“The fourth,” I whispered, understanding dawning through the haze of satisfaction. “The missing piece.”
The claiming mark on my shoulder flared hot, no longer painful but transformative. I felt the prince’s essence flow through it, joining with ours in a way I couldn’t have imagined possible. Not replacing us, not diminishing our connection, but enhancing it. Strengthening it. Completing what had been incomplete.
“It’s the key,” Marcel said, his eyes widening with realization. “Four mates, not three. The new curse required new balance, more than just ours. And it came from the goddess who saved us last time. She gave Isabeau another loophole.”
As the pleasure finally began to ebb, I became aware of a profound change in our surroundings. The mountain had stopped growing. The obsidian peak that had always remained just out of reach now loomed above us, close enough to touch. Fixed. Stable. For the first time since we’d been cursed to this hell dimension, our goal was attainable.
“The mountain,” Bastien said, his voice thick with disbelief as he shifted back to his full beast form. “It’s no longer changing.”
“Isabeau broke part of the curse,” Marcel confirmed, also returning to his beast form. The transformation was easier now,less painful. “By claiming the prince, she completed the balance the curse tried to disrupt.”
I shifted back as well, feeling a new strength flow through my limbs. The exhaustion that had plagued me for months in this timeless place had receded, replaced by determination.
“We can reach the summit,” I said, already starting up the now-fixed incline. “And when we do—”
“We find a way back to her,” Bastien finished, his earlier anger replaced by fierce purpose. We just ignored us touching ourselves together, but my mind liked the idea of doing it to her in person.
We climbed with renewed vigor, the obsidian no longer cutting into our pads, the air no longer burning our lungs. Something fundamental had shifted in the curse’s structure. Not broken entirely, but weakened. Compromised by Isabeau’s growing power and her act of claiming the fourth mate the curse had never anticipated.
When we reached the summit, I expected more trials. More suffering. What I didn’t expect was to find a vast plateau stretching before us, filled with translucent prison cells that glowed with an eerie light. Inside each cell, spectral figures huddled. Souls trapped between worlds, neither fully dead nor truly alive.
“What on earth?” Marcel breathed, approaching the nearest cell. “These are our people. The inhabitants of the Enchanted Realm.”
I moved to another cell, peering inside. Two figures sat huddled together, their forms more substantial than the others. A man and a woman, both wearing crowns that had lost their luster but still marked them as royalty.
“Mother,” Bastien whispered, pressing his paw against the barrier. “Father.”
Our parents—the King and Queen of the Enchanted Realm—looked up at the sound, their faces transforming from despair to disbelief. Fear gripped them from my form, so I looked down, with a whimper.
It was my mother who picked up on it first. “Laurent?”
“Yes,” I whined. They couldn’t speak, their voices apparently trapped as surely as their bodies, but their eyes said everything. Recognition. Hope. Love.
“My son,” she cried. My father took longer to comprehend, but his emotions rose in a full wave.
“We have to free them,” I said, searching for any mechanism that might release the cells. “All of them.”
Marcel moved to the center of the plateau, where a massive crystal pulsed with dark energy. “This is the source,” he said, circling it warily. “The anchor point of the curse.”
“Then we destroy it,” Bastien snarled, already moving toward the crystal.
I joined him, flanking the object from the other side. Marcel completed our circle, the three of us surrounding the crystalline prison heart. Without words, we knew what to do. As one, we pressed our paws against the smooth surface, channeling the new energy that flowed through our claiming marks.
The crystal resisted at first, its darkness pushing back against our light. But then I felt something else join us. Isabeau’s magic, flowing through the claiming bond. And with it, surprisingly, came the prince’s essence as well. Royal blood of Durand meeting royal blood of the Enchanted Realm, united through our shared mate.
The crystal cracked. A thin line at first, then spreading, fracturing across its surface like lightning strikes. Dark energy leaked from the fissures, hissing and spitting as it dissipated into the air. The prison cells around us began to shimmer, their barriers thinning.
“Keep pushing,” Marcel urged, his massive paws pressing harder against the crystal. “We’re breaking through.”
I focused all my will, all my strength, all my love for Isabeau and what she represented. Hope in a hopeless place, light in endless darkness, into the crystal. Beside me, my brothers did the same, our combined power flowing through our paws and into the curse’s heart.
With a sound like shattering galaxies, the crystal exploded. Shards flew in all directions, dissolving into mist before they could strike us. The prison cells vanished, releasing their captives in a rush of blinding light. Spectral forms surged upward, souls freed from their torment after decades, celebrating their slight freedom.
Our parents remained, their forms solidifying as the curse’s hold on them weakened. They approached us cautiously, eyes wide with a mixture of joy and sorrow as they took in our bestial forms.
“My sons,” our mother said, her voice thin but audible now. “What has she done to you?”
Marcel nuzzled her gently. “Enid. The Dark Lord’s witch, the forest witch. She cursed us again when we found our mate.”
