“It doesn’t matter,” I said finally. “Some things are worth sacrificing for.”
“No.” Alain’s hand shot out, gripping my arm just above the elbow. Not painfully, but firmly enough that I couldn’t easily pull away. “I won’t accept that. I won’t let you throw your life away for beings that may not even exist outside your imagination.”
Something snapped inside me. The familiar sensation of helplessness, of another man deciding my fate, crashed over me like a tidal wave. First my father, sacrificing himself and leaving me alone. Then Gaspard, using and abusing me at his whim. The Dark Lord locking me away to perish for my beasts to suffer more. Now Alain, his hand on my arm, his words dismissing everything I knew to be true.
“Let. Me. Go.” Each word dropped from my lips like a stone, heavy with the weight of my fury.
“Not until you listen to reason—”
“Reason?” I laughed, the sound harsh and foreign even to my own ears. “Was it reasonable to lock me away? To decide I belonged to you? To hunt me down when I chose my own path?”
The amber stone in my pocket burned hotter, responding to my anger. The air around us seemed to shimmer, energy crackling between us like lightning before a storm. I wished with every fiber of my being that he would just stop. Just be silenced. Just be knocked away from me like the fly he was, buzzing around my head with his useless, empty promises.
“I’m trying to save your life!” Alain shouted, his own temper rising to match mine.
“I never asked you to save me!” I screamed back, tears of frustration burning behind my eyes. Part of me wished him to be shooed like a fly, swatted away to ease my hurt. “I never asked for any of this!”
The forest responded. A massive branch swung down from a nearby oak as if moved by an invisible hand, striking Alain squarely across the chest with devastating force. The crack of impact echoed through the forest, followed by the thud of his body hitting the ground several feet away.
Horror froze me in place as I realized what had happened. What I had done. My magic, responding to my emotions, had lashed out through the forest itself, swatting him like I envisioned. Through this place that responded to me as if I were part of it, as if my will were its own.
Alain lay motionless for a heartbeat that stretched into eternity. Something growled as Alain groaned. My insides rolled just as he began rolling onto his side. Fear etched into my spine, traveling like a lost gypsy into unsafe towns. His stallion rearedin panic, breaking free from its tether and bolting deeper into the forest.
Before I could move, before I could apologize or check if he was badly hurt, something massive burst from the underbrush beside him. A creature of nightmare and beauty twisted into one horrific form.
The gryphon.
But not as I remembered it from the sacred acre behind the castle. This magnificent beast—once proud head of an eagle melded to the powerful body of a lion—was changed. Corrupted. Dark tendrils of what looked like living shadow snaked through its golden feathers, its amber eyes clouded with a film of darkness that wept black tears down its curved beak.
The creature let out a screech that was half bird’s cry, half feline roar, and lunged for Alain as he struggled to rise. Sharp teeth tore into his side before he could fully regain his feet, drawing a scream of agony from the prince that echoed through the trees.
“Stop!” I cried, the word torn from my throat before I’d even formed the thought.
To my shock, the gryphon froze, its head swiveling toward me with unnatural stillness. Those clouded eyes fixed on mine, recognition flickering through the darkness that consumed them. It knew me. Remembered me. And despite the corruption that tainted its form, it still recognized my voice, my command.
I stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Release him,” I ordered, my voice steadier than I felt.
The gryphon hesitated, then withdrew from Alain, backing away with a low growl that vibrated through the ground beneath my feet. It continued watching me, head cocked to one side like a curious bird, the darkness swirling through its form seeming to pulse with each breath.
I should have gone to Alain immediately. Should have checked his wounds, tried to stem the bleeding I could see darkening his tunic. But I couldn’t tear my eyes from the gryphon. This creature I’d known in another form, proud guardian of the sacred acre, now twisted by the same darkness that threatened my beasts.
“What’s happening to you?” I whispered, taking another step toward it. “What has the Dark Lord done?”
The gryphon made a sound like nothing I’d heard before—part whimper, part cry—and pawed at the ground with claws that left gouges in the earth. The darkness within it seemed to writhe, as if fighting against the creature’s natural essence, consuming it from within.
This was what awaited my beasts if I failed. This corruption, this slow dissolution of self, this transformation into something neither beast nor man but a shadow-twisted mockery of both. The realization hit me like a javelin through the heart, driving the air from my lungs.
Behind me, Alain’s labored breathing reminded me that I wasn’t alone. That in my distraction, in my horror at the gryphon’s state, I’d forgotten the wounded man who had ridden through the night to find me. Who, for all his misguided attempts at protection, had risked everything to warn me about the hunt.
I turned, but it was too late. Alain had managed to stand, one hand pressed to his bleeding side, but his legs were unsteady beneath him. He swayed once, twice, then stumbled backward toward the river’s edge.
“Alain!” I lunged forward, but the distance between us was too great.
He fell, his body hitting the water with a splash that seemed deafening in the sudden silence. The current, stronger than itlooked, immediately began dragging him downstream, his blood leaving crimson trails in the water.
I stood frozen, torn between the corrupted gryphon that watched me with its shadow-filled eyes and the man now being swept away by the river’s relentless pull. The man I’d sworn I didn’t need. The man my magic had struck down in anger.
The man who, despite everything, had come for me when no one else would.
