The Gareth's: The Family Legacy

I mean, I really hated it. And yet, there I was, at the top of the most ridiculously long staircase in the world, with hundreds of people staring at me like I was some kind of expensive trophy they wanted to examine closely. My stomach churned so much I seriously considered running away. But where to? My father was beside me, as rigid as ever, and the only way out was down those stairs.

So I went downstairs.

The midnight blue dress was beautiful, I admit. But it was heavy. And the sapphire necklace? Man, that weighed more than anything I’d ever worn in my life. I felt like I was wearing chains instead of jewelry. Like, metaphorical and literal at the same time, you know?

Every step was torture. Not because the shoes hurt—although they did—but because I felt all those eyes on me. Judging. Assessing. Deciding if I was worthy of the name Gareth.

Spoiler: it probably wasn’t.

We reached the bottom of the stairs and I was immediately surrounded. Suitors. That’s what they call them, but honestly? They were like salespeople trying to convince me to buy something I didn’t want.

The first guy—some lord with an important last name I forgot two seconds later—shook my hand and said something about my beauty. I couldn’t respond properly because I was too busy trying not to trip over my own feet. Which, knowing my luck, was probably going to happen sometime during the evening.

Then came another. And another. And yet another.

They were all the same. They all talked about the same things—lands, lineages, the war against the Shadowthorn as if it were some cool action movie and not, I don’t know, people actually dying. None of them asked me anything about myself. Like, nothing. Not even my favorite color. Not even if I liked to read. Not even the bare minimum.

It was as if I were an object. The Gareth heiress. The jewel of the family. Not Elia. Just the surname I carried.

And I smiled. I pretended to be interested. I acted as if I cared about his stories about hunting and battles and political strategies.

But what about inside? I was dying of boredom.

After about two hours of pure agony, I managed a moment of peace. I leaned against the wall near one of the huge windows, pretending to admire the decor (which was beautiful, but also a bit much, you know?), just wanting the night to end soon.

That’s when I felt it.

Like, even before I looked, I felt it. That weird feeling that someone is watching you. You know when you kind of feel your skin tingling and the air getting thicker? That’s what it was like. Only multiplied by a thousand.

I turned my head slowly, somewhat afraid of what I was going to see.

And then I saw him.

My heart literally stopped. Like, it forgot to beat for a full two seconds.

He was standing in the entrance archway, where the shadows were darkest. And man… he didn’t look like any of the other guys here. Not at all. While everyone else was wearing vibrant colors and gold brooches and all that flashy stuff, he was all in black. Dark clothes that looked like they were made from his own shadow.

And his hair… it was this light silvery color I’d never seen before. Like liquid mercury under moonlight. It made no sense to be so handsome and so… dangerous at the same time.

But it was my eyes that killed me.

Even from a distance, I could feel their intensity. Silvery-gray, like mercury, piercing through the crowd and piercing directly into me. Not into the “Lady Elia” everyone saw. Into me. Into the girl who was tired of smiling and pretending.

My brain screamed his name before I could process it.

Darius Shadowthorn.

And it was like… everything clicked. And it also exploded. Why a Shadowthorn here? At Gareth’s ball? It was like… it was suicide. It was madness. It was impossible.

And yet he was there.

A shiver ran down my spine—half pure terror, half something I didn’t want to name because naming it would mean admitting something. And I definitely wasn’t ready to admit anything.

He didn’t come closer. He didn’t try to talk to me. He just… looked.

And that look said it all.

He said he saw me. The real girl. Not the perfect heiress. Not the untouchable jewel. The girl who felt suffocated in that expensive dress, in that life she didn’t choose.

It was like an instant connection, completely wrong, and I knew—God, I knew—that I should look away. I should call the guards. I should literally do anything but stand there staring at him.

But I couldn’t.

A small, almost imperceptible smile curved his lips. Like, I almost missed it. But I saw it. And it was so cheeky, so intimate, that I felt my face heat up.

He gave a nod—small, quick—and then simply… vanished. One second he was there, the next he dissolved into the shadows as if he had never existed.

I stood there like an idiot, my heart beating so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest.

What on earth had just happened?

The rest of the ball passed in a blur. I kept smiling, waving, dancing with suitors whose faces I barely registered. My mind was completely elsewhere. With that look. With that smile. With the name “Shadowthorn” echoing in my head like an alarm that wouldn’t turn off.

I knew it was dangerous to think about him.

I knew it was wrong.

I knew my father would kill me if he found out a Shadowthorn had dared to appear here—and worse, that I had stood there staring at it like… like…

No. I wasn’t going to think about that.

But it was like trying not to think about pink elephants. Impossible.

When I finally managed to escape to my room—like, finally, after another two hours of social torture—I practically ripped the necklace off and threw it on the vanity. The sapphires clinked against the marble with a loud sound that probably woke someone, but I didn’t care.

I went straight to the window.

I don’t know why. Or maybe I do know and just don’t want to admit it.

—

BLOOD AND MOONLIGHT

The moon was full that night. Big, white, like a huge eye watching everything. I’ve always had this strange thing about the moon. Like, it calms me and makes me restless at the same time. It doesn’t make sense, I know.

I leaned against the cold window, letting the night air cool my face, which was still hot from the party. I tried not to think about the ball. About the boring suitors. About the tight dress. About the fake smiles.

I tried not to think about him.

Obviously, I failed miserably.

Because, like, how could I not think about it? A Shadowthorn had shown up at my coming-out ball. Had looked at me that way. And I… I had looked back.

My father would kill them both if he found out.

“Do you always look at the moon like that?”

I froze.

Like, completely. I even stopped breathing.

Because I recognized that voice. I’d heard it in my head all night, even though he hadn’t said a word before.

I turned slowly. Very slowly. Part of me thought I was imagining things.

But it wasn’t.

Darius Shadowthorn was in my room.

NO. MY. ROOM.

“You’re crazy,” it slipped out of my mouth before my brain could process it. My voice trembled. “Like, completely insane. If my father’s guards find you here—”

“They won’t,” he interrupted, and man, his voice was… it was like velvet and danger mixed together. Deep. Confident. The kind that makes you want to hear more even though you know you should run.

He emerged from the shadows—because obviously he was hiding in the shadows, that was kind of Shadowthorn’s trademark—and the moonlight hit him.

And I forgot how to breathe.

Because photos didn’t do it justice. Glimpses from afar didn’t do it justice. He was… God, he was dangerous. But not in the way my father always said. Not dangerous like “he’ll kill you with black magic.”

Dangerous type: “It will completely destroy your life and you’ll let it.”

He was tall. Taller than he looked from afar. Dressed all in black, which made his silver hair shine even more under the moon. And his eyes—Jesus, his eyes were like liquid mercury. Bright. Intense. Fixed on me in a way that made my stomach churn.

“What are you doing here?” I managed to ask, trying to sound angry. Or at least not completely terrified. I failed.

“I came to see if you’re real,” he said, and like… that wasn’t an answer. But it also was. You know?

He took a step closer and my whole body went into high alert. Heart racing. Hands trembling. That strange feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t tell if it was fear or… something else.

“We… we’re enemies,” I said, more to myself than to him. Like, reminding myself. Because I needed to remember. “Our families have hated each other for, like… centuries.”

“I know,” he said simply. And then he smiled. That same smile from the dance. “Does that bother you?”

It should. God, it should bother me.

“Yes,” I lied.

“Liar,” he said, but it didn’t sound like an accusation. It sounded… like he was having fun?

And then he extended his hand.

That’s all. He said nothing. He didn’t explain. He just held out his hand, waiting.

And I… I knew I shouldn’t. I knew that touching him was like crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. I knew my father would never forgive me. I knew I was making the dumbest choice possible.

But my hand moved on its own.

The second our fingers touched, it was like… an electric shock. Literally. I felt it all the way to my toes. It was cold—like ice—but somehow that only made the heat inside me burn even stronger.

He pulled me closer. Too fast for me to process. Suddenly I was too close, and I could smell him—like night and smoke and something I couldn’t identify but that made my head spin.

“Some things are already decided,” he murmured, so close I could feel his breath on my face, “before we even understand that there is a choice.”

And then he kissed me.

And it was…

It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Like, I expected it to be wrong. I expected to feel guilt or fear or something beyond that.

But I just felt… right. Completely, absolutely right.

His taste was strange—like smoke and something sweet and dark at the same time. His lips were cold, but the kiss was warm, like fire and ice meeting and creating something new.

My brain screamed that this was madness. That I was kissing a Shadowthorn. That I was betraying my family, my name, everything.

But my heart… my heart didn’t care at all.

When he walked away—and seriously, it was way too fast, like it was over before I even processed that it had started—I kind of forgot where I was.

“That was…” I began, but I didn’t know how to finish.

“Inevitable,” he finished for me. And then, because he was apparently especially good at confusing me, he simply… disappeared. Again. Like, one second he was there, the next he was gone into the shadows.

I stood there like an idiot, touching my lips, still tasting him.

Was that real? Had it really happened?

I looked around the empty room. No sign that he had been there. Nothing.

But I knew it had been real. Because my heart was still pounding. Because I could still taste that strange flavor. Because everything inside me had changed in a matter of seconds.

I sat on the bed, feeling a little dizzy.

What on earth had I just done?

I had kissed a Shadowthorn. Not just any Shadowthorn—Darius Shadowthorn. Like, the guy my family hated more than anything.

And the worst part?

The worst part was that I wanted to do it again.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to process it. Trying to understand. Trying to figure out exactly when my life had turned into this mess.

But deep down, way down deep, I already knew the truth.

It had turned into a mess the moment I looked at him at the dance.

The moment he looked back.

The moment I realized that maybe — just maybe — being the perfect Gareth heiress wasn’t what I really wanted.

And that? That was terrifying.

Because now everything had changed.

I had changed.

And I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

I only knew one thing:

Darius Shadowthorn had entered my life. And I had this awful—or perhaps wonderful?—feeling that he wasn’t going to leave so easily.

And I… I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to leave.

Which was problematic.

Very, very problematic.

But also?

It was also the most alive thing I had ever felt in my entire life.

And perhaps that meant something.

Or maybe I was just being a complete idiot.

Probably the second option.

Definitely the second option.

But even so…

Even so, I already knew I was going to see him again.

I knew why he had said “inevitable” in that way.

I knew because I felt it.

And honestly?

A part of me — the part that didn’t care about rules and expectations and being the perfect heiress — could hardly wait.