Chapter 13 ROSE
Ihad been walking for hours under the grayish sky when the path narrowed into broken stone and thorn. My boots were soaked through already from melted snow that had turned the path into mud, my cloak snagged where brambles clung, but still I pressed on.
I’d left Mother and Snow behind without a word, only a hastily written note promising that I wouldn’t be gone long.
Guilt pinched me even now. I could picture Mother frowning at the empty hearth, Snow glancing nervously at the door.
They would worry. Of course they would. But the thought of freeing Derrick was too tempting, too bright to resist. If Alarion held the antidote to undo the curse, then every step I took toward him might be the step that gave me Derrick back.
That thought burned in me, steadier than any fire.
But guilt wasn’t the only thing clawing at my chest. The name haunted me like a splinter: Alarion—my father.
A wizard.
A Bluebeard.
It hardly seemed real. To know that his blood, his legacy, ran in me. I wanted to spit it out, to carve it from my veins, but there it was all the same. What did that make me?
I shook the thought away and gripped my bow tighter. Derrick needed me. That mattered more than curses, more than lineage, more than anything.
Still, I wished Snow were with me. My brave, quiet sister with her sharp tongue when it mattered most. She would have steadied me, reminded me to breathe, to think. The silence of the woods pressed heavier without her; each crow’s cry was a little too sharp, each shadow stretched a little too long.
But I wasn’t turning back. Not now. Not when Derrick’s face—his human face—still burned in my mind, golden eyes fierce with love even as the curse dragged him away from me again.
So I kept walking deeper into stone and thorn, guilt and dread chasing at my heels while hope drove me forward.
Suddenly, a loud shriek split the air.
I froze.
“Curses! Blasted rocks, villainous stones! I’ll grind you into dust and drink from your marrow!”
The voice was unmistakable.
I stepped around the boulder and there he was again— the troll—flat on his stomach, half-buried beneath a rock that had rolled down the slope and pinned his beard and the hem of his tunic tight to the ground.
He was red-faced, kicking and thrashing, his stubby arms straining uselessly at the weight.
I couldn’t stop myself. “You’re stuck… again?”
His head snapped up—as much as it could—and his eyes flashed like coals. “Don’t stand there like a crow gawping at carrion! Get me out, you pine-brained goose!”
I set my bow and quiver down and folded my arms. “You know, for someone who calls himself clever, you’re remarkably clumsy.”
“Clumsy?” he sputtered. “Grimbalt is not clumsy. Never. This was sabotage! A rock crept up behind me like a thief in the night, treachery of the highest order, I tell you! And you mock me?”
I rolled my eyes, crouched down, and first shoved my shoulder against the stone, while Grimbalt, as he called himself, wailed the whole time.
“Careful, you brute! Don’t tug the beard, it’s worth more than your miserable life! Mind my tunic, it’s a rare weave, stolen from a king’s back, I’ll have you know!”
“Then you should treat it better,” I muttered, bracing my boots. With a grunt, I shoved. The rock shifted an inch, then another. Grimbalt wriggled and kicked, but when I stepped back, the stone only sagged back into place.
“Hopeless,” he moaned. “You’re weaker than you look. Try again, goose, unless you mean to leave me here as carrion!”
"Don't tempt me, troll." Grinding my teeth, I crouched lower, hooked both hands under the edge, and tried levering it with my whole body. My arms burned, my back screamed, and still the stone barely budged. Grimbalt shrieked when I accidentally pulled a few more hairs taut.
That was the last of my patience. With a sharp motion, I pulled my knife from my belt.
His eyes bulged. “No! Not the beard—anything but—” He thrashed so hard, the rock nearly crushed his nose in the dirt.
“You don’t understand! This isn’t hair, it’s history!
Generations of greatness woven strand by strand!
Each curl a legacy! Each braid a triumph!
Don’t you dare lay that blade on it again, you savage little goat! ”
I arched a brow, knife steady in my hand. “Legacy or not, it’s tangled in a rock.”
“Better the rock take me whole than you mutilate me!” he wailed. “My beard is my crown, my banner, my birthright! Do you want me shamed before every troll and sprite in these woods?”
“Do you want to be crushed before supper?” I shot back.
He froze, glaring, beard still stretched taut beneath the stone. “You wouldn’t.”
Snip.
The blade cut clean through the last tangled strands. The rock settled back with a thud, and Grimbalt tumbled free in a heap, clutching the ragged end of his beard as though I’d shorn off his very soul.
“You wicked, graceless child!” he screeched. “Wretched girl! You’ll never understand what you’ve cost me! Not one bit of gratitude—none!”
He scrambled to his feet. His face turned purple with fury, and his eyes rolled so wild they almost gleamed red. For a heartbeat, I thought he might burst apart from rage alone.
Then he spun, saw my bow lying against the rocks where I’d set it down.
“Don’t you dare—” I started, but he snatched it up, his stubby fingers fumbling against the string.
“You think you can mock me? Me?” he snarled, flashing his gray teeth. “You cut my power away strand by strand, but I’ll show you, I’ll skewer you to the very trees!”
The string groaned under his clumsy pull.
His arms shook; the bow was far too large for him, but the fury in his eyes was real.
For the first time in all our run-ins, I felt true danger in him, not just spite or meanness, but a murderous rage that might yet find its mark.
The bowstring creaked, taut and trembled.
My breath caught, terror burned up through me like fire.
I didn’t want to die. Not here, not like this, not at the hands of this wretched little goblin with stubs of hair for a beard and hate dripping from his mouth.
“Goodbye, goose,” Grimbalt spat, his lips peeled back in a smile too wide, and much too eager.
The arrow trembled, just as a roar split the woods.
A bear.
My bear.
He came crashing through the trees, a thunder of muscle and fur, his golden eyes blazing with unrestrained fury. The earth shook beneath his charge. He hit Grimbalt before the arrow loosened enough to fly, sending the little creature sprawling in the dirt, shrieking.
Grimbalt’s hand snapped up, sparks crackled weakly from his stubby fingers. “Hex!” he spat, flinging the word like a stone. A jagged shimmer of light burst between them, but it fizzled almost instantly, no stronger than a child’s candle flame.
Derrick laughed, a terrible, rolling roar-laugh that shook the leaves from the trees.
The sound raised every hair on my arms, sent terror and awe alike shivering through me.
Then Grimbalt tried again, words spitting from his tongue, but his magic sputtered like a dying fire.
I didn’t understand how a troll knew of magic, nor why it seemed to flare and fade without taking effect.
With one colossal swipe of his paw, Derrick slammed the troll into the ground. Grimbalt screeched, flailing, cursing me, cursing Derrick, cursing the world. But Derrick did not let go. His weight crushed the last breath from Grimbalt’s chest.
The forest went still.
Derrick threw back his head and roared, a mighty, victorious bellow that shook the sky. And as the sound faded, his form shifted: fur receded, claws melted into fingers. His transformation showed none of the agony of before, and soon he stood before me in the clearing, not the beast, but the man.
Derrick.
My Derrick.
No longer ragged or half-shadowed, but whole.
Dressed in fine brown leather breeches and a white shirt open at the chest, his broad torso gleamed with sweat, and his breath came out hard and fast. His hair was wild, damp with exertion, his golden-brown eyes locked on me like I was the only thing left in the world worth seeing.
He took a step, chest rising and falling, and his voice broke, rough but urgent. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
The sight of him, so real, so solid, stripped the air from my lungs. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. A cry tore from me, half relief, half disbelief. “Derrick!”
I flung myself at him, my arms moved around his neck, and I clung to him as though the world itself might try to steal him away again.
He caught me instantly, his strong arms crushed me close, his chest heaved against mine.
I could feel the rapid thud of his heart through the thin linen, steady and alive. Alive!
“Rose,” he breathed into my hair, and his voice broke with something raw and unguarded. “My Rose.”
“You’re you,” I whispered, searching his face, my trembling hands splayed against his chest.
He laughed, breathless and bright, his golden eyes crinkled with relief. “I’m me.”
But then he sobered. His hands came up, warm and steady, cradling my face as though I might vanish if he let go. His thumb traced the tears from my cheek. “Will you ever forgive me?”
I laughed through the sob that wanted to break free.
“Always, my heart.” I pressed into his palm, desperate to anchor myself to him.
And I did. I had always understood why he had done what he did, and there was no question in my mind that I would forgive him almost anything.
Either way, it was over now, he… that’s when I realized, he wasn’t bare-skinned as he’d been when the sun freed him before.
The curse had changed more than his shape.
He was dressed now, as though the forest itself had clothed him in victory. He looked every inch the man he was meant to be. Not beast. Not cursed. Mine.
“But… what happened? Is the curse broken? How did killing Grimbalt end it?”