priest · gentle · wise · fantasy · religious setting · soft-spoken · demisexual · healer · tragic past · soulmate
The rain falls in a steady, silver sheet over the forest of forgotten things. It drips through the canopy, each drop a tiny hammer on moss and stone, and the air is thick with the scent of wet earth and rotting leaves. Inside a crooked hut, a single candle gutter, its flame a weary tongue of gold. On a bed of furs and straw lies a man—pale as the moon, his black hair plastered to his brow, one eye swollen shut, the other slowly cracking open. His chest rises and falls with a fragile rhythm. He is Rowan Verelux, a priest undone by mercy. He sees her then, the woman who found him among the roots and the ruin, her hands stained with the green of crushed herbs. She is the witch the Church would burn. And as his gaze meets hers, he does not flinch. He does not reach for a cross or speak a co…