Yet bear it I did, one painful step after another.
The forest grew denser around me, the trees pressing closer together as if trying to block my passage. Branches snagged near my hair, thorns caught on my dress, roots seemed to rise from the ground specifically to trip my already unsteady feet. Still, I followed the raven’s dark form flitting between the trees ahead, trusting with a sad hope that it knew where safety might be found.
Strange sounds echoed through the darkness. Not just the expected hooting of owls or rustling of small creatures, but whispers that might have been the wind through leaves or might have been something more sinister. The forest had a voice, I realized with a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. Itspoke in creaks and groans, in the snap of twigs and the rustling of undergrowth.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I lied to the darkness, my voice thin and unconvincing even to my own ears.
The raven cawed again, its call echoing strangely in the dense foliage. It seemed closer now, as if it had stopped to wait for me. I quickened my pace as much as my exhausted body would allow, desperate to reach whatever destination the bird was leading me toward.
The energy that had surged through me in the river, that had bent iron bars and broken ropes, was nowhere to be found now. I felt hollow, emptied out, as if that burst of power had consumed everything I had. Was that how magic worked? I had no way of knowing. No one to ask. No mentor to guide me through this terrifying new reality.
My foot caught on another root, sending me sprawling face-first onto the forest floor. The impact drove what little breath remained from my lungs, leaving me gasping in the dirt and decaying leaves. For a moment, I considered not getting up. It would be so easy to just lie here, to let exhaustion and cold claim me. To join Papa in whatever afterlife awaited.
Then the raven landed beside my head, its beak just inches from my face. It pecked at the ground near my cheek, not quite touching me but close enough to make its point.Get up.
“Easy for you,” I groaned, forcing my arms beneath me. “You haven’t been chained, assaulted, nearly drowned, and chased through a forest.”
My knees shook as I pushed myself upright, my palms cut and scraped from the fall. The raven hopped back, watching me with those unnervingly intelligent eyes. Then it took flight once more, this time flying just a few feet ahead before landing and waiting, as if it had finally realized I couldn’t keep up with its previous pace.
“Thank you,” I muttered, limping after it. “At least one of us is thinking clearly.”
We continued this way for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes. The raven flew short distances, waiting for me to catch up, then flew ahead again. The cold had penetrated so deeply now that I’d stopped shivering, which I knew from my mother’s teachings was a dangerous sign. My thoughts wandered, images of Papa, Gaspard, Margaret, and Colette blurring together in my mind.
I nearly walked right into a tree, my awareness so diminished that I only noticed it at the last moment. The raven cawed sharply, the sound jerking me back to full consciousness. I blinked, trying to focus on my surroundings.
The forest had thinned. We stood at the edge of what appeared to be a clearing, though in the darkness, I could make out little beyond the immediate tree line.
“What now?” I asked, my voice slurring slightly from cold and exhaustion.
The raven hopped forward, entering the clearing. I followed, my curiosity momentarily overriding my caution. As I stepped beyond the trees, the ground beneath my feet changed from soft earth to what felt like stone. It was cracked and uneven, but unmistakably worked by human hands.
A path? This far out in the forest?
I looked up, squinting into the darkness. The clouds that had been gathering parted momentarily, allowing moonlight to spill across the landscape before me. My breath caught in my throat.
Rising from the center of the clearing was a castle, or what remained of one. Its towers, once proud, now crumbled at their peaks. Walls that must have been gleaming white were now stained with time and weather. Windows gaped like empty eye sockets, glass long since shattered. The main structure remainedintact, a testament to the skill of whoever had built it, but everything about it spoke of abandonment and decay.
“A castle,” I whispered, awe momentarily displacing fear. “In the middle of the Forbidden Forest?”
No one in the village had ever mentioned such a place. Then again, no one ventured this deep into the forest and lived to tell about it. Until now, apparently.
The raven launched itself toward the castle, flying ahead with renewed purpose. I followed the broken stone path, my bare feet grateful for the respite from the forest floor despite the cold hardness of the rock.
As I drew closer, details emerged from the darkness. Gargoyles perched at the corners of the roof, their features worn nearly smooth by the passage of time. An enormous wooden door, reinforced with iron bands, hung slightly ajar at the entrance. Ivy climbed the walls, reclaiming the structure for nature one stone at a time.
But it wasn’t the castle itself that caught and held my attention as I approached. It was what lay before it. What had once been formal gardens had become a wild tangle of overgrowth, most of it brown and withered even in the peak of summer. Dead trees stood like sentinels along what had once been manicured paths, their branches bare despite the season.
Yet in the center of this dead garden, illuminated by the intermittent moonlight, bloomed roses. Not just any roses, but the most vibrant, unnaturally red flowers I had ever seen. They glowed in the darkness, their color so intense it seemed to create its own light. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, growing on vines that wound through the dead garden like veins pulsing with life.
“How is this possible?” I whispered, drawn toward the incongruous display of vitality amid so much death.
The raven landed atop a broken stone bench at the edge of the rose garden, watching as I approached the blooms. The closer I got, the more wrong they seemed.
Too red, too perfect, too alive in this place where everything else had withered and died. Their scent reached me. Sweet and cloying, with an underlying note that reminded me of copper. Of blood.
Movement caught my eye, jarring me into a fright. It was subtle at first, then unmistakable. One of the vines shifted, not swaying in a breeze but moving with purpose, curling and uncurling like a finger beckoning me closer. I froze, certain I must be hallucinating from cold and exhaustion.
But no. Another vine moved, then another, writhing like snakes in a pit, their movements almost hypnotic. The roses themselves remained perfectly still, their blooms unwavering, but the vines on which they grew twisted and turned with impossible animation.
