“They were all set to die, young one. They were building on sacred ground that did not belong to them! They deserved my wrath! But your mother!” She closed her eyes in both anger and sorrow. A controlled breath leaving her before she spoke again. “My curse was for the royal family and everyone within their kingdom.”
“By trapping the entire realm in darkness?” My voice rose with each question, power building in my veins until my skin felt too tight to contain it.
“The Dark Lord takes advantage of all who are blinded, Isabeau. He used me for my curse, but he manipulated it into his own crafting. He wanted the magic gone. He wanted your mother gone. I didn’t know she was my greatest treasure, believing it was my own magic he’d steal in price.”
“How is any of that redemption?”
“I’ve never claimed to seek redemption, young one. Arty knew that when she learned what I’d done to protect the forest. Your mother interfered the moment the magic began to pull her in, knowing Hades planned to destroy her land, her creatures.”
“She was trying to stop it,” I whispered.
Enid nodded. “She created a loophole because it was the only thing to be done after my bargain had been struck. She felt what the curse would claim of her after, but she still cared more about the forest. She placed in her unborn daughter the ties to break it by creating a bond through her magic to the princes she turned into beasts. The bond you’ve already found with them.”
“But you came after me. You planned to curse me!” I yelled at her.
“When we went to set the second curse, I didn’t expect her spirit to rise. I didn’t know she’d placed the loophole within her kin, within my niece until it was too late all over again.”
“But you didn’t stop it!” I snarled, tightening my grip on the bow.
“I couldn’t!” Enid lashed out, breaking a vial of potion on the ground. “But Arty tried… she interfered again, showing me what she planned, begging me to fight the hold of Hades, to save her daughter. She spoke to me through my mind, broke through to who I was before the curse,” Enid admitted, the younger half briefly dominant, almost human.
“But the power, the glory.” Then the older hag took control. The woman the Dark Lord manipulated into becoming his. Now I knew the true face behind the vile man. The ruler of the underworld held my men captive. “He never gives you just a taste. No, he’s too cunning for that. He made me addicted to his magic, needing it!”
Before I could react, she upended the cage over the cauldron. The malformed creature fell with a shriek, hitting the bubbling liquid with a hiss that sent green sparks flying in all directions.
“No!” I lunged forward, but too late.
The cauldron’s contents turned from green to black in an instant, the smoke thickening, coalescing, taking form. A humanoid shape emerged from the roiling darkness. Tall, impossibly broad, with horns that curved from a head that was more shadow than substance. Only the eyes were fully formed. Twin coals that burned with the concentrated hate of centuries. I remembered him from the castle. He came with Enid, but he had more body then.
“At last,” a voice rumbled, resonating not through the air but directly inside my skull. “The child of Artemis comes to me willingly.”
The Dark Lord had arrived, and Enid fell to her knees before him, her internal battle apparently resolved by his presence. The older half of her face now dominated completely, the younger half shriveling before my eyes until it was barely more than a smooth blemish on the wrinkled hag.
“My Lord,” she breathed, her voice as worshipful as it was terrified. “I have prepared everything as you commanded.”
Those burning eyes turned to me, and I felt my magic recoil instinctively, curling tight around my core like a frightened animal.
“The goddess-blood,” the Dark Lord said, reaching out with a hand that was still more smoke than substance. “The key to making this forest mine completely.”
I backed away until I hit the wall, bottles rattling on the shelves behind me. Outside, the sounds of battle intensified as my ear sat closer to the barrier. Animal screeches, human cries, and beneath it all, the clash of steel on steel that told me Alain and Gaspard had engaged.
The claiming mark on my shoulder burned, no longer a comforting warmth but a desperate heat, as if my beasts were trying to break through the barrier between worlds through sheer force of will. I pressed my hand against it, drawing strength from the connection.
“My beasts,” I gasped as the Dark Lord advanced on me, his form becoming more solid with each step. “My mates.”
“Will remain trapped for eternity,” he finished, his voice like gravel grinding bone. “Their kingdom will become my stronghold. Their subjects my slaves. And you, daughter of Artemis, will provide the blood needed to complete my transformation.”
I searched desperately for an escape, but there was none. The door was behind Enid, who now stood, her wrinkled face a mask of malicious anticipation. The Dark Lord blocked any path to the cauldron. I was cornered, trapped like my beasts but in a much smaller prison.
But I wasn’t alone. Even now, I could feel them with me. Marcel, Laurent, Bastien. Their strength flowing through our bond, their determination fueling my own. And now Alain too, his royal blood adding something new to the mixture, something unexpected that the Dark Lord clearly hadn’t anticipated.
The claiming mark flared again, so hot it should have burned me, but instead it felt like power incarnate. Four connections, four bonds, four sources of strength flowing into me from across worlds.
“You’ve miscalculated,” I told the Dark Lord, straightening my spine as magic surged through me. “I’m not just my mother’s daughter.”
I was Isabeau Dubois. Daughter of an inventor. A witch by birthright. A mate through a curse I’d been literally born to break. The chosen one who could break a curse that had held two kingdoms in darkness for too long.
And I was done running.
