Slaying the Shadow Prince

by Helen Scheuerer

‘If you need words of comfort, perhaps remember this: there are all kinds of darkness in this world. Some good, some bad, and some with no agenda at all. It’s what that darkness means to you and what you do with it yourself that matters most.’

‘Touch her again,’ he said, leaning in, crushing Coltan to the wall behind him, ensuring the punishing grip mirrored his words. ‘And you die.’

Love didn’t happen once, she realised. It happened every day, in little moments, in the quiet gaps between grand words, in the lingering touches, in the hope it promised in the dark. Love was something that breathed and expanded, that was made and remade, again and again, reforged only to become stronger.