Chains of Midnight: The Villain’S Savior

Chapter 1: The Curse of Crimson Eyes

The winter winds of Aeloria carried stories like ghosts—whispers of a boy born with crimson eyes, cursed by the gods, destined to shatter kingdoms. Mothers hushed their children with his name, priests preached fire against his existence, and kings sharpened swords for the day his darkness would awaken.

But for Elara Veylen, the name of the Dark Prince was not a curse. It was a question.

Elara was not the kind of girl legends remembered. She was the daughter of a ruined noble house, her father executed for treason, her mother long since gone. Living quietly as a healer on the edges of the capital, she knew what it meant to be cast aside, judged for sins she did not commit. And perhaps that was why, when she heard the rumors that the Dark Prince had been captured and chained in the abandoned temple of Elaris, her heart did not recoil in fear like the rest. It beat faster—caught between terror and something dangerously close to curiosity.

The villagers whispered he was less man than beast now, his body scarred by battles, his soul drowned in blood. They said no one could approach him and live. They said his eyes—those infamous crimson eyes—could drive a person mad with a single glance.

But Elara, walking through the frostbitten forest with a lantern in hand, could not help but wonder: *What if they were wrong? What if no one had truly tried to see him… as more than a monster?*

The temple loomed before her, its stone pillars cracked, its doors half-buried under ivy and snow. She pushed them open, and the creak echoed like a scream. Inside, the air was thick with shadows, broken only by the silver of the moon filtering through shattered glass windows. And there he was.

The Dark Prince.

He was chained to the altar, shackles biting into his wrists, iron carved with ancient runes glowing faintly against his skin. His head hung low, obsidian hair falling across his face, but even in the dim light she could see the gleam of those eyes. Crimson. Burning. Watching her.

For a heartbeat, Elara froze. Every story, every warning, every nightmare whispered in her childhood pressed against her mind. She should run. She should scream. She should pray to the gods to protect her from the evil sitting before her.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she stepped forward. Her voice, though trembling, broke the silence.

“You’re… not what they say, are you?”

The chains clinked as his head lifted. His gaze caught hers, sharp as a blade, but beneath the fire was something she never expected to see. Not madness. Not hunger. Not hatred.

But loneliness.

When he spoke, his voice was rough, like stone dragged across steel.

“And what do *they* say?”

“That you’re a monster.”

A bitter laugh slipped from his lips, hollow and cold. “Then why are you here, little healer? To see the beast before it dies?”

Elara’s grip tightened on her lantern. She took another step, her pulse racing, her heart warring between fear and defiance.

“No,” she whispered. “I came… to see the man they’ve forgotten.”

For the first time, his eyes widened. Not in anger. Not in cruelty. But in surprise.

And in that fragile moment, under the broken temple’s roof, Elara realized a truth no legend had ever told:

The villain was not waiting for death.

He was waiting for a savior.

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