“Guard her with thy life,” I ordered, already drawing my sword. The familiar weight of steel in my hand steadied me, gave me purpose beyond the blind panic that threatened to overtake rational thought.
The beast roared, the sound echoing through the twisted trees like thunder trapped in a cavern. My mare danced nervously beneath me, but years of training kept her from bolting. I gripped her sides with my thighs, finding my balance as I adjusted my grip on my sword, holding it like a spear rather than a blade.
“Stay behind me,” I commanded my men, calculating distance, angle, opportunity. “On my signal, Willem, throw the torch atits face. The rest of you, be ready to ride the moment it’s distracted.”
The bear dropped to all fours, its misshapen head swinging from side to side as if deciding which of us to devour first. Its gaze fixed on my mare, perhaps sensing she carried the leader of this small human pack. Good. Let it focus on me. Let it forget about the others. About her.
I just had to be patient. In all my training for this very thing, I leaned one had to wait for opportunity. My eyes tracked it as it stalked toward me. He recognized I was his true enemy, but he didn’t have the intelligence of man to understand what I waited for.
“Now!” I shouted, and Willem hurled his torch directly at the creature’s face.
The beast reared up, batting at the flames with one massive paw, and in that moment of distraction, I made my move. I urged my mare forward, not a full charge because there wasn’t space but enough momentum to add force to what I planned. As the bear’s attention fixed on the torch now smoldering on the ground, I raised my sword, measuring distance with the precision that had made me Durand’s finest hunter after years of practice.
With a grunt of effort, I hurled the blade like a javelin, putting every ounce of strength behind the throw. The sword flew true, entering the beast’s gaping maw and driving through the back of its throat with enough force to pin it to the tree behind and severing his spinal cord. Black blood spurted from the wound, hissing where it touched snow, releasing a stench so vile I nearly retched.
The corrupted bear thrashed, its movements growing weaker as whatever passed for life in its twisted body drained away. Its single eye fixed on me with such hatred, such malevolence, thatI felt the weight like a horse sitting on me. This was no natural creature. This was corruption given flesh, hatred given form.
“Ride!” I shouted, wheeling my mare around. “Now!”
Thibaut had already started forward, cradling the woman protectively against his chest. I fell in beside him, trying not to look at her face, at the vulnerability that made something in my chest ache. Willem had recovered his torch and now rode ahead, lighting our desperate flight through the forest’s heart.
We rode as if demons pursued us, and perhaps they did. I could feel eyes watching from the darkness, hear soft footfalls pacing alongside our path, just beyond the torchlight’s reach. Wolves, or something that had once been wolves before the forest’s corruption twisted them into mockeries of nature’s design.
Ten minutes stretched like an eternity, each hoofbeat a prayer for survival, each breath a silent thanks that it wasn’t our last. Then the trees began to thin, gaps appearing between their skeletal forms, and ahead a blessed sight. The starlit expanse of open fields.
“There!” I called, pointing ahead. “The forest’s edge!”
My men’s faces lit with desperate hope as we urged our exhausted mounts toward freedom. Behind us, howls rose in chorus, the sound unlike any wolf pack I’d ever heard. Higher, sharper, with an almost human quality that made my skin crawl. I glanced back and saw them. At least a dozen shapes, some running on four legs, others on two, all with eyes that gleamed in the darkness like baleful stars.
We burst from the forest’s edge onto open ground, our horses’ hooves finding purchase on frozen earth untainted by corruption. I pulled up sharply, turning to face the treeline, sword drawn, ready to make a stand if the creatures followed.
They didn’t. The pack gathered at the forest’s edge, their forms indistinct in the darkness, but their eyes visible yellow, all fixedon us with undisguised hunger. Yet they made no move to cross the invisible boundary that separated their domain from the human world.
“They won’t follow,” Thibaut said, his voice hoarse with relief. “Not outside their territory. Not yet, at least. Their magic cannot sustain them outside of their lands.”
I nodded, my gaze dropping to the woman in his arms. In the clear starlight, I could see her face fully for the first time since rescuing her from the dungeon. Even wasted by starvation and imprisonment, her beauty was haunting. High cheekbones, full lips, features that seemed to belong to an older, wilder bloodline than any I’d encountered in Durand’s court.
“Your Highness,” Thibaut said quietly, his eyes troubled as they met mine. “I must ask... what if the forest’s corruption resides within her as well? What if she’s not what she appears?”
The question hit me like a fist to my stomach because I’d been deliberately avoiding it myself. What if this woman, who had called to me through dreams, who had been imprisoned in a cursed castle, carried the very taint my family had sworn to eradicate? What if I was bringing danger directly to Durand’s gates?
“Give her to me,” I said instead of answering, and Thibaut transferred her back into my arms without protest.
She felt right there, her weight against my chest a comfort rather than a burden. I studied her face in the starlight, searching for any sign of the corruption we’d seen in the bear, in the wolves. Her skin was pale but unmarked by the black veins that had indicated infection in livestock along the forest’s boundaries. Though, the bites on her shoulder worried me. Her breath came evenly now, her body perhaps sensing it was beyond immediate danger.
“My duty is to my kingdom,” I said finally, meeting Thibaut’s concerned gaze. “To the safety of my people above all else. If Ibelieved she posed a threat to Durand, I would not bring her within our walls, but you have my word that I’ll ensure she brings us no harm while in my care.”
It wasn’t quite an answer, and we both knew it. Because the truth was more complicated, more dangerous than I could admit aloud. This woman had called to me across leagues, had pulled me from my bed with visions of amber eyes and chains. I had defied my father’s implicit orders by entering the Forbidden Forest. I had risked the lives of my most loyal men to rescue her.
And I would do it all again without hesitation.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a rhythm I was certain she must feel where her cheek pressed against my chest. The cold night air carried the scent of frost and distant woodsmoke from farmhouses on the horizon. Home, safety, civilization. Behind us, the forest loomed like a physical manifestation of every dark story my grandfather had used to justify his purge of magic from our lands.
“We make for Durand,” I decided, adjusting my grip on the woman. “With all haste.”
As we rode away from the forest’s edge, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. Not by the wolves or other corrupted creatures, but by something more ancient, more aware. Something that had deliberately placed this woman in my path, knowing I would find her, knowing I would bring her home.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it felt like stepping into a role I’d been born to play, a destiny I hadn’t known awaited me until amber eyes haunted my dreams and pulled me into the heart of everything I’d been taught to fear.
