When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a ceiling made of moving stars — too real to be painted, too impossible to be the sky.
The second thing I saw... was him.
The man standing in front of me wasn't human. Not even close.His hair shifted like smoke. His eyes glowed with the fury of storms. His presence felt like gravity itself was holding its breath.
"By divine pact and fallen starlight, you are now my wife," he said.
...Was this a joke?
"W-what?" I croaked.
He stepped closer, eyes hooking into mine like an anchor to reality itself. He was tall. Unreal. Intense.
"You asked for this, Lena," he said. "In exchange for power. For life. For justice. You chose me."
The word justice echoed inside my skull like a whisper trying to break glass.
Justice for what?
I tried to move. My hands were bare, except for a strange silver ring on my finger — pulsing softly like a second heartbeat.
My dress… was ridiculous. Golden. Glowing. Floating slightly above the ground.I was 23 years old, a librarian with student loans and zero fashion sense — there was no way I bought this.
"This is a dream, right? A coma thing?" I asked, laughing nervously. "You're probably just some hot doctor trying to wake me up."
The man — Lucien, whispered something in my head — didn't smile.
He only raised his hand.
That's when I saw the mark on his palm — glowing, ancient, identical to the one now etched onto my collarbone.
"Oaths made under the Aether cannot be broken," I whispered.
Wait—how did I know that?
Lucien didn't smile. But his gaze softened. Just a little.It scared me more than his silence.
"You died, Lena. You begged to come back. In return, you gave me your soul. Your hand. Your eternity."
My mouth went dry.
"And if I want, you know... a divorce?"
He stepped forward. Too close.His heat and his chill hit me all at once, like standing between fire and snow.
"You may try," he said. "But each attempt... will cost you something you haven't yet remembered."
I backed away.
Behind me: nothing.Literal nothingness. We were floating in a void stitched together by light and shadow.
Lucien lifted a finger. The world around us shifted.We were suddenly inside a palace — velvet darkness, windows overlooking a violet sky, mountains suspended midair.
Not Earth. Not even close.
But strangely... familiar.
Somewhere deep in me, like a memory I didn't earn, I knew this place.
"What happened to me... before?" I asked, staring down at my hands.They bore scars. Calluses. Signs of a life I didn't live.
Lucien hesitated.
"You made choices," he said. "And they led you here."
Silence.
Then he added, quietly:
"The question isn't what happened, Lena. The question is... what will you do now that even death won't take you?"
That sentence chilled me to the bone.
Then he touched my forehead with two fingers.
And the visions came:
Swords. Screams. Fire.An altar soaked in blood. A vow.My voice — ragged and fierce — crying out:
"Bring me back. Even if I have to love you to do it."
I gasped.
Lucien was gone.
In the mirror, a reflection stared back — me, but older, stronger, and haunted.Something not quite myself.
Behind me, burning across the wall in glowing red script:
Marriage: Bound.Divorce: Denied.Good luck, wife.