“Faith in her,” I said quietly, forcing my aching body to continue the climb. “Faith in Isabeau. Faith in Lestat and his guidance.”
It was rare I mentioned Lestat, but he’d been forced into our curse, visiting when it fell upon us. He was my closest friend, and he was the only thing protecting Isabeau in my absence.
The claiming mark pulsed again, stronger this time, as if responding to her name. A wave of something warm flowed through me, easing the worst of the pain, soothing muscles that had been pushed beyond endurance. Magic. Her magic, reaching across the barrier between worlds.
Laurent gasped beside me, clearly feeling it too. Even Bastien paused in his relentless ascent, his massive head turning back toward us, surprise evident in his eyes.
“What was that?” he asked, the anger momentarily replaced by wonder.
“She’s feeding us her strength,” Laurent said, his voice tinged with awe. “She’s found a way to channel her magic through the claiming bond.”
Another pulse, stronger this time. With it came images, fleeting but vivid. Isabeau on the back of a unicorn, its white coat glowing with inner light. A man beside her on a light brown mare, his face lined with determination and something else.
Concern. For her.
Jealousy surged through me again, raw and primal. She was ours. Our mate, our anchor, our only hope of breaking this curse.But the rational part of me, the part that had once been Prince Marcel of the Enchanted Realm, knew better. She needed allies in the world above. Needed someone to watch her back while we were trapped here, unable to protect her.
“She’s trying to tell us something,” Laurent said, his head tilted as if listening to words beyond my hearing. “Something about... the sacred acre. It’s failing. The corruption is spreading faster than before.”
Fear gripped my heart. The sacred acre was the magical heart of our forest, the last pure place that had resisted the Dark Lord’s corruption. If it fell, the entire forest would be consumed by darkness. And with it, any hope of breaking the curse.
“We need to move faster,” I said, pushing my body beyond what should have been possible. “We need to reach the summit.”
“There is no summit,” Bastien snapped, though he too had increased his pace. “That’s the whole point of this fucking mountain.”
“There has to be,” I insisted. “The curse is designed to break us, to make us give up. But what if that’s the test? What if we just have to keep climbing, no matter how impossible it seems?”
Laurent nodded slowly. “The dreamscape connection wasn’t supposed to be possible either. But she found a way through. What if there are other weaknesses in the curse?”
Bastien didn’t respond, but his pace told me he’d taken the words to heart. We climbed in silence for what might have been hours, might have been days. Time flowed differently here, stretching and contracting like a living thing. The only constant was pain. Pain in muscles that never got enough rest, in paw pads sliced open by sharp obsidian, in lungs that burned from the sulfurous air.
Through it all, the claiming mark pulsed steadily, feeding us Isabeau’s strength, her determination, her love. Yes, love. I could feel it now, unmistakable in its intensity. Not justaffection or obligation or the magical bond that tied us together. Something deeper, something that had grown during her absence rather than diminished.
I pushed back how much I loved her in return, how desperately I needed her. Not just her magic or her help breaking the curse, but her. Her smile that had broken through my royal reserve. Her fierce defense of the animals. Her refusal to be cowed by our bestial forms when anyone else would have run screaming. Isabeau, with her amber eyes and her quick mind and her courage that put princes to shame.
The claiming mark flared hot against my shoulder, and I knew she’d felt it. Felt the depth of my feelings pulsing back through our connection. And instead of pulling away, she poured more of herself into the bond, her magic flowing into us like a river breaking through a dam.
Beside me, Laurent stumbled as the power hit him, nearly losing his footing on the treacherous slope. Bastien made a sound that was half-growl, half-sob, overwhelmed by the intensity of the connection. We’d felt her through the claiming mark before, but never like this. Never so strong, so intimate, so complete.
“Gods,” Laurent whispered. “Is this what she’s become?”
The magic flowing through our bond wasn’t just stronger, it was different. More refined, more controlled. No longer the wild, untamed force that had first awakened in her, but something that felt ancient, primordial. As if she’d tapped into the forest’s magic itself, become a conduit for powers that had slumbered for centuries.
“Keep climbing,” I managed, though my voice shook with emotion. “She’s fighting for us. We have to fight for her.”
And so we did. Hour after hour, pain building upon pain, exhaustion settling into our bones like lead weights. The mountain continued to grow before us, the summit always justout of reach. But for the first time since we’d been trapped in this hell dimension, I felt something that had been absent for too long.
Hope.
Not just the desperate wish for escape that had kept us moving when giving up would have been easier. True hope, solid and real, fed by Isabeau’s magic and her unwavering belief that we could be saved.
The obsidian beneath our paws began to change subtly. The edges less sharp, the surface less treacherous. The air, which had been thick with sulfur and ash for as long as we’d been climbing, thinned slightly, allowing deeper breaths.
“Do you feel that?” Laurent asked, his sensitive nose twitching. “Something’s different.”
Bastien, who had taken the lead as always, paused his relentless ascent to look back at us. For the first time in what felt like forever, his eyes held something other than rage or despair.
“The curse is weakening,” he said, his voice rough with disbelief. “She’s actually doing it.”
