A Fallen Wizard

Cherries, earth, and charcoal thickened the air of an unfamiliar forest as the wizard was dragged through its remains. His consciousness flickered—visions of a fuchsia portal torn into the sky, a crater wreathed in unnatural flames, and a blurred shapely figure pulling him by the collar of his tunic. He grasped for consciousness, but the darkness took him all the same.

Wham!

A door crashed shut, the sound clawing at the edges of the wizard’s mind, pulling him from the depths of sleep.

“Good. Finally awake. I have questions, wizard.” A woman spoke, her tone unreadable, as she crossed the room to a table of herbs. Lowering herself onto the seat, she tucked her flowing violet dress close, mindful not to send a careless breeze over the herbs.

The wizard tried to sit up, but his body refused him—aching, stiff, unforgiving. Every movement burned, every limb heavy. He slumped back against the log wall, breath rattling through clenched teeth.

“Forgive me, but I seem to be searching for answers myself. The name is Aethylweiz.” He fought to keep his voice steady as he met the woman’s gaze.

She was not unsettling, merely unusual. Lavender and lilac hues masked the intensity in her eyes. Her pale skin, a sickly omen in his world, stood in sharp contrast to the ink-dark silk of her hair, cascading over her shoulders. She was an enticing bloom, rising from a bed of thorns.

“Yes, yes, introductions. Normally, there would be no need. I would have already pulled your memories from your blood. But you… you are not like the others, are you?” She gathered a handful of herbs, dropping them into the mortar and grinding them with slow, methodical movements.

“Well, can’t say you’re the first vampire I’ve come across, but that does seem to be the consensus. I take it—” Aethylweiz glanced at his bandaged body, “—you don’t intend to eat me, so what exactly do you have planned, miss…?”

“Celeste. And as for what I plan… I’m undecided. Mostly.” She tapped a finger against the mortar. “Your blood tells me little, but your power speaks for itself. So tell me, wizard—how does one so… arcane end up crashing into my forest?”

Cradling the mortar, she stepped toward him, drifting past the burning hearth. As she neared, her form sharpened behind Aethylweiz’s bloodshot eyes, and with it came a pull—an inexplicable urge, something unspoken, a wanting. He averted his gaze, clearing his throat.

The corners of Celeste’s lips crept knowingly upwards.

“That would be the twisted humor of the fae. I stumbled upon something of theirs they most definitely did not want stumbling upon. A flash of magic, and suddenly, my power was gone—and the air—much colder. Hopefully, I’ll be thanking both the stars and you for keeping me alive, wherever ‘here’ happens to be.”

Celeste bent over him, smoothing a cool, mint-scented salve over a wound on his chest. Her fingers delicately stepped as she spoke, “You are in the Walking Woods. And yes, you can thank the stars—but mostly me. Encounters with the fae are rare. Knowledge of their magic is little more than rumor. Myth.”

She moved the tips of her fingers with practiced care over the beating veins of his neck. They lingered, just long enough to satiate the thoughts of a quiet hunger.

“But even I don’t know what they did to you. The gates of your magic are broken—damaged, but not beyond repair.”

He seized her wrist, dark powder smudging against her skin. His fingers, blackened with the remnants of desperate spells, trembled, caught between the instinct to pull her closer and the warning of the predator lurking beneath her touch.

A breath, cool as a crypt, slipped over their hands—tinged with metal, edged with spice.

Aethylweiz clenched his jaw, then carefully redirected her hand back to the mortar and pestle—as much for her as for him.

“Celeste… I must remind myself—you are a vampire. I may have hit every foolish branch on the way down here, but I don’t plan to make a habit of it.”

Celeste drifted closer, stopping just inches from Aethylweiz’s face. She held his gaze—watching with a vampire’s impossible stillness—then smiled and rose with quiet grace.

“If I meant you harm, I’d have done so while you slept. As helpless as a little lamb. But no—I have been without company for longer than I care to admit, and few intrigue me as you do. Stay, at least until you can walk out of these woods. You are safe here. And more than that, I can offer you something all great wizards crave.”

The urge returned, thrumming in his veins as Celeste bent closer, unhurried, deliberate, her words sinking into his ear like a needle laced with something sweet and ruinous.

“Knowledge—the kind that time itself tried to bury, yet still waits to be stolen back from its grasp.”