At this time of year, Aria's village ought to be knee-deep in wheat that rippled like sunlight when the wind passed over. She remembered harvest festivals when she was a child: laughter in the air, ribbons wound around poles, songs sung as grain piled high in the barns. Those days felt like dreams now.

The stalks at her feet sagged, husks gray and shriveled. She crouched, fingers brushing across a brittle stem that snapped at her touch. The soil beneath was dry as ash. No amount of tending could coax life from it.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. She had come hoping for a miracle, but hope was in short supply these days.

"Any luck?"

The voice carried across the field, tentative. Aria turned to see her younger brother, Tomas, picking his way carefully along the furrows. His dark hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, though the sun was weak. He was fourteen, still gangly, though he tried to stand tall like their late father had.

She forced a smile. "Enough to stretch another few days." She held up a handful of withered grain, making it look heavier than it was.

Tomas's face lit with relief, and guilt stabbed through her. He wanted to believe her. Needed to.

The truth was cruel: there wasn't enough. Even if she ground every last stalk, they would barely have bread for two nights.

"We'll be fine then," he said, voice bright. "If the council keeps trading with the northern villages, we'll last till winter."

Aria dusted her palms against her apron. "If the northern villages still have grain to trade," she murmured. She didn't mean for him to hear, but his shoulders tensed anyway.

Everyone knew the truth. The famine wasn't just here. The land was sick.

And in the forest beyond their village, shadows had begun to stir.

──── ୨୧ ────

The path back wound between stunted apple trees that bore no fruit. The air carried the faint stench of rot even though the sky was clear. A flock of blackbirds wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and frantic.

"Do you think the stories are true?" Tomas asked as they walked.

Aria kept her eyes on the ground. "Which stories?"

"That the Shadow Prince is waking. That it's his curse killing the land."

The question made her stomach tighten. She'd heard those whispers her whole life. Children scared each other with them at night: tales of the monster king who lived in a palace of black stone, whose shadow stretched far enough to choke the crops, who demanded a bride every generation or the whole world would rot.

Folklore. Warnings meant to keep little ones from straying too close to the forest.

And yet…

The wheat, the livestock, the way darkness seemed thicker at the edge of the trees. The uneasy silence that had fallen over the nights lately, broken only by sounds no one wanted to name.

Aria glanced at Tomas. His face was pale, his mouth set in a thin line. He wasn't a child anymore. Lies would not comfort him for long.

She touched his arm gently. "Stories often grow in the telling. But something is wrong. We can't deny that."

He nodded once but didn't meet her eyes.

They passed the small shrine near the crossroads. Someone had left a bundle of wildflowers, already wilting. A prayer, perhaps. Or an offering.

Aria paused just long enough to straighten the bundle and whisper a wordless plea. It felt foolish—what good were prayers when the land itself seemed cursed?—but she couldn't help herself.

──── ୨୧ ────

The village square was already crowded when they arrived. Smoke curled from chimneys, though the air carried the sour tang of burned wood. Neighbors clustered together in knots, voices hushed.

At the center stood the angel statue, weathered by centuries. Its stone face was cracked, one wing chipped. Some claimed the statue had once protected the village from the Shadow Prince's wrath. Others said it only watched, powerless.

The heavy toll of the bell echoed through the air. Urgent. Ominous.

Aria's pulse stumbled. The bell meant the council had gathered. And the council never rang it unless the matter was dire.

She guided Tomas through the crowd until they found a place near the front.

On the raised wooden platform stood Elder Marrek, staff in hand. His hair was white, his shoulders bowed, but his eyes were sharp as iron. To his right stood the other council members, all equally grim.

When the final bell fell silent, Marrek lifted his staff. "People of Greythorne," he said, his voice carrying. "You know why we are here."

A ripple of unease moved through the crowd.

"The crops fail," Marrek continued. "Our livestock vanish. The monsters prowl ever nearer the forest edge. This is not the work of chance. It is the curse."

Murmurs broke out. "No—" "It can't be—" "It's only stories—"

Aria felt Tomas stiffen beside her. She clenched her hands together until her nails bit her palms.

Marrek's voice cut through the noise. "The Shadow Prince stirs in his palace. Twenty-five years have passed since he last walked, and the bargain that held him grows weak. If we do not act, the curse will spread until nothing remains."

The square erupted with shouts. Some cried in fear, others in anger. Mothers clutched their children. A man spat on the ground.

Aria's chest ached as if the air itself had turned heavy. The stories were supposed to be legends. Not truth.

"The bargain must be renewed," Marrek said, his staff striking the platform with a dull crack. "As it has always been. One bride must be given to the Shadow Prince."

The words hung in the air like a noose.

A bride.

Aria's heart slammed against her ribs.

The crowd broke like a wave crashing against stone.

"No—no, not again!" a woman's voice shrieked from somewhere near the front. "Not my daughter—please, not again!"

"They can't," another man spat, his fists shaking in the air. "That monster has no claim on us. Not anymore!"

Fear bled into anger, anger into despair. All around, voices rose and tangled until they formed an indistinguishable roar. Mothers pulled their daughters behind them, shielding them as if the very act might render them invisible. Men shouted at the council, demanding another way.

Aria stood rooted, Tomas clinging to her sleeve. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. A bride. The word clawed at her like cold fingers.

Elder Marrek didn't flinch as the shouts grew. He waited, staff planted firmly against the boards beneath his feet, eyes sharp as a hawk's. When silence finally returned in ragged, uneven patches, he raised his chin.

"You think we have a choice?" His voice cracked through the square like lightning. "You think we can bargain with famine? With death? The Shadow Prince demands what is his, and if we deny him, he will take far more than one bride. He will take every child, every soul, every field until only ash remains."

A heavy hush fell, broken only by the distant caw of crows.

Aria's heart beat so hard it hurt.

Was it true? Could one man's curse stretch across the land, rotting it from root to leaf? If it was only a story, why were the fields gray and brittle? Why had the woods grown so quiet at night, as though something darker than wolves prowled the undergrowth?

Her gaze flicked to Tomas. He was trembling, his lips parted. Too young for this. He should have been worried about chores and stolen apples, not brides and curses.

Aria bent close, her voice low. "Stay calm. Do you hear me? Whatever happens, we'll be together."

He nodded, though his grip on her sleeve tightened.

──── ୨୧ ────

A councilwoman stepped forward then—Elda, a sharp-eyed woman who had once been a midwife before her knees grew too stiff to climb stairs. Her face was lined, but her voice rang clear.

"We will follow the old ways," she said. "As our grandparents did, and theirs before them. One girl will be chosen, and in her sacrifice, the village will endure."

"Sacrifice?" someone barked. "That's murder!"

"No," Elda snapped. "That's survival."

A murmur spread through the crowd, heavy with dread.

Aria's throat was dry as sand. She wanted to shout, to demand why it always had to be this way—why the lives of girls were the price of peace. But her voice stuck like a stone in her chest.

Tomas whispered, "Aria… what if it's—" He stopped himself, but she heard the rest anyway. What if it's you?

She forced her expression steady. "Then it won't be."

But inside, her stomach twisted. Because she had seen the way fate liked to turn its cruel eye.

──── ୨୧ ────

The crowd slowly unraveled into smaller knots, people arguing, praying, weeping. Aria led Tomas away before the crush could swallow them. Her feet moved on instinct, carrying her toward the healer's cottage at the edge of the square.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of dried herbs. Bunches of thyme and sage hung from the beams, though their leaves were shriveled from the same sickness that touched the fields. The hearth smoldered low.

Her mother sat in a chair near the fire, hands folded in her lap, eyes distant. She had grown pale in recent years, her body weakened by an illness Aria could only ease, never cure.

Aria knelt beside her. "Mama. Did you hear?"

Her mother's gaze flicked toward her, sharp with pain and memory. "Of course I heard. The bells carry through every wall."

Silence stretched. The fire popped.

Then her mother reached for her hand and squeezed it, surprisingly strong. "It must not be you."

Aria swallowed. "We don't know how they'll choose—"

"I don't care how." Her mother's voice cracked like glass. "You are not his bride."

The words struck deep. As if her mother could will it so. As if sheer force of love might protect her.

Aria bent her head, resting it against her mother's arm. She wanted to promise. Wanted to say she would never be taken, never step foot in that cursed palace. But lies pressed bitter on her tongue.

She stayed like that a while, listening to the fire crackle, listening to her mother's breath.

Until a knock at the door pulled her upright.

──── ୨୧ ────

It was Mira, the baker's wife, carrying her small son on her hip. The boy's face was flushed, his breaths ragged.

"Aria," Mira begged, her voice breaking. "He's burning up. Please—"

Aria ushered her in quickly, guiding her to the bed by the window. She pressed her palm to the boy's forehead. Heat radiated against her skin. Too hot.

"How long has he been like this?"

"Since morning. The fever climbed so fast. The herbs I had did nothing."

Aria glanced at the shelves, already knowing what she would find: empty jars, wilted sprigs. Supplies that had dwindled as the sickness spread and the land refused to grow more.

She swallowed hard. "I'll make a poultice. It might ease him."

Mira's eyes glistened with tears.

Aria set to work, crushing what herbs remained, mixing them with water warmed over the fire. As she worked, she forced her hands steady. She couldn't give in to fear now—not with a life depending on her.

When she laid the cloth against the boy's skin, he whimpered but stilled, his breath easing a fraction. Relief flickered across Mira's face.

"You're a blessing, Aria," she whispered.

Aria managed a smile, though it felt thin. She wasn't a blessing. She was only doing what little she could in a world unraveling at the edges.

And if the council chose her… who would tend to children like this? Who would keep her mother alive?

The thought made her chest ache.

──── ୨୧ ────

By the time Mira left, the square outside had grown quieter. People had gone home to shutter their doors, as though walls could keep the curse at bay.

Aria stood at the window, watching smoke curl into the twilight sky.

The Shadow Prince. The words were heavy, sour. A monster from bedtime stories, now spoken as fact by the council. A figure of nightmare who demanded brides in exchange for peace.

And somewhere in the forest, beyond the line of trees where the last light of day faded, she thought she saw something shift. A ripple in the darkness, too large for a fox, too fluid for a deer.

Her breath caught.

Nothing. Only shadows.

But the air felt colder.