I felt it then. The pull between myself and the creatures. Not a conscious summoning. I hadn’t known I could call them. But something in my blood sang to something in theirs.
The goddess blood the Dark Lord had mentioned, perhaps.
If I was the demigod child of Artemis, her powers ruled over wildlife and the moon. She was the goddess of the hunt, often depicted with a bow.
A memory surfaced then, my mother wrapping a bow and quiver into fabric to store away in a chest. A chest that had the same markings as my locket now. Come to think of it, she started wearing this locket right after that.
My hand fell to it then, reaching under the black choker fabric that shielded my locket, feeling the magic that had always been there, but I didn’t feel until my own unlocked. I let my warmth surround the necklace, feeling the hidden parts of it. Sure enough, the bow materialized, but it wasn’t of wood and string. No, a golden light created the weapon, spiraling around my arm. I didn’t have to carry it, and it wasn’t corporal to bang against anything. The quiver was the same, building from the magic for them all to see the mark of Artemis being worn as a second sleeve.
The guards cowered, the animals knelt, and Alain looked at me like I’d only gotten more beautiful. Whatever it was bonding me to my mother and her magic, the sacred creatures had come, and they moved with purpose toward the approaching hunters. Now, I had her bow of pure magic. I had her with me…
“Go,” Alain said again, squeezing my hand once before releasing it. “End this while we can.”
I nodded, turning away from him with an effort that physically hurt. Every instinct screamed to stay by his side, to face Gaspard together. But I knew he was right. The witch was the key to everything. To breaking the curse, to freeing my beasts, to saving the forest itself.
Behind me, chaos erupted. The king’s men shouted in alarm as the forest creatures charged them. Horses reared in panic, throwing riders. The magical animals moved with eeriecoordination, separating Gaspard from his allies, driving him toward where Alain waited, sword drawn.
I didn’t look back. Couldn’t. If I did, I might lose my nerve. Instead, I faced Enid, who stood watching me with those mismatched eyes. One clouded with age, one burning with unnatural light.
“Let me pass,” I said, injecting every ounce of power I could muster into the words as I raised my bow. “Or I’ll make you.”
For a moment, she seemed to wage that internal war again, the two halves of her face contorting in opposing expressions. Then, with a sigh that seemed to deflate her entire body, she stepped aside.
“It was always going to end this way,” she murmured as I moved past her into the hut. “The cycle demands completion.”
The interior of the hut was larger than its outside suggested. Another magical impossibility that I no longer had the capacity to be surprised by. The single room was dominated by a massive cauldron that bubbled at its center, green smoke rising from its depths to coil near the ceiling. Shelves lined every wall, packed with bottles, jars, and bundles of herbs. Some glowed, others pulsed like beating hearts, and still others seemed to shift and change when I wasn’t looking directly at them.
Enid shuffled in behind me, closing the door against the sounds of battle outside. I could still hear it, muffled but unmistakable. The clash of steel, the cries of men, the uncanny vocalizations of creatures that had no earthly counterparts.
“What did you mean?” I asked, turning to face her. “About my mother. About cycles.”
Enid moved to the cauldron, her steps uneven as if one leg was shorter than the other. “Your mother was my sister,” she said, the young half of her face now dominant. “Artemis, the light to my shadow. The forest chose her as its guardian, while I... I chose a different path.”
“My mother had a sister?” I knew I should be focusing on stopping whatever spell Enid was preparing, but I couldn’t help myself. After a lifetime of questions, answers were finally within reach.
“I am not made of all god, like your mother, Isabeau Dubois. A forest witch, once before, because I am only a halfling, a demigod like you. Your mother was the guardian. A goddess of the forest, of the animals she kept watch over, of the moon, making you goddess-touched.” Enid stirred the cauldron, and the green smoke took shapes—trees, animals, a castle I’d never seen yet somehow recognized. “She was meant to rule the Enchanted Forest, to maintain the balance between the wild magic and the human realm.”
“But then you cursed it,” I said, anger building in my chest. “You turned it into the Forbidden Forest. You trapped my beasts in a hell dimension.”
“I did,” she admitted, her voice thick with what might have been regret. Then her older half reasserted control, the glossy eye flashing. “I did what my Lord demanded. The old ways were dying. The forest needed new blood, stronger magic.”
“The Dark Lord,” I whispered, pieces clicking into place. “You serve him.”
“For a price,” the older half smiled, while the younger half’s eye filled with tears. “Everything has a price. Mine was steeper than most.”
She reached for something on a nearby shelf. A small cage containing what looked like a half-formed creature, neither bird nor reptile but some hideous combination of both. It writhed weakly, already dying.
“The final ingredient,” she said, the older half’s voice stronger now. “The binding agent that will give my Lord physical form once more.”
“Don’t,” I said, reaching out as if I could stop her from across the room. “Enid, whatever you’ve done, whatever price you’ve paid, it’s not too late.”
For an instant—just an instant—both halves of her face aligned in an expression of profound sorrow. “It was too late the moment I killed my sister,” she said, voice unified once more. “The moment I didn’t know she carried a child. You.”
The revelation hit me with the force of a thousand suns, driving the air from my lungs. “You... you killed my mother? But she got sick, died of a fever.”
Enid nodded, tears streaming from both eyes now. “The Dark Lord demanded a sacrifice. The guardian’s blood to seal the curse, my greatest treasure… the sister who never treated me like I was beneath her for being half. I didn’t know she was pregnant with you. Hades only offered her fourteen years if she surrendered her magic. She accepted. Arty knew she would leave you because of me. That she'd only get fourteen years with her only child.”
“Because you wanted to curse my men, my beasts?” I roared.
