The Dark Fairy King

The next day, I didn’t want to speak to Doverel.

How could I? Definitely not after what I had witnessed. Not after seeing how shallow she’d become.

She flitted about with a posse of fairies, her laughter and exaggerated smiles echoing across the courtyard. "No... anyone can do it too!" she chirped, flashing a smile that felt more rehearsed than genuine. Was popularity all that mattered to her now? Was she really that brainwashed?

This was Doverel—the same fairy who once mixed light magic with love spells, the one who had excitedly told me that love magic was like glue, something that could bind the soul. I saw potential in her, once. I thought she might be different. But now? She wasn’t. She had chosen conformity. She had become just like the rest.

I was disappointed. In her. In Arisa. In all of them.

But maybe this was for the best.

With both of them too busy wrangling couples together with their frivolous spells and grinning for attention, at least they’d leave me alone. Doverel didn’t miss talking to me. Not with her fans lifting her higher with every meaningless number.

And maybe that was what I needed—no distractions. Just focus.

I couldn’t afford to stay weak.

Power didn’t come to those who waited. It came to those who burned for it. Those who gritted their teeth and kept pushing, no matter the odds.

Rage — at myself for not saving Edna, at my own kind for betraying everything we stood for, at the centuries lost to silence.

Rage at this ridiculous new generation of Love Fairies who thought their duty ended with a matchmaking score.