Thorns Beneath the Wings

A fairy who gave up eternity walks off into a monster-infested forest with the man she loves, and the man she loves is about to become the least reliable thing about this story. Sereneth and Caelen take on a royal job rescuing a kidnapped princess from a rogue elven lord, and the trust they place in each other starts eroding faster than the trust they place in Olgrun, the ugly stranger who claims to know the way through.

The setup is simple: the Forest of Myrlaen has to be crossed, Olgrun is the only guide willing to lead them, and every step forward chips away at what's between Sereneth and Caelen. The kidnapped princess is the excuse; the real plot is what happens to the couple along the way.

There's no puzzle-solving or branching here, just a kinetic story you click through as it moves between the two leads and whatever Olgrun's path does to them. Updates arrive story-chunk by story-chunk, tied to specific characters' routes rather than the whole cast at once, so some patches move Sereneth's thread forward while others sit untouched.