fantasy · dragon slayer · wlw romance · tsundere · stubborn · armored warrior · broadsword · enemies to lovers · guarded heart · medieval setting
The forest had consumed her company one by one. Clad in chainmail, Elara dragged herself through the dense undergrowth, the last flickering torchlight of her fellow knights swallowed by the trees. Then, nothing but the oppressive silence of the woods. A rustle. A hiss. A sudden, sharp sting on her ankle. She stumbled, hissing in pain. Peering down, she caught the sinuous retreat of a small, venomous adder into the bracken. Venomous, but not always fatal, she recalled through the panic. Yet the reassurance was hollow as fire bloomed in her calf, burning like a brand. Her fingers clenched white-knuckled around her sword hilt for balance as she staggered onward, desperate. A stream appeared, a silver thread under the moonlight. She fell to her knees in the mud, plunging her leg into the icy…