Chapter 29 Alain #2
Silence stretched, punctuated only by the crack and pop of burning wood. The men exchanged glances, a silent negotiation of who would speak first, who would risk acknowledging what they all pretended not to see.
“It’s not a place for men, sire,” an older hunter finally muttered, his weathered face carved with deeper lines in the firelight. “Not anymore.”
“It has a name,” I pressed. “The Forbidden Forest, they call it in the castle. Though my tutors never explained why it’s forbidden. Most call it the black forest in the city.”
Thibaut cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably on his log seat. “There are... stories, Your Highness. Nothing fit for royal ears.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, pinning him with my stare. “I’ve spent three months sleeping on frozen ground and pissing in the snow alongside you all. I think we can dispense with what’s fit for royal ears.”
A nervous chuckle rippled through the group, breaking some of the tension. Thibaut sighed, resignation settling across his broad shoulders.
“They say it was beautiful once,” he began, voice dropping lower as if afraid the forest might hear him.
“Green and alive. A sanctuary where magical creatures lived in peace. Then something happened. A curse, they say, though no one agrees on who cast it or why. The forest turned black. The animals within it twisted into mockeries of themselves. And the magic that once blessed the land became a poison.”
I nodded, encouraging him to continue. This much I’d heard before, in whispered fragments from castle servants who quickly fell silent when they noticed me listening.
“But that’s not what keeps men away,” Thibaut continued, staring into the fire rather than at me or the forest. “It’s the beast.”
“What beast?” I asked, though something cold slithered down my spine, a premonition of an answer I already half-knew.
“Not what—who,” corrected another hunter, an archer from the eastern villages with a reputation for seeing farther than most. “They say he was a royal once. A noble. Transformed by the curse into something neither man nor animal.”
“Three of them,” added another voice from across the fire. “Brothers. Cursed to wear the skins of monsters.”
Thibaut shook his head. “That’s just one version. Others say it’s a single creature, ancient as the mountains, awakened when the curse twisted the land.”
My patience thinned. “And what does this beast—one or three—have to do with men avoiding the forest?”
The silence that followed felt heavier than before. Finally, Thibaut met my gaze directly, his eyes grave.
“About five months back, a girl went missing from a village near the forest’s edge, Thorndale.
Young, beautiful by all accounts. Search parties found nothing—until a hunter claimed he saw her through the trees.
” He paused, taking a long pull from his wineskin before continuing.
“Said she was naked as the day she was born, running with the beast like she belonged to him. Said it had its teeth in her shoulder, marking her as its own, and she wore a collar around her neck to show his ownership.”
Five months. My hand tightened around my bread until it crumbled between my fingers. Could they have seen Odette?
“When men tried to rescue her,” another hunter picked up the tale, “they never returned. But sometimes, on still nights, you can hear screams from beyond the tree line. No one knows if it’s the beast, the girl, or the men who tried to save her.”
“She’s not the first,” the archer added, his voice barely audible.
“Every few generations, a maiden disappears. Always beautiful. Always special in some way—a voice like birdsong, or eyes that seem to see more than they should… An Thorndale’s village has to offer a sacrifice to the forest for the beast to claim to prevent him from entering their town and destroying it. Every Harvest Moon. “
“Like amber eyes,” I whispered, thinking of my sister’s unusual gaze that had always set her apart.
Several men nodded, unaware of why I’d paled.
“They say the beast keeps her as his pet,” Thibaut said grimly. “A perversion of the natural order, where man rules over beast. In that cursed place, the beast rules the woman. She’s his and forced to stay.”
“No one who enters comes back out,” the old hunter concluded, spitting into the fire as if to ward off evil. “That’s why we don’t look too deep into those trees, Your Highness. Some things are better left alone.”
I stared past the fire into the twisted darkness beyond. Had Odette wandered into those woods? Had this beast—whatever it was—taken her for his own? The thought made bile rise in my throat, but it was the first real lead I’d had in years of searching.
“My mother warned me about the forest,” I said quietly, more to myself than the men. “Told me never to enter the land forsaken. That magic had cursed it, like it cursed everything good in the world.”
“Wise woman, the queen,” Thibaut murmured. “Magic brought nothing but suffering to Durand. Your grandfather had the right of it, outlawing its practice.”
I thought of my mother’s face when she spoke of the forest—not fear, as I’d always assumed, but something more complex. Grief, perhaps. Regret. As if she knew more than she ever told me.
“Do you think it’s spreading?” I asked, voicing the concern that had plagued me through months of hunting the borderlands. “The corruption. The darkness. I’ve seen healthy forests sicken near its boundaries. Animals born wrong, with extra limbs or missing eyes.”
The men exchanged uneasy glances.
“My village lost three cows last month,” the archer said reluctantly. “Found them dead with black veins running under their skin, like their blood had turned to tar. Never seen anything like it.”
“The well water in Mistwood tastes of metal now,” another added. “And children born this winter along the forest territories... some of them aren’t right.”
A shiver passed through me that had nothing to do with the night’s chill.
If the corruption was spreading, it wouldn’t stop at village wells and malformed livestock.
Eventually, it would reach Durand itself.
My father’s city. My people. My inheritance.
Someone needed to figure out why it was growing when it hadn’t in all these years it existed.
And somewhere in that darkness might be my sister. Eleven years lost to that twisted place.
I rose abruptly, tossing what remained of my bread into the fire. “Get some rest,” I ordered. “We return to the city at first light.”
The men nodded, relief evident in their postures as they prepared their bedrolls as far from the forest edge as our campsite allowed. None questioned why I remained standing, staring into the corrupted woods as if I could pierce its secrets through will alone.
I had been raised not to enter the Forbidden Forest. Raised to fear magic and the chaos it brought. Raised to be a proper prince who followed the rules laid down by generations of Legrands before me.
But I wasn’t just a prince. I was a brother. And if there was even a chance Odette was in there, held captive by some beast that thought it could take what belonged to me—what belonged to our family—then rules meant nothing.
The tournament would have to wait. Gaspard Coventry would have to wait. I had a more important hunt to plan, one that would take me into the heart of a curse that had already stolen eleven years of my sister’s life.
And if I had to become a beast myself to get her back, so be it.