Prologue: The Cursed Bride!
The night was thick with mist, clinging to the mountains like breath upon glass. Lanterns swayed outside the village huts, their faint glow swallowed by the shadows creeping down from the cliffs. Tonight was meant to be a night of joy, yet a silence lingered beneath the drumbeats and laughter—a silence the earth itself seemed unwilling to disturb.
The bride sat in her chamber, her silk áo dài of midnight blue shimmering faintly under the oil lamp. The embroidery of lotus blossoms along the hem had been sewn by her mother’s careful hand, each stitch a blessing for a life of harmony. Her veil, sheer and pale as moonlight, concealed her face, but her lips curved in the fragile smile of a woman who had dreamed of this day since girlhood.
Her groom was late.
The musicians continued to play outside, though their melody faltered. The guests exchanged whispers, their laughter forced. A wedding was supposed to seal the bond between families, to bless the union before ancestors and spirits alike. Yet with every passing moment, unease seeped deeper into the bones of those gathered.
The bride’s hands tightened in her lap. She had heard the rumors—her beloved groom had been seen wandering earlier that afternoon, his gaze restless, his steps unsteady. But she banished the thought. Love, she told herself, is steadfast. He would come. He had sworn beneath the banyan tree to cherish her until the stars fell.
But the stars had not fallen. Instead, darkness deepened.
When the chamber door creaked open, it was not her groom who entered. It was a cousin, his face pale. “He will not come,” he whispered, shame dripping from each syllable.
The words were blades.
The bride rose, her veil sliding from her hair to the wooden floor. Her cousin dared not meet her eyes, for behind them burned something dangerous—a storm breaking free from restraint. She demanded to know where he was, demanded to see him, to hear the betrayal from his own lips.
But when she burst from the chamber, what greeted her was not her beloved’s trembling apology. It was the sight of him… already bound in the arms of another. A servant girl, eyes wide with guilty triumph, lips still wet with stolen promises.
The bride’s cry tore through the village like a wild beast unchained. Guests fell silent. Drums stopped midbeat. Even the wind seemed to recoil.
“You vowed yourself to me,” she screamed, her voice raw, breaking the night into jagged shards. “You swore before ancestors, before heaven, before the sacred earth—yet you cast me aside as though I were nothing!”
Her groom stammered, reaching toward her, but the sight of his hand—once promised to her, now tainted—filled her with venom. Her heart shattered, and in its place rose a darkness no blessing could mend.
The villagers tried to restrain her, but she broke free, her silk tearing as she fled toward the cliffs. The mist wrapped around her like mourning veils, guiding her to the cave that yawned beneath the mountain. The cave of forgotten spirits. The cave where no living soul dared tread.
There, under the cold gaze of the moon, she screamed her last breath.
“May my soul never rest until his betrayal is repaid! May my shadow bind him and all who follow his blood! Let every promise of love be poisoned, every vow broken, every touch cursed!”
The mountain answered. The cave shuddered. The air cracked with frost, and her scream became something no longer human. When the villagers followed, they found no bride upon the rocks, no body to mourn. Only silence. And then… laughter. Low. Hollow. Promising.
From that night forward, the cave was sealed by fear. Lovers who wandered too close disappeared. Those who returned bore eyes haunted and lips trembling, speaking of a woman draped in wedding silk, her smile sharp enough to bleed.
And the groom? He never lived to see the next moon. His body was found at the riverbank, his face contorted as though he had drowned in terror, though his lungs were dry. The servant girl vanished, her slippers left at the village edge as though she had stepped willingly into shadow.
But the bride—she remained.
Bound to the caves, her spirit grew sharper than any blade, hungrier than any beast. Her beauty withstood death, her hair flowing black as ink, her skin pale as winter moonlight. Yet her smile… her smile was a wound carved across her face, a warning to all who dared gaze too long.
She waited.
She waited for the man who betrayed her, for his blood reborn in other bodies. She waited for any soul foolish enough to vow eternal love within earshot of her cave. For such vows, she claimed, were lies, and lies deserved punishment.
Centuries passed. Villages rose and fell, yet her shadow lingered. Children were told the tale of the cursed bride as a warning: never betray the one you wed, never swear love beneath the moon, lest she come to collect the price.
Sometimes, on nights when the mist was thick and the moon swollen, travelers heard her voice—soft, lilting, the voice of a bride awaiting her groom. She would call their names though they never told her who they were. And if they turned, if they followed, they would vanish into the cave where whispers devoured the living.
They said her eyes glowed like emerald fire. They said her smile stretched wider than nature allowed. They said she still wore the áo dài sewn by her mother’s hand, though now it was stained with shadows darker than ink.
And always, always, her whispers drifted beneath the moonlight:
“You vowed… now you are mine.”
