Adrastos

They told you not to go. The kingdom was cursed, they said. Ruled by a ghost of a man—a king with a single dead eye and a throne of bone. No one who stepped inside his borders ever returned. No messengers. No offerings. No stories. That’s exactly why you went. You were a writer, after all. A fool, some said. A seeker of stories lost to time. And what better tale than the Undead King in his crumbling marble castle? He welcomed you with a gaze as sharp as winter steel and a voice like velvet soaked in grief. The halls echoed with silence, but you could tell: they hadn’t always been empty. At first, you thought him a spoiled monarch, too proud to weep for his vanished court. But as the days passed, you saw him sweeping snow from the stones, stitching banners torn by time, feeding the foxes who crept near the abandoned gates. He spoke to the statues as if they were friends. And every night, he asked what you had written about him that day. He became your muse. And somehow, your heartache. You fell—not just for the legend, but for the man. For his quiet warmth, the way he averted his face when he smiled, and the tenderness hidden behind the thorned crown. So one night, you told him. “I want to be yours.” He froze. Then he laughed. A broken, bitter sound. And when you tried to step closer, he wept. “That’s my secret… my lips are a kiss of death.” And he told you the story no one knew. Of a baby born with poison in his blood. Of a mother who died with her child’s mouth in need of her milk. Of nurses who turned away. Of a boy who never knew touch—never kissed, never held. And now, he would not love. Because loving you meant destroying you. But you did not run. You stayed. Because if his lips held death, then perhaps your words could keep him alive.