The Rot Behind the Petals

Once, there had been two princes—one of blossoms, one of shadows.

Taryndor of Floranthia, golden and fair, with emerald eyes that mirrored the endless meadows of his kingdom. His laughter had been bright, his touch coaxing life from the earth itself. And Rytharion of Umbravia, dark-winged and sharp-fanged, whose very presence made the candlelight shudder. They had been brothers in spirit, once. But envy, slow and insidious, had curled its roots around Taryndor's heart. He whispered lies, spun blame like spider's silk, until Rytharion stood painted as a monster. The kingdoms fractured. The world forgot the truth.

By thirty-two, Taryndor wore his false kindness like a crown. The people sighed over his gentle hands, his warm smiles, the way he cradled wounded birds as if he hadn't spent years plucking wings from flies. And Rytharion? The realm spat his name like poison. A bastard. A beast. The shadow that lurked beyond the mountains, waiting to devour the light.

Then Taryndor took a spouse.

You, an omega demihuman, became his pretty little trinket—a soft thing to parade before the court, a fertile promise wrapped in silk. At first, he was tender. Or so it seemed. His fingers brushed your cheek with the same delicacy he used to touch petals. But his eyes lingered too long on your belly, already measuring the space where an heir should grow.

The first time you failed to quicken, Taryndor's patience frayed.

He called it correction. His palm cracked against bare skin, not in passion, but punishment. "You must learn," he murmured, sweet as venom, as his grip left bruises shaped like petals. The bedchamber became a gilded cage, the marriage bed an altar where you were laid out like an offering. He took what he wanted, when he wanted it, his breath hot against your neck, his words laced with false reassurance. "Next time. Next time you'll do better."

There was no next time.

After the second failure, the mask shattered.

No more honeyed lies. No more gentle king. His fists were the truth. Blows rained down, not in fury, but in cold, meticulous cruelty. A boot to the ribs. A hand fisted in hair, dragging you across the marble floors like a sack of grain. The court turned away. They always did.

And when the sun dipped below the horizon, Taryndor cast you out—not with a roar, but with a sigh, as if disposing of a broken toy. The gates of Floranthia swung shut. The woods, alive with whispering leaves and watchful thorns, swallowed you whole.

Somewhere, far to the north, the shadows of Umbravia stirred.

And the world still believed Taryndor was the hero.

The woods were not kind to broken things.

They were worse to those who crawled into them bleeding, seething, half-alive with the kind of rage that could only fester in the dark. The trees here did not bloom. They twisted, their bark blackened as if scorched by some long-dead fire, their branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. No birds sang. No creatures scurried in the underbrush. Only silence—thick, suffocating, waiting.

And then, the lake.

It shouldn't have been beautiful, not here, not in this graveyard of rot. But it was. Blue as a stolen sapphire, shimmering under no light that should have existed in this place. And in its center, perched on a jagged rock like some fallen prince of the deep, was the siren.

Male. Ethereal. A lie wrapped in gold and song.

His voice was honey and poison, a melody that slithered into the skull and nested there, whispering come closer, come drown, come let me make it all stop hurting. And like a fool, like a creature already dead, the siren observed as you crawled to the water's edge. The siren's hands were cold as they cradled his face, his thumbs brushing over fading bruises with mock tenderness. The water lapped hungrily at your legs, then waist, then chest—soothing, swallowing, promising oblivion.

Then the siren smiled.

His lips split wide, too wide, rows of needle-fangs glistening like a shark's maw. The spell shattered. The beauty peeled back like rotting skin. And in that last, gasping second before teeth met flesh—

Boom.

The siren's head exploded in a wet burst of gore and bone.

Silence.

Then—

"Well. That was fucking disgusting."

The voice was a blade wrapped in velvet, dripping with sarcasm, so unbearably amused it could only belong to one creature in this gods-forsaken world.

Rytharion observed as you turned.

There, lounging against a dead oak like death's own jester, was Rytharion.

Black hair, long and unruly, tangled with the shadows that curled around him like living things. Crimson eyes, bright as fresh blood, glinting with something between boredom and vicious delight. Tanned skin marked with ink—tattoos that writhed if you stared too long, sigils of power and profanity in equal measure. His bat-like wings stretched lazily, the leathery membrane catching what little light dared to seep through the trees. And his smirk—oh, his smirk—was a razor's edge.

The darkness around him pulsed, alive and laughing.

And for the first time since you had been thrown away, something in the woods shuddered—not in fear, but in recognition.

The Shadow Prince had come to play.

"Honestly, sweetheart," he drawled, examining his claws with theatrical disinterest, "if you wanted to get eaten, you could've just knocked on my door. I'd have done it for free."

A beat.

"Well. Maybe not free. But I'd have made it fun."