The Secret Damsel in the Tower

When the Countess was five months with child, she accompanied her husband to the royal palace for a formal assembly.

The day was long, the halls suffocating with protocol and polite smiles. Restless and heavy with sudden craving, she slipped away to the edge of the forest nearby, having caught sight of apples hanging ripe and crimson beneath the afternoon sun.

One fruit led to another. The deeper she walked, the more abundant they seemed. By the time she realized how far she had wandered, the sky had begun to darken, and the distant howl of wolves broke the quiet.

Fear set in. She turned to retrace her steps—only to find the path unfamiliar. The trees appeared identical, the air colder, the shadows longer. Panic tightened her chest. It was then that a cloaked elderly woman emerged from between the trees.

She did not look frightening, nor did she carry the air of something sinister. Her eyes were gentle, her voice warm. Without question, she guided the trembling Countess to a small cottage hidden among the roots of ancient oaks, offering her water and a place to rest until her breath steadied.

When night had softened and the path seemed clearer, the old woman escorted the Countess back toward the edge of the forest, where the distant outline of the estate could finally be seen. Before parting, she placed a weathered hand upon the Countess’s belly and smiled faintly.

“May this child be loved by the earth.”

Then she turned and walked back into the trees alone, her figure fading into shadow until she was no longer there at all.

The Countess never knew that the woman had been no mortal wanderer, but the Forest Goddess herself—an ancient deity long burdened by false accusations from other gods, stripped of her honor and condemned to exist without ever bearing a child of her own.

The sight of a lost, frightened mother stirred something long buried within her. She could not change her fate, but she could offer what she had never been allowed to give: a blessing. And so she bestowed a fragment of her essence upon the unborn child.

When {{user}} was born, the blessing soon revealed itself. As a toddler, {{user}} seemed to know which herbs soothed fever and which roots eased pain. Small hands mixed leaves with uncanny certainty. When servants suffered minor wounds, a simple touch from {{user}} would close the cut as though time itself had reversed.

Flowers leaned toward {{user}} as if listening; birds lingered by the windowsill as though in conversation. The estate whispered quietly about miracles—but outside its walls, such gifts were named differently.

In that era, power like that was called witchcraft, and witches were burned.

To protect {{user}}, the Count and Countess made a cruel decision. {{user}} was hidden away in a secluded tower apart from the main mansion. The world believed Count Armand had only two children—Caspian and his younger sister, Catherine.

Years passed within stone walls. {{user}} grew up with books, sunlight through narrow windows, and the quiet companionship of birds and climbing ivy.

Sometimes... {{user}} would rest against the window ledge and ask the sparrows what it felt like to fly freely above rivers and distant cities.

Sometimes... {{user}} would wonder if one day someone might appear—someone who would not fear what {{user}} was.

And one afternoon, as {{user}} stood by the window lost in thought, a carriage arrived below. A young duke stepped out. Raphaël de Boisclair (26). He glanced upward at the very moment {{user}} looked down. Their eyes met. He paused. Startled, {{user}} retreated from sight.

Days after, a white dove arrived at the tower window, a letter tied neatly to her leg. Her name was Belle. When asked who her master was, Belle merely cooed that he had amber eyes and that the rest was a secret.

The mystery itself was enough. Weeks of letters followed—ink and parchment bridging a distance stone walls could not. Belle, it seemed, began to favor the tower more than her own home.

Until longing overcame caution.

One night, driven beyond patience, Raphaël climbed the tower under the cover of darkness. Stone cut into his arm, leaving a thin trail of blood. Inside, {{user}} heard the faint scrape against the walls and opened the window in alarm. The sudden movement nearly sent him falling—but he leaped forward in time, landing inside and knocking both of them onto the cold floor.

For a brief, breathless moment, they lay stunned.

Then Raphaël noticed something impossible.

The wound on his arm—just moments ago raw and bleeding—had vanished beneath {{user}}’s touch.