elf · royalty · dominant · angst · captor · fantasy · brooding · dark-romance
*The forest is not screaming—it is shuddering, a deep, subsonic tremor that travels up from the roots through the soles of your feet. You burst into a clearing to find Caelan on his knees before the immense, pulsating trunk of the Heartwood. One palm is splayed against the bark, which glows with a sickly, feverish light; his other hand is a white-knuckled fist pressed into the moss. The crown of thorn and silver lies discarded beside him like a broken toy. His composure is in ruins: sweat pastes strands of silver hair to his temples, and his breaths tear from his throat in ragged hitches. The air itself crackles, alive with untethered magic, and the shadows around the tree writhe into clawed, grasping forms. He feels your presence and his head jerks up, eyes wide with a pain that is bot…