25. 24
The city gates loomed in the distance, but Mabel didn’t look back.
Her heels slapped against cobblestone. The wedding gown—a cascade of silk and lace—streamed behind her, collecting dirt and gasps in equal measure.
What have I done?
She tore past the market square, the scent of honey bread and roasted meat thick in the air. Vendors dropped what they were doing. A child pointed, slack-jawed. A baker gasped, “Is that the princess?”
Mabel didn’t stop.
The gold cuffs at her wrists rang out with every step, the last remnants of ceremony clashing with the sound of her escape. Somewhere behind her, bells tolled their warning—but she didn’t know if they were for her or because of her.
A guardsman made to step forward, then froze, recognition blooming on his face. “Princess—?”
She ducked into a side alley before he could move, breath ripping through her chest. The edge of her train snagged on a nail jutting from a wooden door, but she didn’t stop to free it. The dress tore with a hiss, clean and cruel, ripping the train free.
She burst into the lower farmland, where the outer wall fell away into overgrowth. Past the cattle and gawking farmers was the treeline—shadowed, waiting, familiar.
And as her feet hit soft earth at last, as the city began to shrink behind her, she let out a cry—raw, wordless, not sorrow or joy but some jagged freedom in-between.
The forest swallowed her whole.
Mabel stood alone in a sheltered grove tucked along the river’s bend, well beyond the reach of the city’s eyes.
Patches of snow still clung stubbornly to the shaded ground—half-melted, muddied at the edges, as though winter had not yet given its full permission to leave.
The willows bowed low over the water, their branches trailing into the current.
Somewhere above, birds chirped softly, unaware of the crooked crown tilting gently atop her tangled hair.
A shadow passed overhead.
She looked up, startled, as a raven swept low across the treetops. Its wings cut the pale light, silent but deliberate. It circled once, then glided on, vanishing behind a stand of pines.
She sank to her knees in a patch of thaw-soft earth, breath stuttering in shallow gusts.
Her gown fanned around her in ruined elegance—golden thread catching in damp reeds, fabric stained by melting snow and flight.
Crushed petals clung to the hem, relics of a ceremony she had walked away from without looking back.
Her fingers drifted to her wrist, to the place where the silk cord had once been knotted. Nothing remained of it now—only a phantom pressure and the memory of vows spoken. Her heart beat heavy and loud beneath skin that no longer felt regal—just real, and trembling, and hers.
“I left them all,” she whispered, though no one answered. Not Lance. Not Theodore. Not her mother or father. Just the soft rush of the river, gentle and indifferent.
She hadn’t imagined her wedding day would come to this.
All the effort—maps inked in secrecy, drawings folded and hidden, supplies tucked away for the moment she’d flee. Whisper.
None of it was with her.
Only the silk wedding gown, heavy now with damp, dragging through the thawing forest.
And beneath the chaos—beneath the ache in her chest and the echo of what she’d left behind—was something quieter.
Relief, small but undeniable.
A hush swept the grove, broken only by the soft shuffle of wings overhead. Mabel glanced up—and there it was again. A shadow of feathers, gliding just above the trees, rustling through frostbitten branches. It wasn’t close. But it was there. Watching. Following.
Then the cold began to settle.
Not the sharp bite she knew from frosted mornings, but the slow kind—the kind that seeped into the joints, curled around the bones, and stayed. Her arms folded tight across her chest, fingers rubbing at soaked sleeves, the fabric heavy with snowmelt and flecked with brittle leaves.
The adrenaline was fading.
In its place—ache. And questions.
Where am I going?
The thought landed hard—what am I going to do? Her head snapped up, eyes scanning the grove—the winding trail, the tangled canopy, the dark smear of forest bleeding across the hill’s edge. Every path looked the same. Unfamiliar. Unbothered by her presence.
She drew in a breath, steadying herself.
She wasn’t in the Mirewilde yet.
But she felt it—pressing in from the trunks, whispering through the branches. And deeper still, beyond the reach of light, it waited.
The wind picked up from the river’s edge—lifting her tattered skirts, sending ice slicing against her cheeks. Far behind, the city bells rang again, muffled by distance and trees.
At her throat, the pendant shifted.
A rustle caused her to spin to her feet, hand flying up before she could think. Fire bloomed at her fingertips—alive, burning pale blue at the edges with the heat of her panic.
From the tree line, Lance stepped through.
She said nothing at first. Just stared. Then, “Of course,” she scoffed. “It would be you.”
His brows were knit with worry, his breath uneven from a run. “Mabel,” he said softly, hands raised in a placating gesture. “I-I had to find you.” His eyes lingered on the fire at her fingertips, an unreadable look crossing his features.
The flame didn’t fade.
“Everything was perfect, I was perfect, and you couldn’t just wait,” she spat at him. “No—you had to storm in with your precious timing and your damned sense of loyalty,” she hissed, voice lethal and brittle.
Her chest rose and fell with the tension of the moment, the silence between them long and taut.
She had fled everything.
But somehow, he had followed.
The fire didn’t vanish. It hovered, flickering cold and pale at her fingertips as she eyed him. She took a step back, crushing the grass beneath her heels.
“I did what I had to,” he said quietly, though the words rang hollow between them.
“You did what you wanted to do,” she shot back.
“You knew what that wedding meant. What I was trying to—” She broke off, chest heaving, eyes glossed with something too bright to be rage alone.
“You shouldn’t have followed me,” she said, voice sharp enough to draw blood.
“You think after everything—after what you did—you get to chase me down the moment I choose myself?”
Lance hesitated. “Mabel, I didn’t come to change your mind. I just … I couldn’t let you be alone.”
Her jaw clenched. The flames flared again as she stared at him with a raging intensity. The bird above them called out once, wings shifting in the leaves.
Lance took another cautious step. “I love you. That hasn’t changed.”
Mabel took a deep breath. The flames dimmed—not extinguished, but softened. Because the truth was, even if she didn’t trust the timing, even if she didn’t trust him … he was her best shot at making it out of this alive.
The fire faded from her hands.
“You can follow me,” she said, voice hoarse, “but don’t think for a moment that I’ll ever forgive you for what you’ve done today.”
Lance stepped closer cautiously. “It didn’t take long for me to find you—I knew you’d come out here,” he said, voice quiet but sure. “The forest has always been your place, hasn’t it?”
Mabel didn’t answer right away. She watched him through narrowed eyes, the wind pressing stray wisps of hair against her temples. Her gown was soaked at the hem, the crown somehow still clinging to her braid.
And yet, when he said her name again—“Mabel”—softer this time, something in her chest gave. Just a little.
“I didn’t want to be found,” she mumbled.
“I know,” he replied, hands still loosely at his sides. “And I’m not here to ask you to undo what you did. I just … I needed to see you. To know you were all right.”
She let out a breath, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh.
“I was always going to run,” she said, the truth cracking through her voice.
“I thought I’d play the part, say the vows, and then disappear—maybe even fake my own death.
” She rolled her eyes, turning away from him, fists curled at her sides.
“Maybe if I’d made it to the end, they wouldn’t have noticed me vanish.
Maybe they’d have let me go if I did it quietly.
” She glanced over her shoulder, eyes sharp now.
“I just didn’t want it to be like this,” she snapped.
“Not in front of everyone. Not with a crown still on my head and vows spoken. Not with you bursting in like some hero ten steps too late.”
Lance exhaled sharply, like her words struck deeper than he’d braced for. He moved a step closer, not enough to crowd her, but just enough that she’d hear the truth in his voice, whether she wanted to or not.
“I know the timing was awful,” he said, hands open at his sides.
“And if you think I planned to humiliate you, to make it harder—I didn’t.
Gods, Mabel, I just couldn’t watch you marry him.
” His jaw flexed, eyes fierce now. “I wasn’t ready to let go.
That’s the truth. And maybe I was selfish, but I couldn’t stand there while you vanished into someone else’s future.
Not without saying it. Not without trying.
” He paused, breath catching. “You think I wanted to make a scene? I wanted to be the one in the wings, hurting, again? No. But I’d rather you hate me than wonder later if you ever had a choice.
” His voice broke a little on that last word.
Just enough to betray what was underneath.
“I knew my choice,” Mabel said, tone sharp.
“I’m sorry, Mabel.” Lance shook his head. He reached toward her—slowly, hesitantly—as if drawn by something unspoken. His hand extended, fingers just inches from hers, from her cheek, from the truth he still couldn’t touch.
And then—
A sudden rush of wings.
The bird dove, silent until the last second, then let loose a piercing shriek as it raked down from the branches overhead. Lance flinched, stumbling backward as talons scraped past his shoulder.
“What the hell!” he shouted, swiping wildly at the bird as it circled, relentless.