Chapter 1Smoke-Bound Wishes

I'm a forgotten shrine god, chained to decaying wood and stone. Forced to grant wishes for offerings, my power shackled by mortal desires.

For ten days, Rhys came. Ten days of identical prayers for wealth and power through sacred incense. Needing one final wish cycle to ascend, I manifested before him with his ten incense sticks.

"Ten wishes," I whispered like wind through dead leaves, "but if my shrine falls, I vanish."

He snapped the first stick instantly: "Make me a Lord." I wove fate from my essence, hollowing myself to fulfill it.

The second wish surprised me—"Stay with me." His tenderness persisted even as his power grew. When he wished for eternal love with the third stick, I yielded.

Then war brought spoils—including Princess Elena. The fourth stick snapped: "Make her my wife."

"I clawed my way to this height for one reason," he declared, his voice hard as iron, "to one day have the power to take her back. And now, that day has finally come."

Martha, the kind old housekeeper who cared for me, was aghast. "But what about Lady Lyra?" she pleaded. "She has been with you for five years, my lord. She has been loyal and devoted, asking for nothing, not even a title." Her worried eyes met mine.

Rhys’s face twisted in fury. He had Martha dragged away and beaten for her impertinence. "How dare a servant lecture me! Everything I have done, I have done for Elena! As for that other one... she can crawl back to whatever gutter she came from!" His voice was colder than a winter midnight.

The maids fell silent, their hands stilling in their work. I suppose it was true. Before Princess Elena had been brought here as a hostage, he had treasured me. I was his precious secret, a woman to be cherished, one who could not be scolded or wronged. Every day he would beg me to say I loved him.

But now that his childhood love was within his grasp, that devotion had vanished like smoke.

Martha was old; she couldn't endure such a brutal punishment. I stepped in front of her, shielding her from the guards.

"I'll do it," I said to Rhys. "I will get you your princess."

His face lit up with an almost manic joy. He told me to be quick, then turned and strode away, already planning the wedding, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his true love.

Days later, I intercepted the Crown Prince’s carriage. His royal guards had blades at my throat in an instant. Accusing me of attempted assassination, they tortured me, driving splinters between my fingers. The agony was a white-hot fire, so intense it stole the breath from my lungs and drained the color from my face.

"I can save him!" I gasped. "I can save the Prince!"

I knew Prince Kaelan was dying, that the King was frantic, seeking a cure from every corner of the realm. I poured a century of my divine power into him, pulling him back from the brink of death.

The King was overjoyed. He summoned me to the throne room at once.

"You have saved my son and heir," he boomed. "Name your reward."

My eyes found Princess Elena, kneeling in a corner of the great hall. My voice was steady.

"I ask that you sanction a marriage between Lord Rhys and Princess Elena."

The King agreed without a moment's hesitation. A trivial hostage in exchange for his son's life? It was a bargain.

Rhys’s wedding was a grand affair. His entire estate was alive with celebration and music. Only my own small wing of the house remained dark and silent.

I lay on my bed, wracked with violent coughs, a handkerchief stained crimson clutched in my hand. Saving the Prince had come at a terrible cost. He was meant to die; by twisting his fate, I had invited a backlash upon myself, siphoning away my own life force.

A short while later, Martha scurried in to announce that Lord Rhys had arrived.

The door flew open. He stood there, his arm wrapped possessively around Elena, his face a mask of cold disgust.

Elena spoke first, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "I hear you've been pretending to be ill to win Rhys's pity. I know it's my fault... I know I'm the wicked one who stole your place." Her eyes shimmered with tears that never fell. "If you truly cannot bear to have me here, then I will give it all back to you!"

"You being here only makes Elena upset," Rhys said, his voice flat. "It's time for you to leave. Go back where you belong."

"You were only ever a substitute for her," he continued, each word a hammer blow. "The fact that you resemble her in some small way was your greatest honor. But the real thing is here now. You need to be gone."

He started to turn away with her, but I found my voice, a sound as thin as a spider's thread.

"If I leave... does that count as my fifth wish?"

He stopped dead. He reached into his coat and pulled out the fifth stick of incense. "Yes," he said. "I wish for you to disappear from my life forever."

He had started carrying the sticks with him, just in case a wish struck him. He then pulled out a sixth and snapped it as well, the sneer in his voice undisguised.

"I'm done playing your childish little games. I don't believe for a second that you have any real power." His face was cruel. "I only pretended to believe, I only coddled you, because you were a stand-in for Elena. Now that she's back, you're obsolete."

I grabbed his sleeve, trying desperately to make him understand. "I am the spirit of the ruined shrine. I am real..."

"Enough!" he roared, shaking me off. "How long are you going to keep up this charade? You invented this whole fairy tale just to stay by my side, didn't you?"

No one believed me. No one ever believed in the god of a forgotten place.

There was a time when my shrine flourished, when offerings were plentiful. I granted every wish they brought me.