Evergreen held the cup to his lips, and the boy hesitated, his eyes wide with fear. Evergreen’s expression darkened again, her fingers tightening around the cup. "Drink it," she commanded, her voice low and dangerous.
He had no choice. Trembling, he parted his lips and allowed her to tip the cup, the warm liquid sliding down his throat. The taste was strange, bitter, but he didn’t dare resist. As he drank, he felt his body grow heavy, his eyelids drooping despite his efforts to stay alert.
Evergreen’s smile widened as she watched him drink. "There we go... That’s much better." She brushed a strand of hair from his face, her touch oddly tender despite the madness lurking beneath her gaze. "Everything’s going to be fine now, darling. You’ll see."
She began to remove her dress.
Evergreen’s obsession with the boy consud her for an entire year. She kept him hidden in her small treehouse, far away from the prying eyes of those who searched for him. His family scoured the land, desperate to find their son, their hope waning with each passing day. Evergreen, ever the actor, even joined in their search, pretending to console his grieving parents and aiding in their futile efforts. No one suspected her involvent. She wore a mask of empathy so convincing that even the boy’s parents leaned on her for support.
Inside the treehouse, things were different. Six months into his captivity, the boy’s resistance had faded, and Evergreen, believing she had finally broken him, released him from his chains. He no longer fought back or tried to escape. He smiled at her, spoke sweetly, and told her everything she wanted to hear. It was as if he had co to accept his fate, even love her in his strange, twisted way. Evergreen convinced herself that he was hers now, fully and completely.
But then, one day, Evergreen heard troubling news. The girl, the one who had once held the boy’s heart, was to be married. The very thought of it sent a cold fury through her veins. She watched the boy closely after that, noticing the shift in his deanor when he learned about the wedding. His eyes clouded with longing, his mind clearly elsewhere. He tried to hide it, but Evergreen saw through his attempts. She always did.
One night, the boy slipped away, thinking he was clever, thinking Evergreen wouldn’t notice. But she knew. She always knew. She followed him quietly through the dark forest, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword as she moved with the silence of a shadow.
He found the girl just as the moon reached its peak, the night before her wedding. She stood by the edge of the river, her reflection shimring in the water, dressed in white, her face glowing with innocence. The boy fell to his knees before her, sobbing, and he told her everything. He confessed the horrors of his captivity, the twisted affection Evergreen had forced upon him, the lies he had told to survive.
The girl, overwheld with emotion, knelt beside him, placing her hand on his shoulder. "We’ll run away," she whispered. "Tonight, before the wedding. We’ll disappear, and no one will find us."
But before they could make their move, a shadow erged from the trees. Evergreen, her belly swollen with the weight of their unborn child, stood silently behind them, her sword gleaming in the moonlight. Without hesitation, without a word, she lifted the blade and brought it down with a swift, practiced motion. The girl’s head rolled to the ground, her body collapsing in a heap beside the boy.
The boy gasped, his breath catching in his throat. He stared at Evergreen in shock, too numb to react, too horrified to understand what had just happened. His eyes darted from the girl’s lifeless body to Evergreen’s cold, emotionless face. He tried to speak, but no words ca.
Evergreen, her voice eerily calm, looked down at him and said, "You were mine. She was never going to take you from ." And with one swift motion, she swung the sword again, severing his head as cleanly as she had the girl’s.
---
The next day, the village was abuzz with rumors. The bride had vanished, people said, run away with the boy who had been missing for so long. There was no evidence, no bodies, nothing to contradict the story Evergreen had crafted in her mind. She returned to the village as if nothing had happened, her secret secure.
A year later, Evergreen had moved to a new village with her baby, Lutz. The child was a constant reminder of the boy she had once loved—or obsessed over. Every ti she looked into Lutz’s innocent eyes, she saw his father staring back at her. Part of her wanted to kill the child, to erase the mory of the boy she had lost, but another part of her couldn’t bring herself to do it. Lutz was all she had left of him. The child, both a source of pain and comfort, was placed in the care of Evergreen’s mother while she threw herself into her work as a rchant.
Evergreen quickly made a na for herself in the region. She beca known not only for her successful business ventures but for her prowess in battle. She fought off pirates who threatened her trade routes, earning the admiration of those around her. Along the way, she took on a few lovers, n who entertained her for a while, but none of them ever lasted. None could compare to the love—or madness—she had experienced with the boy.
Everything changed when Evergreen stumbled upon an ancient book during one of her travels. Its pages spoke of secrets of Labyrinth. This made Evergreen form a new plan.
At the sa ti, Evergreen noticed that the Crown Princess had begun to take a liking to her son, Lutz. The princess doted on him whenever they crossed paths, and Evergreen saw an opportunity. She hired a group of rcenaries to stage a fake attack on the princess, and when the mont ca, Evergreen swooped in, pretending to be the hero.
The plan worked perfectly. The princess, grateful for her "rescue," invited Evergreen into the castle. Soon, she was rubbing elbows with the kingdom’s elite, her influence growing by the day. Her first objective was clear: seduce the king. It didn’t take long. The king was drawn to her beauty, her confidence, her strength and her mysterious allure. But Evergreen, ever calculating, played the long ga. She didn’t want to be a re mistress. She wanted power. She wanted control.
She convinced the king to keep their relationship a secret, biding her ti until she could make her move. As she continued to weave her web within the royal court.
One day, while playing hide and seek in the royal palace, Lutz stumbled upon a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life. As he crouched behind a curtain, hiding from his friends, he peeked through a gap and saw his mother, Evergreen, in bed with the King. His heart raced, his young mind not fully understanding what was happening. But before he could turn away, Evergreen’s eyes caught his.
Without missing a beat, Evergreen whispered to the King, "Let’s do force play."
The King, naive and eager to indulge her whims, agreed without question, thinking it was just a harmless ga. But to the traumatized Lutz, what he witnessed was sothing far more sinister. From his vantage point, all he saw was his mother being forced, and the image burned itself into his mory.
Deeply shaken, Lutz ran from the room, his mind reeling from the horrific sight. He didn’t understand the complexities of the adult world, nor did he realize that what he had witnessed was a calculated move on his mother’s part.
Evergreen, always plotting, saw an opportunity in Lutz’s accidental discovery. The Pri Minister had long had his eye on her, infatuated with her beauty and charm. Sensing his vulnerability, she played the role of the distressed woman perfectly.
"Please," she whispered to the Pri Minister one day, tears glistening in her eyes, "take care of my son if anything happens to ."
Blinded by love and his obsession with her, the Pri Minister promised. He was ready to do anything for her, not realizing that Evergreen was simply manipulating him, planting seeds for the future.
Though Evergreen had made a na for herself, her talent in cultivation was limited. She had only reached the level of an Elite Warrior, which ant her lifespan would be restricted to around 200 to 250 years. This wasn’t enough for her. She wanted more—much more. Her ambitions turned toward the Crown Princess Astrid, whose half-Angel bloodline promised imnse potential.
Evergreen’s research in the royal library had led her to a terrifying possibility: the Labyrinth. Deep within its mystical chambers was a way to transfer one’s soul into a new, younger, and more powerful body. At first, she had hesitated, uncertain if such a thing was possible. But as she observed Astrid growing up, becoming more beautiful and more talented with each passing year, Evergreen decided to gamble.
She carefully staged her own death, secretly storing her soul inside Astrid’s body. The intricate spell she had woven would remain dormant until they reached the center of the Labyrinth, where the final piece of her plan would fall into place, and she would take over Astrid’s body completely.
Now, after years of planning and preparation, Evergreen had succeeded. Standing before Tyler, in Astrid’s body, she felt a surge of triumph. All her sacrifices, her sches, had led to this mont.
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