A Price Not to Pay

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This is not a tale to listen to with only half an ear or run your eye over before bed.

There was once a man with a bride so fair it seemed the sun rose only to catch her smile. But beauty is no shield against fate – and she fell sick with the kind of sickness no herb or prayer can touch.

Desperate, the man left home with nothing but hope to his name, chasing rumours across rivers and mountains. And in a forgotten place, he found a seller – a man, or maybe not a man, who offered him a cure: a long, jagged fang, sharp as sorrow.

It would heal anyone, he said – but only if driven straight into their heart.

The man wept. How could he pierce the very thing he loved most? But love, they say, will bear anything. He paid every coin he had.

When he returned, his beloved was on her deathbed. Pale as winter snow. And when the sun set that day, with trembling hands, he did what he had to. He drove the fang into her heart.

For a moment, all seemed lost. Her blood sputtered, her eyes closed, a whisper of disbelief left her lips. Yet then! Then, by miracle, she opened her eyes and smiled.

You might think the tale ends there. But listen well: no one ever saw them again. Only the village they left behind – every last soul slaughtered, torn to flesh and bone.