Diary Entry My eighteenth winter
The moon hangs high in the sky, her light casting eerie shadows on the snow below my window. But her presence holds little comfort. I can still smell the blood. My heart pounds in my chest, remembering the massacre that was my wedding only hours ago. He came for me.
A beast.
He tore through them all, even the elder who was to marry me to that monster. I had never seen such formidable magic. The raw power, the sheer brutality. And yet, beneath the horror, there was something else, something careful. Protective.
I should be terrified, and I am, but there’s also a strange sense of relief washing over me.
The life of misery and abuse I would have known was snatched away in a single, blood-soaked evening.
I can’t shake the images from my mind—his fierce incantations, the crackling energy, the devastation he wrought.
But alongside those memories is the way he spoke.
He stepped toward me and held out his hand, slow and certain.
“You can come with me,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
And for the first time in my life, I felt like I had a choice.
I don’t know where this path will lead us, but for the first time in forever, I feel a spark of hope. The beast has set me free, and though the future is uncertain, I am not alone. I can even feel him now, watching over me. He will keep me safe. It is a promise I cling to, a beacon in the dark.