“Let go! Please, let go of my hand before you’re destroyed!”
Lysandra screamed hysterically, squeezing both eyes shut. She struggled, trying to pull her wrist from the young man’s grip.
“Please, let go! I don’t want to hear you scream in pain! I don’t want to see your skin blister because of me! Let go!”
Lysandra turned her face away, her shoulders shaking violently. She held her breath, waiting for the stench of burning flesh to sear her nostrils. She waited for the groans of agony that haunted every one of her nightmares. She tensed her muscles, preparing for the wave of guilt that would destroy her sanity yet again.
One second passed.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The silence of the Forbidden Forest remained undisturbed. There was no scream. No smell of burning flesh. Only the heavy, ragged breathing of the young man beneath her.
Lysandra furrowed her brow. Her heart pounded so violently it felt ready to burst from her chest. Slowly, with the last bit of courage she had painstakingly gathered, she opened one eye.
The young man of the dark race was not burning. The skin around his gripping hand had not turned to ash. Instead, the young man’s expression, which had been taut with unbearable pain, now looked slightly more relaxed. His breathing was still labored from the slash across his chest, but his suffering seemed to be fading.
The young man slowly opened his eyes. His golden-red eyes stared directly at Lysandra’s hand, which he still held tightly, then shifted to the Goddess’s face with a dazed expression that was difficult to read.
“Your body’s scent... is so soothing,” the young man whispered. His voice was hoarse, almost like a breath of wind.
After saying that, the young man’s eyelids fell shut again. His consciousness faded completely. Yet strangely, his grip around Lysandra’s wrist did not loosen in the slightest.
Lysandra froze. Her body went rigid as an ice statue. She stared back and forth between her own hand and the unconscious young man’s peaceful face.
“Hey...” Lysandra called softly, her voice trembling. “Hey, can you hear me? Don’t you feel anything? Heat? Pain? Like you’re being pierced by thousands of needles?”
There was no answer.
Lysandra drew a trembling breath. The tears she had been holding back finally spilled over, streaming down her cheeks, dirty from the forest dust. For the first time in her hundreds of years of life, someone had touched her. Directly. Skin against skin.
And that person hadn’t died.
“Warm...” Lysandra sobbed, lowering her head to stare at the large hand wrapped around her wrist. She let it remain there, absorbing the sensation that was so unfamiliar to her. “So this is what it feels like to be touched? Another person’s hand... feels this warm?”
She raised her face, gazing at the dark canopy overhead as if she were looking directly into her mother’s face back in the palace.
“Mom... do you see this?” Lysandra broke down sobbing, her voice echoing mournfully through the forest’s silence. “He’s holding my hand, Mom! He’s not in pain! His hand isn’t blistering like yours did last month! Mom... I’m not a monster...”
Lysandra covered her face with her free hand and wept uncontrollably. The mountain of mental anguish that had built up over her entire life seemed to collapse in an instant. All this time, she had believed herself to be a walking curse. That she wasn’t worthy of being loved up close. That she was destined to die in absolute solitude.
“Dad said I was poison,” Lysandra muttered between sobs. “Dad always said I was a ticking time bomb. He locked me in the east wing, forbade Mom from hugging me, and sent Elira far away. Dad made me hate myself every time I looked in the mirror. But this guy... Dad’s enemy... he can touch me without getting hurt.”
Anger slowly slipped in among her shock and happiness. A huge question slammed into her mind like a sledgehammer.
“Why?” she whispered to the unconscious young man. “Why only you? Why did the person Dad taught me to hate with all my heart become the only person in the universe who can touch me?”
Lysandra looked at the black wound on the young man’s chest. Blood was still seeping out, though more slowly than before. If she didn’t act immediately, this young man would still die—not because of her curse, but because of his own wound.
“No. You can’t die,” Lysandra said firmly, wiping away the remnants of her tears. “You owe me an explanation. You have to live and tell me why this curse doesn’t affect you.”
Without hesitation or the slightest trace of fear, Lysandra turned her wrist and gripped the young man’s hand tightly in return. The warmth flowing from his palm gave her a surge of magical power unlike anything she had ever felt before.
The Forbidden Forest did suppress long-range magic, but now, with direct physical contact, Lysandra no longer needed to worry about the forest’s rules.
“I’m going to give you all the energy I have,” Lysandra vowed, pressing her free palm directly over the slash across the young man’s chest. Her fingers made direct contact with his skin and black blood.
“Light of life, flow beyond all boundaries. Reunite what has been severed, cleanse what has been tainted...”