotion, in action, in everything.

So if you're the kind of reader who likes things to move quickly, who wants a snappy pace, this story probably won't satisfy you. You will grow frustrated. You might find yourself saying, "Why haven't they done this yet?" And to that I'll say: because they're not ready. Because they're human (or something close to it). Because they need time, and so does this story.

I like to drag things out.
I like to explore.
I want you to feel the heat of the sun, the weight of the silence between two characters, the sound of the forest breathing when no one's speaking. I want you to notice the way someone clenches their jaw before they lie, the way someone always looks at the sky when they think of someone they lost.

I write every detail with purpose. And I do mean every detail.

So here's another warning: pay attention. The small things matter. That throwaway line from chapter three? That look exchanged at the edge of a cliff? That weird animal noise that didn't make sense at first? It all matters. Some of it won't come back for twenty chapters. Some of it will shift the entire narrative without a single word explaining it. Because I trust you to pick it up. I trust you to notice.

This isn't a story you skim.

This is a story you read. Slowly. Intentionally. Fully.

There will be action. Magic. Blood. Gods. Creatures you've never seen. Worlds that shimmer with life and beauty, and just as many that rot with cruelty and silence. There will be characters who scream, who cry, who say the wrong thing when they should've said the right one. There will be hurt. There will be softness, too, fleeting and fragile, but there. Always there.

This is your formal warning, and your only one.
If you flip past this, you've no right to complain about the lack of flowers and candlelight.
There are no saviors on white horses here, just people walking through hell and hoping they make it out.

Still here?

Good.

You're ready.

Let's begin.

Yours truly, 

Mala . Aid