Ensnared by Her: A FxF Dark Romance

Adalaide

Once upon a time, in Ariveil, a prosperous kingdom long forgotten by the annals of history, there was a horrific curse. The curse did not affect a person or bloodline as it usually did. Instead, it affected the land itself. Bountiful crops rotted, fertile soil soured, crisp rivers became acrid sludge, and any wildlife that lived in the area died a slow, agonizing death.

Forcing hunters and the king's soldiers to journey far from home to provide essential provisions.

What caused the curse? That was the odd thing: nobody knows. There was not a warning or a sign that signaled its awakening. It just… happened.

However, King Oriel believed that there was a source. A series of objects responsible for the affliction.

The stone obelisks.

Roughly seventy years ago, at dawn, numerous enormous onyx obelisks sprouted from the earth without explanation. Horrible misfortune has plagued our lands since then.

Many soldiers from the Ariveil royal court were sent to destroy them, but none ever returned, leaving the country to not only mourn the losses but accept their eventual fate.

Until four years ago, the research department of the kingdom proposed an idea: what if these obelisks are magical and that was why our soldiers could not destroy them?

This idea was taken with speculation and suspicion, as magic and witchcraft were ghastly abominations, allegedly eradicated in the Witch Trials eighty years prior. This reality was unheard of in the human world. At least, King Oriel believed so.

This notion intrigued Queen Anna. She stated that perhaps not all ‘heathens’ were condemned to death, and a few lived among the citizens.

An unlawful search for ‘witches’ began, using a dousing rod to detect magical energy. This was how they found me.

Adalaide Winthrope, a nineteen-year-old White Witch who healed the injured whilst wandering from place to place. No home, family, or purpose. And, to the best of my knowledge, the last of my kind.

King Oriel ordered my immediate capture, yet ‘coerced’ my cooperation. With violence and other unspeakable acts against my womanhood.

Those sins would never leave my mind or body as I submitted fealty to the Ariveil kingdom. Signing my magical services over for better or worse.

In hindsight, I should have run away with what dignity I had left intact.

Then again, the soldiers would have found me again. And insubordination was punishable by execution.

For four years, I used my magic on various obelisks. For four years, I tested the reactions of white magic on whatever abhorrent energy they were composed of.

Today, at a dusk fall in the Ariveil Kingdom, after hours of concentration, an obelisk crumbled to the ground at the edge of the castle’s property.

Everyone cheered and celebrated this victory, except for me.

Because I knew it was the beginning of an arduous war, rather than the end of a minor battle.

One that puts the entire world at stake.

And I would be the primary soldier at the front lines.