Seraphine, whose heart was as wild and untamed as the forests she wandered. She was known across the realm of Elarith not for her power, nor beauty—though she had both—but for her strange, unshakable curse: she could never walk a path and arrive where she intended. No matter how carefully she mapped her journey, no matter how often she asked the stars for guidance, the road would shift beneath her feet. She would end up in forgotten ruins, haunted cliffs, or places that didn't exist on any map.

Some said it was the gods playing tricks. Others whispered she was marked by something ancient. But Seraphine knew the truth: it was her past, always whispering, always pulling.

And love? She had tried. Oh, how she had tried. Gentle poets, daring rogues, even noble knights had offered her their hearts. Each time, she had accepted. Each time, she had believed. But like her cursed footsteps, love never led her where she wished to go. It always veered off course, leaving her more lost than before.

So Seraphine stopped trying. She stopped walking for others. She wandered alone, letting fate mislead her wherever it pleased.

Until the day she stumbled upon the mist-covered lake of Valemir.

The path had begun like any other—meant to lead to the markets of Lyswen, where she’d planned to sell charms and dried herbs. But the trees grew taller than they should, the moss thicker, the air wetter. When the path disappeared entirely under a blanket of silver fog, she didn’t fight it. She simply followed the sound of the water.

That’s where she saw him.

He stood on the edge of the lake, cloaked in black, but not from shadows or sorrow. He had the posture of someone who didn’t need to look over his shoulder. Seraphine meant to walk past quietly. But the man turned and met her eyes.

“You’re far from where you meant to be,” he said with a knowing smile.

She froze. “So are you.”

“No,” he said. “This is exactly where I meant to be.”

Seraphine narrowed her eyes. “And you think I didn’t mean to be here?”

He tilted his head. “I think you’re like a compass that spins too fast.”

Seraphine found herself smiling despite herself. “And who are you to judge my direction?”

He stepped closer, eyes the color of storm clouds—deep, thoughtful, with a flicker of danger. “My name is Caelum. I don’t judge. I wait.”

She raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“You.”

Seraphine should have walked away. Gods knew she’d been charmed before. But there was something in his voice—something that didn’t tug at her heart like a flame, but grounded her like stone. She found herself staying. For a night. Then two. Then a week.

Caelum lived in a small stone cottage hidden in the thickets beyond the lake. He cooked without asking what she liked. He left books on her windowsill that matched the thoughts she hadn’t spoken aloud. He spoke little of his past, but never flinched when she spoke of hers—of the men who had promised forever and vanished, the friends who only stayed when they needed something, the family who called her cursed and shut their doors.

“I don’t want to be fixed,” she warned him once, when they sat beside the fire.

“Good,” he said, without hesitation. “I don’t love broken things because I want to mend them. I love what survives the breaking.”

But love does not bloom quietly in cursed soil.

The past began to whisper again.

At first, it was in dreams—faces she hadn’t seen in years, voices full of sweet lies. Then it grew louder. She would see footsteps in the mud behind her, but when she turned, no one was there. Candles would go out on their own. Mirrors would fog when she wasn’t near them.

And always, always, the voice.

“Do you think this one will stay?” it would murmur in the wind. “They never do. You are a road that leads nowhere.”

Caelum noticed her sleepless nights, the way she clutched her pendant like a blade. He didn’t push. But one evening, as the rain drummed against the windows, he said gently, “Your ghosts are speaking louder. Let me face them with you.”

She looked at him then—not the way one looks at a lover, but the way one looks at a door they’ve never dared open.

“They aren’t just ghosts,” she said. “They’re parts of me. The pieces I buried.”

He stood, walked to her, and placed a hand over her heart. “Then let’s dig them up together.”

Together, they returned to the paths Seraphine had avoided for years. The grave of her first love, who had vanished into the forest during a storm and never returned. The ruins of a home she’d once shared with someone who claimed to love her only in daylight. The hollow tree where she had carved promises with someone who left the next day.

At each place, the whispers grew. But Caelum never wavered.

“She lies,” they said. “She leads men astray.”

“She will leave you lost,” another hissed.

“She is not worth the fight,” one sobbed.

At the edge of the ruined home, Caelum looked at her and said, “Tell me the truth. All of it. Even the worst.”

So she did.

She told him how sometimes she didn’t love the men she claimed to. How sometimes, she let them fall for a version of her that wasn’t real. How sometimes, she wondered if she was the one who disappeared first—emotionally, spiritually—even if her body stayed.

When she finished, she braced for silence.

But Caelum only said, “That’s the most honest map you’ve ever drawn.”

They returned to Valemir, her heart lighter, but not unburdened. The whispers did not stop, but they changed.

They no longer accused.

They warned.

One night, as Caelum slept beside her, Seraphine walked to the edge of the lake. The moon was high, her reflection strange and flickering.

“You can’t have both,” the whisper said. “Love and freedom.”

“I never asked for both,” she whispered back.

“You did the moment you let him stay.”

She clenched her fists. “Why now? Why must I choose again?”

The voice did not answer. But the lake began to glow.

From the center rose a figure—her own, but not.

It was the Seraphine who had never taken wrong paths, who had married early, who lived a quiet, predictable life.

“You could still be me,” the figure said. “No more wandering. No more pain. Choose the life where love doesn’t hurt.”

Seraphine stepped forward. “You mean the life where love is easy because it never goes deep.”

The figure smiled sadly. “Isn’t that enough?”

Behind her, Caelum stirred, as if he sensed something.

Seraphine turned back to the lake. “No,” she said softly. “I’d rather walk lost beside someone who sees me—truly sees me—than live a life where I’m invisible, even to myself.”

The reflection faded. The glow dimmed.

The whispers were gone.












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