The Hollow Prince

It was a heavy summer night when Nuca saw the wolf.

She stood on a narrow, deserted road at the foot of the mountains, the forest sprawling around her like black water. Behind her lay the river, crossed barefoot through freezing water up to her knees, and now her dress clung to her legs, soaked and heavy. The air smelled of sweet, overripe flowers — intoxicating almost — as though the whole forest were dreaming something beautiful and sick at once.

She never heard the beast approach.

She simply saw it.

Two eyes gleaming in the darkness, sulfurous and wicked, no more than thirty paces away.

Nuca froze.

The wolf stood motionless in the middle of the road, so enormous that for a moment she almost believed it wasn’t a real animal at all, but some phantom torn from the fairy tale books used to frighten disobedient children. Its tongue lolled between wet fangs. Its eyes glowed like embers stirred with a stick.

She took a step back.

Then another.

And turned to run toward the river.

But before she could even break into a sprint, the howls began to echo through the trees.

Not one.

Several.

Long, ragged, insane.

Nuca stopped so abruptly she nearly slipped on the wet grass. Fear closed around her throat with icy fingers. She could hear the beasts moving through the forest, through ferns and roots, unseen, but close.

It was the month of July in the fae lands, and the heat would not let the forest sleep, not even at night. Everything throbbed with life and madness. The animals had emerged from the trees in search of food and mates to breed with. It was the month of frenzy, when even the forest itself seemed possessed by some ancient, savage hunger. Maybe the wolves were howling from the heat. Maybe from hunger.

Or maybe they had caught her scent.

She stood alone on the road, her heart pounding so violently it hurt in her chest, and suddenly she understood something with terrifying clarity.

She was going to die.

Not in war. Not killed by magic. Not sacrificed to some ancient god.

She was going to die torn apart by wolves on the side of a nameless road, somewhere near the fae prince’s castle. She hadn’t even seen it yet. Neither the castle nor the prince. She was failing before any of it had truly begun.

The thought almost made her laugh.

To hell with all of it. She had come unarmed precisely so she would look like a helpless maiden, and now that was exactly what she was. A girl alone in a cursed forest, without a knife, without a bow, without anything except her own stupidity.

She took three steps back.

The wolf came six forward.

That simple.

That certain of itself.

Nuca watched its massive paws sink into the forest grass and felt something cold slide down her spine. The beast already knew she had wandered too far from anything safe. Knew there was nowhere left for her to run.

She was going to die.

Eaten by a wolf.

And in some strange, almost insulting way, it seemed poetic to her. Beautiful, even. So beautiful it became wrong.

Then, suddenly, the air was split by a sharp whistle.

The arrow struck the wolf in the shoulder with a dull thud, and the beast let out a long, furious howl, more offended than wounded. It staggered forward a few steps before collapsing in the middle of the reeds, fangs bared, eyes still burning with hatred.

Nuca swallowed her scream.

For a moment, she had almost felt sorry for the wolf.

Then she came back to herself and realized that meant someone else was out there.

And anything capable of hunting such a beast was, without question, far more dangerous than the beast itself.

She fell backward into the tall, wet grass, breath knocked from her lungs, as a figure emerged between the trees.

A man.

Nuca blinked rapidly, almost convulsively, trying to understand whether she was dreaming. Maybe fear had driven her mad. Maybe she had already died in the forest, and this was only some cruel vision sent ahead of death.

But he kept walking toward her.

Tall.

Dressed in black.

And beautiful in a way that felt almost offensive.

White hair fell messily across his forehead, soft and pale beneath the moonlight, and his clothes were stitched with golden threads spreading across the fabric like roots beneath skin. His cloak brushed the grass as he walked. He had that cold, perfect face fae creatures possessed, as though he had been sculpted by someone who had never loved humans.

The kind of beauty that made you forget, for a moment, how cruel the fae could be.

He had sharp cheekbones, a severe mouth, and eyes so clear they seemed almost unreal in the dark. And yet something about his face remained cold. Too perfect. As if he had been sculpted by someone who had loved the creatures of the forest too much to bear the thought of making him flawed.

Nuca watched him approach and felt her fear beginning to twist into something else.

Curiosity. Maybe even luck.

Because he was exactly as she had hoped he would be.

Young. Beautiful. And proud enough to believe that nothing in the forest could truly harm him.

But what truly mattered was not his beauty.

Nor his eyes. Nor the gold-stitched clothes. Nor the way the darkness itself seemed to edge aside before him.

It was the crown.

The crown of blackberry thorns resting on his head.

Black thorns were woven through his pale hair, and ripe blackberries glimmered darkly among the branches, like drops of dried blood.

The moment she saw that crown, Nuca knew exactly who he was.

The prince.

The fae prince of the forest.

And despite the fear still shaking inside her bones, she almost smiled.

His beauty, his power, and his title made him, paradoxically, the perfect victim.

After all, who would ever imagine that a fae prince could be hunted?