Chapter Text
“Here. For safekeeping,” Loveage said, handing me one of the griffin feathers while pocketing the other. It weighed heavy in my hand, far heavier than I expected of such a small item. I narrowed my eyes, studying it more closely. Golden rays of sunlight trickled through the trees, the reflection on the feather revealing the spectrum of red and orange hues hidden within the bronze, the shadows of oxidized greens between the hair-thin barbs. If the feather wasn’t so heavy and solid to the touch, I’d be afraid of bending them.
Strange, how such a small item would end the curse that altered both our lives so severely these past weeks. I took a deep breath, carefully sliding the feather into the pocket of my sorcerer’s coat.
“As soon as we’re past the barrier,” I promised.
He seemed content with that, but as we continued on the path Jayne had shown us, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this closeness that had formed between us would survive beyond the end of this curse. The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth, though I couldn’t quite place my finger on why.
“Perhaps waiting is for the best,” I said carefully. “We’ll still have to travel back to Luxe together after it’s cast, but this leg of the journey will be more pleasant for you, at least.”
Behind me, he scoffed. I peered over my shoulder to find him frowning, a challenge in his blue eyes. “What do you mean?” His tone sounded almost accusatory.
I raised my brows. It took me aback, just a little bit. I pressed my lips together, quickly regaining my composure. “Just that things will be different. With the curse gone,” I added hastily.
His eyes narrowed, betraying equal parts confusion and something almost resembling hurt. “So, what, you think that as soon as the curse is gone, I'm going to go from not wanting to be parted to not being able to stand the sight of you in the blind of an eye?” He said it as if the very notion of it was ridiculous. As if he hadn’t spent the better part of the last five years dreading my very presence.
I looked down, somehow unable to meet his gaze. “Isn’t that how it was before?”
“Well, yes,” he stammered, as if looking for the right words. He let out a deep sigh. “Look, it’s not as though I won’t remember what happened. I’ve been here the entire time, Grimm. Me, not just the curse.” There was an almost childlike hopefulness bordering on naivety to his words. Part of me really wanted to believe him. To see the world as he saw it, only basking in the sunlight and never seeing the dark clouds lurking on the horizon.
I looked back to the path in front of us. “There’s really no telling how much the curse has altered your perceptions and actions recently,” I said after a long silence, feeling the tang of the words as they left my mouth. “We won’t know until it’s gone.”
Until you’re back to cursing my very existence, I didn’t add. I stifled a sigh. Who was I really trying to placate: Loveage, or myself? The man behind the carefully constructed facade I’d come to know, and even grow something akin to affection for. And the gentleness he’d shown me, a warmth in stark contrast to how he’d seen me before. I swallowed, focusing my eyes on the path. Who knew how much of that warmth towards me was only a product of the spell hanging between us? I’d grown to care for him in a way I couldn’t quite place my finger on, despite my better judgment. But once the curse was gone, who was to say what would remain?
There was no telling what parts of it were real, and what parts a clever lie spun into being by the spell.
It was better to prepare for it now, to steel myself for the disappointment. I turned back towards the path in front of us, still avoiding his gaze, and continued walking. Only after a few steps did I realize I didn’t hear his footsteps behind me. I turned, narrowing my eyes. He’d dropped his bag on the forest floor, frantically pulling a crumpled piece of paper and a quill from his pocket.
I raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Proving a point,” he answered briskly, pulling his violin case off his shoulder and setting it in front of him as a makeshift desk, before hastily scribbling something on the piece of paper.
My eyes darted over the thick forest around us, the shadows already growing longer. “Can’t it wait? It will be dark soon.” I tried to keep my voice calm, though a glimmer of exasperation leaked through.
He scoffed. “No, it can’t wait because apparently you think I’m just some sort of—of mindless curse puppet! Which is, quite frankly, insulting considering the amount of time I’ve spent resisting getting my strings jerked by this thing.” His voice bordered on dismay as he spoke. I opened my mouth, but he interrupted me before a word could leave my lips. “No, don’t argue, just be quiet and let me work.”
I crossed my arms and let out a long sigh, but left him to his work. Despite everything—the curse, the forest, the monsters that might or might not have been hiding just out of sight—there was something endearing about watching him concentrated on composing a spell. His brow furrowed ever so slightly, and his gaze remained fixed on the paper as he etched in the words with a swift grace. There was a mesmerizing quality to watching him scrive. It always made me wonder what was going on inside his head.
It didn’t take long for him to finish. He etched the last stroke of the quill onto the paper, before blowing on the ink and handing it to me. “Cast this,” he said.
I held his gaze for a second, before frowning and scanning the first line. There was a familiarity to the words, a recognition tugging at my brain, similar to something else I’ve cast recently. Wait, was this…?
“Loveage—“
“Just cast it,” he said. “It will mend your sash.”
My eyes widened as I looked back at him, my eyebrows shooting up. Out of reflex, I reached for my sash, fingers tracing the stitching along the tear he made at the start of the tier, placed meticulously to hide the careful reparations I’d done on it.
“Hurry up, it will be dark soon,” he continued, though his voice betrayed a patience his words didn’t carry.
I realized I’d been staring at him. As was so often the case, I couldn’t quite place his intent. Still, it was an act of kindness, a warmth spreading through me with the very realization. I untied my sash, carefully laying it down on the pine needle covered forest floor. Usually I spent great care on keeping it clean, neat and pressed, but all the time in the forest had taken its toll on the delicate fabric. It was wrinkled, the edges fraying. My eyes darted over the paper, reading the words of the spell a few times until I had memorized them.
I started casting, carefully enunciating each word in my head as the spell began to take effect. The sash quivered where it lay, as if caressed by a gentle breeze. The frayed threads reached across the severed gap, slowly weaving back together when they met in the middle. It felt almost unreal, watching as the delicate droplets I’d embroidered so many years ago started reattaching themselves, until it was one again. Finally, the smoke cleared. I bend over, carefully picking up the sash and tracing my fingers over the smooth fabric. A faint line ran through the satin where the tear had been. I grazed my finger over it, touching the almost imperceptible scar on the fabric. The thrum of magic still echoed through the threads like a delicate heartbeat.
It was beautiful.
“Our sashes are meant to tell a story, right?” he said. I traced my finger over the embroidered droplets, the faint line in the fabric. If I hadn’t cast the spell myself, I would have hardly believed it. “So I hope that you look at that mark and remember that I’m the one who fixed this for you, not the curse.” My eyes widened slightly at his words. “And that will be just as true a few days from now when it’s gone.”
I looked up from the sash in a feeling almost akin to astonishment, a warm flutter in my chest I couldn’t quite place. His eyes had softened as he looked at me, though a determination shimmered in them. “I’ll remember,” I said, suddenly shy from his piercing gaze, and carefully tied the sash back around my waist.
* * *
The sky darkened as we continued our way forward, a quiet falling over the woods. Crickets chirped from beyond the trees, the eerie echo of their sound dancing off the trees. I kept my eyes fixed on the path before us, remembering what Jayne told us, scanning every leaf that moved slightly differently than I’d expect it to. Occasionally, my fingers wandered towards my sash, feeling the faint line where the tear had once been. I felt a strange gratitude in me. It was an act of kindness, one that I would not soon forget.
Not that it erased all my concerns, of course. We still did not know what would happen when the curse broke.
Still, no matter how odd the thought felt in my head, I trusted him. Strange as that once may have sounded to me. More than trust, I felt that strange bond that had grown between us. One that I suspected neither of us had quite seen coming. Not too long ago, I would have certainly scoffed at this strange sort of affection. But things were different now.
Perhaps I was different, too.
After a few hours of walking, almost all the light had faded from the sky, and scanning the path for danger became more difficult. Attempting to traverse through the woods in the dark would certainly not be wise, no matter how quickly we wanted to leave the woods. I raised my hand, signaling him to halt. “An hour or two in the morning will be safer than pressing on now.” He nodded.
I turned back, scanning our surroundings for a safe spot to camp. There, a little further on, I spotted a giant tree. Its roots formed a small alcove, providing cover from both the elements and monsters. I pointed towards it. “What about there?”
He didn’t answer. I looked over my shoulder, a questioning look in my eyes. He was still behind me, standing strangely still with his mouth agape. His eyes darted around anxiously, before landing on me. “Loveage?”
I narrowed my eyes, scanning him. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and yet.. He looked almost like I’d commanded him to stop. Not that that could be the case. As always these past weeks, I’d been very careful with my wording. A strange tension settled on my muscles. His eyes remained on mine, and a strangled sound escaped his lips. In instinct, my hand shot towards my sword, bracing for whatever danger was undoubtedly lurking.
My hand froze, inches away from the hilt. A strange chill ran over me, gooseskin appearing on my arms. No matter how hard I tried, I could not move a muscle. My eyes darted back to Loveage, wider now, when I smelled it.
That distinct metallic smoke, the scent of magic. Not even a second later I discerned the source. Stepping out from behind a tree was none other than Mathias. A bolt of fear shot through me. The bastard. I knew we shouldn’t have trusted him. Especially him.
“That’s the second time this spell has been wasted on you,” he said coldly, walking closer. He stopped behind Loveage, towering over him with at least a head taller. An icy fear dawned on me. I wanted to shout a warning, cast a spell, draw my sword. Anything to stop him from laying a finger on Loveage.
But I was powerless to watch in anguish and horror as he drew his sword and pricked the back of Loveage’s neck. His eyes fell shut, and he slumped to his knees, before falling to the ground with a loud thud.
Cold fury burned from my eyes as I looked back to Mathias, who now stepped towards me. His eyes betrayed an expression of cold, calculated cruelty as he lifted the tip of his sword to my neck. I could only watch.
“This will only hurt a bit,” he said. The sword pricked against my neck, stinging faintly. A tingling spread through my body, until I could no longer feel my toes. My muscles went limp, unresponsive, and I staggered on my knees. I shot a quick look at Loveage, willing my legs to move, to run towards him. To do anything.
Instead, a numbness spread through my limbs, and despite my every effort against it, I slumped through my legs, a darkness settling before my eyes before I hit the ground.
* * *
Time slurred in the frigid, dark nothingness, my thoughts nothing but fraying threads drifting through space. Where was I? What was I doing? Somehow, the loose threads wove together into a single thought, thrumming through my head: I had to save Loveage.
And yet, I was unable to move. Unable to do anything. An aching pain spread through my body, not unlike the time he’d blasted me through that window with that failed wind spell of his. A biting coldness seeped through my limbs. No, not cold… wet. I was laying in water, somewhere. Strangely enough, the cold sensation allowed me to regain some feeling in my fingers. I wiggled them, first my index finger, brushing through slick, cold mud. The movement felt strange, foreign. Like my body wasn’t mine to command. I moved my finger again, the slightest bend taking ages. After what felt like a lifetime passed in the puddle, I curled my hand into a fist. I didn’t hear or see Loveage around me. Where was he? I had to find him.
I gritted my teeth together, managing to move my wrist. Then, my arm, pushing through the slick mud. With all the speed of a snail, I managed to position my arm underneath my body. A soft grunt escaped my throat, my arm trembling as I commanded my muscles to push my torso those few inches up. At least my head wasn’t in the water anymore.
A chill breeze carried the sound of voices, too distant to understand. A gruff, low voice, and, slightly softer… Loveage?
My heart pounded, as I clenched my teeth together and stretched my arm forward. My legs were still numb, dead weight hanging off my body. But as long as I could move my arms, I could more towards those voices. He was in danger, and Mathias.. I grimaced, pushing on my arm to creep forward. My hand sank into the icy mud. I pushed again, my hand slipping beneath me, before I reached it out again. After what felt like another lifetime, my hand reached the soft, long grass of the hill instead of the murky waters of the shallow through. Some sensation had returned to my legs too, at last. With a final pull, I heaved myself out of the shallow water and onto the steep hill. Towards the voices.
Towards him.
Still, I was going too slow. Who knew what Mathias would do to him if I didn’t get there in time? My hand reached for my sword, pulling it out of its scabbard and sinking it into the pliable ground. I gritted my teeth as I heaved myself up, using the sword as leverage.
A loud series of thumps came from above, growing louder until they were followed by a splash. I squinted down. A shadowy outline now sat in the through, barely discernible in the dim glow of dusk.
“Loveage?” I asked.
“Yes, just me,” he answered from the through. I let out a deep sigh. He crawled towards me, cursing at both the mud and Mathias. I couldn’t blame him on the last one. Leveraging my sword as a cane, I managed to stand up by the time he reached me. Around us, the night flowers had started to open up, lighting up the valley with the soft glow coming off the petals. My eyes narrowed as I looked him over, before landing on a small, horizontal cut on his neck. A trickle of blood ran down to his collar. I frowned. “You’re bleeding.”
His hand shot to his throat. “A scratch. We have bigger problems.” His eyes scanned the valley, narrowing. “What is this place?”
I looked around, searching the valley for anything that might seem familiar. In the dim light, I couldn’t spot any way out of it, save for the hill. “Don’t know,” I said at last. The valley looked almost disturbingly peaceful. I might have described it as lovely, were we not in the Unquiet Wood. Loveage seemed to share this sentiment, voicing the words darting through my head. “This is alarmingly pleasant, but..”
He didn’t need to finish. There was a beauty to the valley that was too good to be true, like how poisonous flowers often had the most colorful petals. And not only that, but…
The uncanny feeling that we were being watched crept over me, sending a shiver down my spine. With this being the Unquiet Wood, I decided then and there that this was not a paranoid thought. “This place,” I said slowly, as if not to wake whatever danger was lurking under the surface. “It feels inhabited.”
I squinted, searching for anything that could be the source of this uncanny feeling. He nudged my arm, prompting me to look over my shoulder. “A cave.” He pointed to a dark spot on our right.
An eerie feeling washed over me as I looked at it, sending gooseflesh all over my skin. It was not just the cave that made the hair in my neck stand upright, but rather what laid in front of it. There was no mistaking the small pile of bones gathered before the cave’s entrance, licked clean almost to the point of gleaming. “Over there.” My voice was quiet. I was all too aware of any sound I made. Another shudder ran over my spine.
“Those foragers who discovered the outlaw camp. Mathias found a way to get rid of them. He said the forest would take care of us.”
My stomach turned in on itself as the icy chill of his words settled on me, as my eyes remained glued to the cave’s entrance. I knew it. I was right about Mathias. We should have never trusted the outlaws. I clenched my jaw, looking away from the cave. Part of me expected whatever inhabited it to creep out as soon as I looked away. “We need to get out of here,” I said, already reaching in my pocket for one of the lightfoot charms we’d prepared earlier. He grabbed hold of my wrist as I held the paper between my thumb and index finger, repeating the words in my head from memory. The telltale tingle thrummed in my fingers, followed by a lick of flame eating away at the paper, that metallic, burning scent crawling into my nostrils. The sensation of magic settled on my limbs. I nodded at him, and we jumped up towards the hill. For a few seconds, we floated through the air, weightless as a feather. I could almost see the top of the hill, so close to our reach, when—
I crashed into something, a dull ache thrumming in my head from the impact as we flew into an invisible barrier. The force of it sent us crashing down. I hit the hill with a soft thud, a dull throb spreading through my side as I rolled down the hill. With another thump I came to a halt, grimacing. A second tumble down the very same hill certainly didn’t help my already sore muscles. I brushed the dirt off my coat, before looking up to the invisible barrier in the air, frowning.
“I think there’s a lid on this place,” he said, still half out of breath.
I squinted as my eyes scanned the sky above us. Soft, gray clouds moved at a snail’s pace through the dark blue sky, neither a shimmer nor a change of color indicating any magic obscuring the sky from us. If it was a spell, I couldn’t spot it. “Mathias doing?”
A frown grew on his face. “I don’t think so.”
That seemed about right. I’d never heard of a spell capable of forming an invisible barrier like that, and it certainly wouldn’t have been lying around in the Fount’s library where the outlaws could have stolen it. Which meant that this must have yet been another horror produced by the Unquiet Wood. That realization sat uneasy with me, a tremor running over my shoulders. As if this place needed any additional horrors stacked on top of the horrors we had already been presented with. I squinted back at the sky, when I heard him gasp next to me, quickly followed by a shout. “Grimm! There’s something—“
My eyes darted back, following his gaze to the cave opening at the bottom of the valley. At first, nothing looked amiss, the cave entrance was dark and eerie—but so it had been before, too. Then, seven large, slitted golden eyes opened in a wave. An icy cold spread through me, my heart stopping for a moment. The hair on my arms stood upright as a gigantic monster crawled out of the cave, the ground shuddering as it stepped into the valley. The yellow eyes fell on us, a hunger glinting in them, as the monster crept forward, straight towards us.
I shot up, my legs were already running towards Loveage before I was even fully upright. My hand closed around his arm, pulling him upright. “To the top of the hill!” I shouted, dragging him along. His movements were stiff, his steps small, as if he were in shock. He kept his eyes fixed on the monster, looking equal parts terrified and entranced by it. The monster wasn’t running—not that it had to, we had nowhere to escape to—yet it closed in on us quickly. We were nothing but fish in a pond. The ground trembled with each step it took, and Loveage…
He was still staring at the monster, his mouth agape. “Draw your sword, Loveage!” I shouted, my voice tinged with desperation. I realized my mistake as soon as the words left my lips. I’d been so, so careful with my words around him for the past weeks, carefully considering every sentence I uttered to him. My eyes shot back to him, a counter for the order that passed my lips already hanging in my throat, but stopped when I saw him.
Instead of the quiet calm that washed over him the previous times, he had remained in place, sword still hanging in its sheath on his hip. His eyes were fixed on the monster. “And do what?” he huffed. “Stab it? I may as well be armed with a needle for all the good that would do.”
My mouth fell open, my eyes widening. My words had been clear, as much a command as any of the others I’d uttered on accident. And yet…
He remained unfazed. How could this possibly be? Did he somehow break the spell? Deep down, I already knew the answer, the realization washing over me in a cold dread.
The curse was broken. The icy dread spread from my chest to my limbs, hanging numbly at my sides. Oh.
I was a fool. Sybilla’s words echoed through me. If the caster were to reciprocate the feelings it evoked, the spell would unravel. I wanted to move, to run, but my limbs were unresponsive. The very notion of this was ridiculous. Me, loving him? And yet..
I recalled the way his lips felt on mine, soft honey and burning fire all at once. How I, too, ached when I was near him, when I was not near him. How I would savor his every word as if it were music in my ears, drinking in every moment I could be close to him. I’d grown to care for the man I’d gotten to know here, in the Unquiet Wood of all places. More so…
I’d grown to love him. Apparently. Enough so to break the curse, the whole reason we were in these wretched woods to begin with.
Vaguely, I noticed him turning to me, his eyes wide. His lips moved, but I couldn’t hear him over the rushing in my ears, my own thoughts drowning out all other sound.
I’d been staring at him, I realized, but the situation seemed too dire to truly be flustered by the fact. At last, his voice pierced through the whirlwind of my thoughts in a shout. “Do something!”
As if pulled from a trance, I turned back to the monster. My hand shot to my pocket, feeling for the slips of paper. I was pretty sure he had been asking for time. That much I could give him. My hands trembled as I unfolded the paper. I’d grabbed a shield spell, that seemed good enough. Hopefully it would give us enough time for whatever he had planned. I didn’t even look at the paper as I started casting, reciting the words to the spell in my mind. The familiar tingle returned to my fingertips as I silently repeated the words in my head. The smoke followed, a small flame slowly eating away at the edges of the paper. But something was wrong. The fire burned too quickly, the smoke almost being sucked away from my fingers, towards…
The warm sensation in my chest fizzled out, sucked away along with the smoke and flame, to nowhere other than the monster’s gaping mouth. This was certainly a new kind of horror that I hadn’t seen yet.
“What happened?” I heard him ask next to me.
My lips curled down. “It ate my spell!” I clasped my hand around my sword, fingers tightening on the hilt until my knuckles turned white. Not that it would do me much good against the monster, but then again, neither would feeding it any more of my spells. My heart pounded in my chest, my eyes flicking around. I scanned the ground for anything that might be of use while scrambling backwards. The monster edged closer. I had to do something. But what?
Right then, as the monster took another step towards us, Loveage started to sing. His voice trembled slightly, but remained steady as he wove together a beckoning melody similar to the one he’d sent to Sybilla, though the words of this spellsong differed slightly. His voice danced over the notes, and the monster…
The monster gawked at him, cocking its head and looking almost… intrigued, if such an emotion could even be attributed to it. Loveage’s voice broke on the last note, but I’d picked upon his plan. I cleared my throat, and sang, my voice sounding unsteady and raw around the edges. The melody was wistful, yet carried a warm and inviting note. I tried my best to replicate the melody with all its inflections and ornaments as best as I could, pouring magic into every note.
There was a distinct difference to casting spells through singing. The usual tingling sensation in my fingertips was replaced by a warm pressure in my chest. It wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, the warmth of it radiated through my entire body, making me feel almost… lighter. The song echoed through the valley, bouncing off the tall grass and flowers, the slopes of the hill, and reverberating through my very bones. The monster looked at me, its golden eyes no longer filled with that ravenous hunger but with something almost akin to intrigue. Curiosity.
Loveage was hastily unstrapping his violin case from his back, fumbling with the clasps. “Keep going,” he said, his fingers trembling as he turned the tuning pegs, and readied his bow. I sang through the line three more times, continuing to pour magic into it. My voice grew steadier with each repetition, the phrases sung with a confidence where they had first been sung with hesitation. Magic poured from my voice, booming over the valley. It almost came to life with the sound, as if the flowers stretched up to drink in the song.
Loveage placed his violin on his shoulder and readied his bow, nodding to me. Determination shimmered in his eyes, and the gentle lilt of the violin joined the next repetition of the line. He bowed a harmony that complemented the song beautifully, as if the melody had now been cast in a wholly different light.
Loveage wasn’t casting, and still, the magic reacted and grew in response to the violin sweeping countermelody. Almost as if it thrived on our song, growing and evolving into something entirely new.
It was nothing like the spellsongs we’d performed before. With my voice, and the lyrical weeping of his violin, the magic came alive. For a moment, we were as one.
I had thought the monster would attack us as soon as its initial curiosity had been soothed. Instead, it began to purr like a house cat, lifting its head as if soaking in every note. The notion of it felt equally ridiculous as it felt magical. The hint of a smile appeared on my face. Only he could tame the wild heart of the forest. I turned back to him. In the soft glow of twilight, his expression still caught in the magic of the song, he looked beautiful. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of narrowly escaping a horrifying death from being eaten by a monster, or simply the accumulation of everything that happened in the woods.
Or even the way his smile glinted on his face, and I never wanted to see anything else. But right there, in the glow of the nightflowers, the echo of his spellsong still reverberating through the forest, I knew that I loved him.
How strange, that realization. Yet in that moment, it seemed clearer to me than it had ever been before. My voice carried the final notes of the melody, heart filled with a strange sort of joy. I wanted to run to him, to hold him, when my eyes caught a gleam of something, far up on the hill. Moonlight reflecting on metal. I narrowed my eyes, scouring the dark until they fell on the tall, broad figure.
My heart stopped. It was Mathias, holding a crossbow, pointed at none other than Loveage. Before my lips could even yell out so much as a warning, my legs were running towards him. I threw my arms around him, turning him away from Mathias, away from anything that might hurt him. Time slowed to a halt as my hands clasped around him. He took in a sharp breath, the sound of it drowning out all other noise around us.
The soft thuck of the crossbow bolt leaving its shaft sounded behind me. For a moment, there was only the widening of Loveage’s eyes, the brush of wind past my ears, and my arms clasped around him tightly, as if I could somehow save him if only I wanted it badly enough.
Then the sharp arrow buried itself into the soft flesh of my back, and there was only a searing, white hot pain.