Chapter 2
Fable Forest had more kinds of darkness than even loneliness could name.
Darkness pressed in where the moonlight didn’t reflect off the icy cold snow all around me, whipped up by the fury of the wind that was slowly turning into a blizzard, shrieking through the trees.
None of that was anything compared to the darkness that festered inside my own thoughts and gnawed like teeth on the bones of memory.
Doggedly, I dragged myself from hollow to hollow, and each step through the snow wrenched pain from the wound in my foreleg.
Magnus and I had gone at him together, beast and man snarling in one body, claws and fury against his jeers.
But Grimbalt’s magic—embedded in that accursed beard—was stronger than we guessed.
With a howl, he’d swung his rusted axe, the cursed metal biting deep, nearly severing my paw.
Once again, Magnus and I had failed in our quest to find the hidden horde and wrest the heart crystal from the troll before ridding the world of his evil presence once and for all.
I could’ve curled up and slept. That was how Magnus wanted to go: a final slumber as a bear beneath the snow, letting the blanket close in.
But I was Derrick, too, still. Prince Derrick.
I owed it to the man I used to be—and to the man I’d never get to be if I let the cold and pain have me—to keep lumbering forward. And I did. Step by painful step.
The trees dripped needles of ice, branches bent like dowagers’ backs.
I could see well enough, though the snow slowed even the moonlight down.
Somewhere in the far-off black, a fox yipped a prayer for sunrise.
I pushed past a clutch of brambles and let the thorns rake my pelt, because the pain proved I wasn’t beyond hope yet. Or so the human part of me whispered.
The memory of the kingdom I’d left behind swept in, bitter as the wind.
My father’s castle iced over for years after the curse.
The empty halls, once filled with life, servants, and nobles, were now filled with figures made of stone.
Where once hearts beat to the rhythm of life, now, only cold rock and death remained.
I used to roam those halls as a child, cuffing the ears of the younger courtiers if they fell out of step.
Now the only court I could claim was the animal parliament that ruled these woods with fang and famine.
A gust of wind staggered me, and the pain screamed up my side. The poison was working its way in deeper, a slow magic. The troll's laughter tracked me in every shadow, ugly and wet.
I tasted blood behind my teeth, and the beast inside me rose, hungry as winter.
For a moment, my vision flickered—a madness blacker than night—and I almost lost myself to the Magnus part for good.
But then, through the murk, a pinpoint of light flashed ahead: not the wandering phosphorus of a will-o’-the-wisp, but a clear, steady yellow, warm as hearthfire.
Hope is a liar, and yet it’s the only liar you want on your side when death is closing in.
I angled through the trees towards the light, fighting both the storm and my own failing leg.
Branches lashed me; snow clotted in the wound, half-freezing it.
My thoughts ricocheted between clarity and wildness. The light grew larger.
It was a cabin, walled up so snug the storm only licked at its eaves.
Smoke thumbed up from a crooked chimney.
In its window, a lamp glowed as if it had been set to catch a poor wanderer’s eye, like mine.
Through the glass, I saw the silhouette of a young woman bent over a table.
Or a girl—it was hard to tell from this distance, and the beast’s eyes lie about such things.
I made for the door, knowing better than to expect mercy.
Who in these woods would welcome a bloodied bear at midnight?
Even so, I crawled up the threshold, pawed at the frame, and let out a low, guttural sound— pale imitations of what once would have been a prince’s polite knock or a majestic bear's loud roar.
The girl inside jerked around. Her hair was white as birchbark, her skin pale as moon slush. She took a step forward, and her mouth formed a large O.