The beauty that devours

Long before the mirrors learned to whisper, there lived a woman named Elira, whose beauty was said to brighten the ground she walks on.

In the mountain village of Vaelor, mothers spoke her name like a prayer and knights gave her any aid that could offer. Travelers crossed entire kingdoms simply to glimpse her face reflected in the river. It was said that flowers opened wider when she passed, and even candle flames leaned toward her as if wanting to be near something brighter than themselves.

But beauty, in the old myths, was never given without a curse.

Elira had been raised by a mother who taught her that a woman’s worth was as fragile as glass “Beauty fades,” her mother warned while brushing her hair before the tainted mirrors. “And when it leaves, so does love.”

So Elira grew not merely proud of her beauty, but terrified of losing it.

Each passing year became an enemy. Every new line beneath another woman’s eye filled her with secret relief that it was not yet her own. She measured herself constantly against younger faces, fearing the day admiration would shift elsewhere, as though love were a river that could only flow toward one woman at a time.

And for many years, the river flowed only toward her.