Listen: it’s fundamentally really tricky to pull off a romance when the premise for their connection is that this is the ONLY person who can physically touch you and not die.
Our basics here are fairly simple: our ingenue protagonist is abducted in a kind of marriage trade to a fae prince whose touch drains people’s life force, causing instant death. Except it doesn’t work on our hero. Possibly because he’s already dying. And that creates an instant connection.
But that premise only goes so far, right?
It’s a fascinating impetus for a relationship: one man thinks his all-powerful magic makes him a monster until he finds that he’s still human after all, and the other thinks that he’s frail and burdensome until he discovers that he can bring seemingly infinite power to its knees with a touch.
It’s touch as metaphor. It’s touch as power in vulnerability. It’s touch as equalizing force.
But it also leads to a fundamental problem in the romance arc: Are these two people forming a unique connection…or would they feel this way about literally anybody?
Because, like…if the reason you’re emotionally invested in this person is just because you can safely bang, then that could be anybody right there.
If we gave a totally different person a magic potion that meant you two could fuck, would THAT person be the love of your life in a couple weeks? I’m genuinely not sure!
Because these two don’t have a whole lot tying them together outside of the metaphor. They may or may not have anything in common. They may or may not enjoy each other’s company in addition to enjoying sex. They may or may not want the same things out of their relationship. I’m not sure! I don’t think they’re sure!
Granted: I do fully support Death Magic King of Faerie, though. That’s rad as hell.
Sidenote: goodness gracious these people need to buy some lube. Unless faerie saliva has magic sex-convenient properties, these two are signing up for a truly distracting amount of friction burn over time. Why is there no LUBE in FAIRYLAND?!
Cannonball Read 15 BINGO: Politics
(because becoming the Death Magic King of Fairyland takes a lot of politicking, and manipulating all the other people in line for the throne, and trying to figure out if being super, extra magic makes you remotely qualified to run a government!)