"The Lantern in the Forest"

Athour.......shahjhan

was standing at the edge of the forest holding a lantern that glowed blue instead of gold. Strange, she thought. No one from the village ever ventured near the trees at dusk, not since the warlocks’ curse had darkened the eastern woods decades ago.

But there he was—tall, quiet, mysterious—watching the tree line like he belonged to it.

Elara didn’t speak to him that evening. She was seventeen, and he seemed older, unreachable. But something in her heart fluttered with unfamiliar longing.

The second time, it rained. She was on her way home from the apothecary, clutching herbs wrapped in wax paper. The road was slick with mud, and thunder cracked above her like a whip. The wind snatched her hood away, and before she could steady herself, she slipped.

A hand caught her before she hit the ground.

“Careful,” he said.

She looked up. It was him. The lantern glowed blue again, even in the rain. “You again,” she whispered.

“You always walk too close to the forest,” he said.

“I could say the same to you.”

He smiled—not with his lips, but with his eyes—and vanished before she could ask his name.

The third time, she followed him.

She didn’t mean to. She only wanted to say thank you. But when she saw the lantern’s glow threading between the trees, curiosity pulled her legs forward. She moved quietly, avoiding twigs and dead leaves, deeper into the forest than she had ever dared.

The trees here whispered.

“Elara,” they murmured.

She stopped. “How do you know my name?” she whispered back.

But the only answer was the soft blue light of his lantern, swaying ahead like a star just out of reach.

When she caught up to him, he was standing in a clearing. A willow tree draped its long arms over a circle of mushrooms glowing faintly in the earth.

“Why are you here?” he asked without turning.

“I followed you.”

“You shouldn’t have.” His voice was gentle but firm.

“Tell me your name,” she said.

He turned then, and the light of the lantern cast strange shadows across his face. His eyes weren’t human—they shimmered like moonstone.

“Rowan,” he said. “And you are braver than you should be.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“No.”

“A warlock?”

He hesitated. “Once.”

Elara's breath caught.

“I guard the woods now,” he said. “The curse lingers. It tries to trick travelers. My lantern keeps it at bay.”

“Then why did you save me?”

“Because you remind me of someone I failed to save.”

They sat beneath the willow for hours. He told her stories of the old days—of magic and rebellion, of betrayal and loss. She told him of her dreams, her books, her lonely life in the village.

They met every night after that.

And each time, Rowan became more real. His hands warmer, his smile softer, the air around him less ghostly. Elara brought him food—he never ate it, but he appreciated the gesture. He showed her how to listen to the wind, how to find a fox by its pawprints, how to recognize the cursed mushrooms from the kind ones.

One night, as the fireflies danced between them, he reached for her hand. “If you stay long enough,” he said, “you’ll be trapped like me.”

“Then let’s find a way to break the curse,” she said.

“No one’s ever succeeded.”

“No one’s ever tried with love.”

He blinked, caught off guard by her courage, her certainty.

That night, she kissed him.

The forest held its breath.

Elara spent the next season searching old scrolls in the village archives, bartering with the old priestess, even bargaining with a blind crow that lived in the cemetery.

Finally, she found it. A curse sealed with heartbreak could only be broken with a promise kept through generations… or a love powerful enough to burn through time itself.

On the eve of the winter solstice, she led Rowan to the center of the forest, where the oldest tree—the Heartwood—stood.

She held his hand and whispered, “I choose you. I will choose you every day, even if you vanish with the dawn.”

He stared at her, eyes wet with something ancient and human.

The lantern burst into golden flames.

The curse shattered like glass.

And for the first time in a hundred years, the forest sang.

When the villagers awoke the next morning, they found Elara and Rowan walking hand in hand, no longer bound to shadow, no longer hidden by magic.

They married the next spring beneath the willow.

And every year on the solstice, their children lit a lantern and walked through the forest, not with fear—but with hope, and the memory of a love that changed everything.