CH. 17 Home, Sweet, Cursed Home
When I finally reach the Dark Forest, the world exhales with me. The familiar crooked trees lean close as if whispering welcome back, you idiot.
My hut creaks softly when I push the door open. Inside, the air smells of herbs, mildew, and safety.
"Leonardo!" I shout. "Your mama has returned!"
My baby axolotl floats to the glass, wiggling his feathery gills. "You left me to starve!"
I grin and drop a wriggling fish into his aquarium. "You're dramatic."
The five tarantulas crawl out from the shadows — Vivi, Gigi, Lili, Mimi, and Bibi. They crowd near the hearth, clicking their little legs in unison.
"Tell us everything, Drew!" Vivi chirps.
"Did you curse anyone?" Gigi adds eagerly.
"Did you eat a Prince?" Mimi asks hopefully.
"Almost," I say, flopping into my rickety chair. "But they were too stupid to season properly."
They laugh in their weird chittering way.
I rest my chin on my palm, gazing at the bubbling cauldron in the corner. "I should've never left. Humans are exhausting. Princes especially. All pride and perfume."
Leonardo burps a bubble. "You liked one of them."
I scowl. "I tolerated one of them."
"That's witch code for like," Vivi teases.
I throw a spoon at her. It misses.
The forest hums outside, the night air thick with familiar magic. I glance out the window where the Moon hangs low and red, staining the treetops with its glow.
For a moment, I think I see something flicker — a shimmer, like silver thread — stretching faintly from my wrist out into the horizon.
The bond.
"Oh, Moon curse it," I groan. "I forgot I'm still magically attached to the idiot Prince."
The tarantulas gasp in unison. "Romantic!"
"Tragic," I correct. "Horrific."
But even as I grumble, I can't quite shake the strange pull in my chest — a faint, steady heartbeat that isn't mine.
---
The next day was pure bliss. I inhaled the comfort of my cottage — the scent of sage, dried petals, and frog breath. Sunlight streamed through the crooked windows in dusty stripes, falling on my shelves of bottles and bones.
Leonardo was sprawled in his tank, belly-up, full and smug.
The tarantulas snored in a furry heap by the hearth.
I could almost forget the arena, the cold, the princes, the curse.
Almost.
By midday, I finally gathered enough courage to open the old chest beneath my bed.
It groaned like it disapproved of my decisions.
Inside lay relics wrapped in yellowed cloth — keepsakes from women long gone.
A bone comb. A vial of tears sealed in wax.
And, at the very bottom, the book.
It was thick, bound in hide that looked disturbingly like it remembered being alive. My grandmother used to call it The Grimoire of Veins. I used to call it absolutely cursed and definitely not bedtime reading.
When I flipped it open, the ink pulsed faintly — veins of crimson threading through the pages like living roots. My family's sigil shimmered across the first page: a spiral coiled around a drop of blood.
"Our blood remembers. Our blood protects."
I traced the letters with my thumb, and a spark jumped beneath my skin. The words bled and reshaped into something else — something personal.
I leaned back slowly, exhaling.
So that was it.
Back in the Trial — when I'd bitten my finger and let my blood fall to the ground — it hadn't been random witch nonsense after all. It had woken something ancient: a shield older than kingdoms, older than the Seer's trials themselves.
Of course, back then, I'd only pretended confidence. I hadn't known if it would work. I just hoped the ground would prefer my blood to my corpse.
And for once, my cursed blood hadn't ruined something.
It had saved us.
I shut the book carefully, running my hand across the cover. "Thanks, Grandma," I murmured. "You terrifying genius."
Outside, the forest sighed. Leaves whispered against the roof. The world felt whole again — crooked and loud and safe.
I spent the rest of the day gathering herbs, teasing Leonardo, and roasting mushrooms that probably weren't poisonous. At dusk, I walked the winding path to the grove where my aunt, mother, and grandmother rested — three stones etched with silver runes.
"I'm home," I told them. "I survived. Barely. And I may have accidentally impressed a prince, but don't haunt me about it."
The trees rustled like laughter. I grinned, kneeling to lay a sprig of wolfsbane at their roots. "Still watching, aren't you? You always did love a dramatic witch."
I whispered a few creative insults for good measure — they'd expect nothing less — and turned back toward the cottage.
The forest was beautiful that evening: shadows long and honey-soft, air thick with the scent of pine and night-blooming flowers. Fireflies blinked like scattered stars between the trees.
And then the world went still.
The birds stopped singing. Even the air felt heavy.
My pulse quickened. The bond — that faint thread of silver — burned at my wrist.
No, no, no.
A soft, deliberate crunch of boots on soil echoed from the path ahead.
I stepped back just as two figures emerged from the mist.
Hegar — calm, dark-eyed, his cloak already gathering dew — and beside him, unmistakable even in shadow, Prince Sorien.
His gaze swept the clearing once before it found me.
For one impossible heartbeat, no one moved.
My throat went dry. "Moon curse it," I whispered. "Not again."
Sorien's expression was unreadable, though the silver thread between us glowed faintly, betraying everything the silence didn't.
He took a slow step forward. "Found you," he said softly.