The great doors creaked shut behind me with a thunderous finality. Their echo lingered, like the fading toll of a cathedral bell. Behind them, the ballroom hummed with velvet voices, laughter muffled by chandeliers, the sound of silk brushing marble. But here, in the hushed hall of the east wing, only the slow tick of a grandfather clock broke the silence. Each tick sounded too loud, like the castle itself was marking time until something dreadful happened.
Zoë Windsor stood by the tall windows, bathed in moonlight. Her arms were crossed behind her back, posture immaculate, chin slightly raised, as though she herself was a carved saint—beautiful, aloof, and deeply false. Her gaze was fixed outward, but I knew she had heard every breath I drew, every slight tremor in my step.
"You called for me, Lady Zoë?"
She turned slowly, deliberately. No haste, no warmth. Her eyes caught the light like shards of frosted glass, sharp and glacial, reflecting nothing back. They were eyes that could watch you drown and not ripple.
"I lost a pendant on my way to the castle," she said, her voice flat as polished iron. "Somewhere in the forest." A pause followed, faint, calculated. Then her smile came, a soft curve with the edges of a knife: "It's a very old family heirloom. You wouldn't want me to get upset, would you?"
Her words fell like rose petals soaked in poison.
I swallowed hard, a lump catching in my throat. The air suddenly felt thick, like I was breathing through fabric. I knew what this was. Not a request. Not even a command. It was a test, dressed in velvet, masked as civility. A punishment in pearls.
[Not good, the System chimed, clipped and dry. Stay calm. Don't do anything rash.]
Behind me, muffled through the doors, the ballroom laughed. Glasses clinked. Shoes danced. And here, silence stretched taut, waiting to snap.
Zoë turned back to the window, her spine straight and dismissive. "That'll be all. Do return before the cusp of sunrise. We wouldn't want Regina to worry."
The way she said Regina's name—it wasn't concern. It was a blade twisted beneath silk, a reminder of whose shadow I stood under.
I bowed, shallow, unwilling. Then turned, the marble under my shoes hushed and cold. Each step felt like a farewell signed in ink.
The doors opened, spilling me into the garden air. The night breathed cold across my face, sharp enough to sting. The thought clawed its way into my mind and would not leave:
She knew. She knew I'd be sent to the forest.
The moon hung low, swollen, pale and sickly, like a secret no one should keep. The trees waited, dark and gnarled, their branches laced together like conspirators whispering. I stepped into the forest without looking back.
---
The forest was not silent.
It breathed. It whispered. It moaned.
Leaves shifted in uneasy rhythms, their movements like sentences cut short. The wind carried faint murmurs, like voices of the lost. The ground itself seemed alive beneath my boots, the soil soft as if hiding bones.
The trees leaned too close, their black-barked trunks bent forward as though listening. The air carried a pulse, faint at first, then heavier, like a heartbeat pressing against ribs too fragile to hold it. Every step was accompanied by that thudding echo, as though the forest had its own circulatory system, and I was trespassing in its veins.
Still, I walked.
Pale blooms curled at the base of one tree, their petals faintly glowing, rising and falling as though they were breathing. My fingers brushed one out of reflex, and its petals shivered, closing slowly, like an eyelid over a dead eye.
I drew my hand back fast.
Then—
Grrrrrrrr.
It rolled low through the air, a growl thick with hunger, heavy with promise. The kind of sound that strips you of every illusion of safety.
I turned.
It stepped from the shadow.
Half-beast. Half-armored nightmare. Its form was wrong—like a wolf, but twisted, bulkier, its bones jutting where they shouldn't, plates of something black and metallic fused into its hide. Its breath steamed. Its red eyes gleamed like rubies submerged in gore.
It didn't hesitate. It roared, a sound that rattled my chest, and lunged.
I barely had time to scream before the air warped—shimmering, bending like heat haze.
[Paige appeared.]
No words. No preamble. Just presence.
She was there—silver blade flashing with moonlight, cutting upward in a single fluid motion. The monster hit her steel instead of me, the clash erupting in sparks and a scream not human.
The beast staggered, its hide split open where Paige's blade bit. The wound smoked, not blood but black ichor spilling, hissing when it touched the earth.
Paige didn't flinch. Her eyes flicked once toward me—cool, unreadable. Then back to the monster.
She moved like a ghost dressed in steel. Every strike was precise, every step deliberate, like a dancer on a stage only she knew existed. The beast lunged again, faster, but Paige's form blurred. Her blade traced silver arcs through the dark, cutting tendons, opening flesh, breaking armor that should not break.
But the beast didn't fall.
It was laughing. Somehow, through snarls and ruptured flesh, it laughed, a rattling, guttural mockery of sound. With each wound, it seemed to swell, as though pain only taught it new shapes to wear. Its eyes glowed brighter, red as smoldering coals, locked on me even as Paige fought.
And I realized—
It wasn't here for her. It was here for me.
The forest watched. Zoë's voice echoed in memory: You wouldn't want me to get upset, would you?
This wasn't chance. This wasn't bad luck. She hadn't lost anything in the forest. She had sent me here to be measured—whether I'd survive, whether something would answer, whether I was worth the leash around my throat.
Paige moved again, faster now. Her blade pierced the beast's chest, driving through flesh and iron both. For a moment, the forest lit with silver fire. The beast howled—a sound so loud it shook the branches, sending birds screaming into the night.
Then it fell.
Crashing against the earth, twitching, leaking black ichor that steamed in the cold.
The silence that followed was worse. It wasn't relief—it was expectation, as though the forest had only stopped to listen.
Paige stood over the corpse, her blade dripping shadow instead of blood. She turned to me, expression unchanged, eyes deep as a well without bottom.
For a heartbeat, I thought she might say something. A word. A warning. A comfort.
She didn't.
She simply wiped her blade on the beast's hide, the silver gleam vanishing into steel, and faded—like a candle snuffed in a room you hadn't realized was dark.
I was alone again.
The body steamed. The flowers at the base of the tree had withered black. The pulse in the air slowed, but did not stop.
And above, the moon stared down, knowing, pale and unblinking.
The cusp of sunrise was still hours away.
And Zoë Windsor was still smiling somewhere behind glass windows.