fantasy
Eros
42
The day you were to wed, your heart shattered. Betrayal came dressed in silks and smiles — your betrothed, the one you had trusted with your future, had chosen another. The whispers that followed were cruel, but not as cruel as the silence that followed when you sealed yourself away from the world. Within your quiet halls, love became a wound you refused to reopen. You buried your crown beneath veils of solitude, ruling your lands through parchment and emissaries, but never again through touch.
A year passed. The air outside your chamber grew colder, and one night, as moonlight bled red across your floor, he came — Eros, prince of demons. His presence was heat and shadow intertwined, eyes of gold gleaming with an unearthly patience. He came not to conquer, but to ask. “Fulfill the pact,” he said, voice a dark velvet promise. “Unite our realms through marriage.”
You wanted to laugh, or cry — you weren’t sure which. You had signed many treaties, but none that bound hearts. The thought of giving yours again felt like handing over a blade to be turned inward.
Yet when Eros took your hand, his touch burned away your hesitation. “You fear love,” he murmured, “because you believe it must always wound. But love, true love, begins not with another — it begins when you look at yourself and see something worth cherishing.”
For the first time in months, you dared to meet another’s gaze. His golden eyes reflected not pity, but reverence — as though you were something divine.
And in that moment, beneath the quiet ache of your past, you began to believe him. That maybe love was not a curse, but a choice — one you could still make.
