“Listen to me,” Enid said urgently, supporting me as we moved away from the collapsing hut. “The power you need is all around you. In every tree, every stone, every living thing. You are Artemis’s daughter. Your powers are awake, Isabeau. The forest responds to your blood just as it did to hers. But you’ve been fighting alone, relying only on what flows within you.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, wincing as each step pulled at the wounds on my back.
“Trust in nature,” she said, gesturing to the living forest. “Trust your power. It doesn’t just reside in you. No, it’s everywhere you look. Your mother knew this. It’s why she couldcommand every beast, why the moon itself responded to her call.”
The ground gave another violent heave, nearly sending us both sprawling. Behind us, Hades emerged from the hut just as its roof caved in, his form now fully materialized. No longer shadow and smoke but flesh. Terrible, immortal flesh that radiated darkness like a black sun.
His anger roared at seeing Gaspard Coventry dead. “I can still claim Isabeau for the first curse,” he seethed. “The forest will still be mine!”
Enid straightened, releasing me to stand on my own. “No,” she said simply. “It ends now.”
From within her robes, she produced a knife. Not the ceremonial blade I might have expected from a witch, but a simple, practical thing of iron and wood. The kind huntsmen carried.
“What are you doing?” I asked, fear clutching at my heart.
“Fixing my mistake,” she replied, her voice calm, resolved. “Arty’s blood isn’t just within you, Isabeau. It’s in my veins too. Half-sisters share more than most think. And I am the other half of this curse. If I die…”
So does the curse…Understanding dawned, horror close behind it. It had been my intent to kill her, but now I knew her relation to me, to my mother. “No,” I gasped. “There must be another way.”
“There isn’t,” she said gently. “The curse requires blood freely given by someone of divine lineage. Your mother knew this when she created the loophole. She knew someone of our bloodline would have to pay the price.”
“Then let it be me,” I said, reaching for the knife. “I’m younger, stronger—”
“You’re needed,” she interrupted. “For your beasts. For the prince. For the forest’s future. You are who will shift the tidesof acceptance for all magic that has been outlawed, Isabeau Dubois.”
Before I could stop her, Enid began chanting in a language older than words, older than thought. The cracks in the earth widened around us, the gateway to the underworld yawning wider. Hades lunged forward, sensing her intent, but too late.
With movements too swift for her apparent age, Enid plunged the knife toward her own heart. Hades’ hand closed over hers on the hilt, trying to wrench it away, but his touch only completed the circuit, binding him to the sacrificial magic.
“No!” he roared, understanding too late what she’d done.
Divine blood spilled onto cursed earth, freely given. Enid’s body arched, light erupting from her eyes, her mouth, the wound in her chest. Not amber now, but pure white, blinding in its intensity. Where it touched Hades, his flesh sizzled and smoked.
“For my sister,” Enid gasped, her voice barely audible above the rumble of collapsing dimensions. “For my niece. For the forest, I give my life.”
The light consumed her entirely, her body dissolving into particles of pure radiance. From that central point, a ring of light exploded outward, racing through the forest in all directions. Where it passed, corruption retreated. Dead trees straightened, their bark healing, leaves sprouting from barren branches. The bog’s murky waters cleared, revealing clean, sandy bottoms. Even the air changed, the metallic taint replaced by the sweet scent of wildflowers and pine.
Hades shrieked, his nearly-complete form beginning to fracture. Cracks of light appeared across his flesh, widening with each passing second. He reached for me in desperation, perhaps hoping my blood could still save him, but another wave of light pulsed from where Enid had stood, driving him back.
“This isn’t over,” he hissed, his voice distorting as his form deteriorated. “Gods don’t die, godling. We merely retreat.”
With a final, furious howl, he collapsed in on himself, drawn back through the shadows to his own kingdom.
I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by what I’d witnessed. Enid—my aunt, my mother’s murderer, my savior—gone. Sacrificed to undo the curse she’d helped create. The contradiction of her stunned me. The witch who had cursed an entire realm, who had bound my beasts in torment, who had served the dark god... had in the end given everything to set things right.
The forest continued to transform around me. Trees that had been twisted and corrupt now stood tall and straight, their leaves a vibrant green that seemed to glow in the suddenly bright sunlight. Flowers bloomed in cascades of color, spreading across what had been dead ground moments before. Birds—ordinary birds, not the nightmare creatures that had haunted the Forbidden Forest—began to sing.
It was changing back. Not to what it had been in my lifetime, but to what it must have been before Enid’s curse. To what my mother had protected. The Enchanted Forest, reborn.
The claiming mark on my shoulder pulsed with joy, with relief, with love. Through it, I felt my beasts’ triumph as their prison dissolved around them. They were free. Free to return. Free to find me.
A new sound drew my attention. Near where the largest crack had been, a shimmering portal remained—not the hellish gateway to Hades’ realm, but something different. Brighter. A doorway between worlds that had been forcibly separated.
Alain stood before it, golden light still surrounding him like an aura. He reached into the portal, grasping someone’s outstretched hand, and pulled. A figure emerged. A woman in a tattered gown, her face bewildered but relieved as she stepped onto forest soil. Behind her came others. Men, women, children, all blinking in confusion at their sudden freedom.
The inhabitants of the Enchanted Realm, I realized. Not just my beasts, but all those who had been caught in the curse. Returning home after decades of imprisonment.
And there—my heart leaped—three larger figures emerging from the depths of the portal. Massive forms that I would know anywhere, that I had carried in my heart since the moment they claimed me. Marcel, his honey-colored fur gleaming in the sunlight. Laurent, silver-brown and sleek, moving with the grace that defied his size. Bastien, dark and fierce, his amber eyes already seeking mine across the distance.
