A Curse Written in His Smile

Rain slicked the cobblestone streets of Belladonna, a hidden city lost between the borders of the human and fae realms. Lanterns glowed dimly through the mist, their light flickering like whispers of forgotten magic. The scent of wet stone and jasmine drifted on the wind. Church bells tolled midnight.

In the shadow of the grand cathedral, a figure moved-tall, cloaked, dangerous. The edge of his coat brushed the damp stones as he walked, boots clicking with deliberate rhythm. His face, half-hidden beneath a velvet hood, betrayed little. But his eyes burned crimson in the dark.

Silvano D'Amore lit a cigar, its ember cutting through the gloom. The smoke curled around his face, momentarily framing his sharp jawline and the scar running from temple to cheekbone. He was the youngest Don in the history of the Crimson Thorn Mafia, a family with roots older than the empire itself. But Silvano wasn't entirely human. Magic laced his blood, a legacy from his long-dead mother-an elven noble who vanished the night he was born.

The cathedral loomed behind him, a blackened monument of stone and glass. Its windows once depicted angels; now, they were shattered, replaced with swirling sigils of the Crimson Thorn. It was here that Silvano came to think, to remember, to feel-things he rarely allowed himself.

Tonight, something felt different.

A raven landed on the balustrade above him. Its feathers shimmered with an otherworldly sheen, as if dipped in oil and starlight. It croaked once, then dropped a fragment of parchment at his feet before vanishing into the fog.

Silvano picked it up.

One word was scrawled in elegant, slanted script: Lysandra.

He frowned. That name haunted his dreams-soft whispers in the dark, glimpses of silver hair and violet eyes. He'd never met her. But he knew her.

Across town, at the edge of the Blackroot Forest, a girl stood beneath a tree that bled silver sap. Her name was Lysandra Vale, a rare type of seer born only once every thousand years. She had no memory of her childhood, only visions that burned her dreams and a pendant shaped like a crescent moon with unknown sigils carved on its back.

The pendant had glowed that morning.

And it had whispered the name: Silvano.

Lysandra pressed the pendant to her chest as the wind stirred the leaves above her. Her white cloak fluttered like a ghost's shroud, and her silver hair tangled around her face. She had been seeing him for weeks now-in mirrors, in puddles, in dreams. A man with crimson eyes and a shattered soul.

She didn't know what tied them together.

Only that something ancient was awakening.

A howl echoed from the forest. Not wolf. Not human. Something else.

Lysandra turned and ran.