Chapter 87 Once Upon a Time, Apparently
Bella
Ashlyn opens her mouth and immediately makes everything worse.
“We’re cutting through the woods because we’re on our way to murder an icy bitch who’s been making herself everyone’s problem,” she says, far too cheerfully, like she’s announcing a brunch reservation instead of a magical execution. Red’s head snaps up. Her body goes still in that dangerous, coiled way of someone who knows exactly how to stab you thirty times before you even blink. The humour drains from her face, replaced by something sharp and assessing, her fingers tightening subtly around the edge of the log. I shoot Ashlyn a look that could curdle milk.
“Ashlyn.”
“What?” she asks, innocent in the way only truly reckless people can be. “You asked for honesty.”
“That wasn’t honesty,” I hiss. “That was an invitation to be stabbed.”
Red’s eyes flick between us, narrowing. “You’re here to kill her,” she says slowly.
Ashlyn lifts both hands. “Okay. Right. That sounded… worse than it is.” She leans forward, elbows braced on her knees, tone shifting from flippant to serious in a way that tells me she does understand the danger now. “It’s complicated. But if you want the short version—”
She glances at me.
I sigh. “Once upon a time,” I say, cutting in before she can derail us again, “there was an ice elemental who fell in love with a Dragon King.”
Red’s attention sharpens instantly. I keep going, because stopping now would only make it messier.
“He didn’t love her back,” I say simply. “For whatever reasons, I'm not entirely sure, but love isn’t something you can force out of someone just because you want it badly.”
Ashlyn nods. “And she apparently wanted it very badly.”
Red’s jaw tightens.
“She froze villages,” I continue, my voice steady even as the memory of frost and fear curls unpleasantly in my stomach. “Not all at once. At first, it was… selective. Crops ruined. Roads locked in ice. Storms that lingered too long in places they shouldn’t.”
“She claimed it was grief,” Ashlyn adds. “Which, to be fair, it probably was. Just… homicidal grief.”
“The kingdoms panicked,” I say. “They always do when magic stops behaving the way they want it to. So they made a decree.”
Red shifts, clearly listening now.
“They gathered any ice elemental they deemed unstable,” I continue. “Elementals whose emotions affected the world too strongly. They called them frostborn then. Basically, anyone who couldn’t keep their power neat and quiet, they would take them.”
Ashlyn snorts. “Nothing terrifies a ruling council more than feelings.”
“They exiled them,” I say. “Sent them to a place called the Glacial Sanctum. A frozen stretch of land sectioned off from the rest of the world. Supposedly to ‘protect’ everyone else.”
Red’s mouth twists. “Let me guess. No one came back.”
“Not that we have heard of,” I say. “Except for the ice elemental—the first one sent there.”
Ashlyn leans back. “She didn’t just survive. She adapted. Took control. Became something like a ruler to the people trapped with her.”
“And then she went further,” I add. “She found dark magic. Or it found her. Either way, she stopped paying the price that magic usually demands.”
Red’s eyes darken. “So she became the witch.”
“Yes,” I say softly. “She traded her heart for immortality. It doesn’t beat anymore, doesn’t feel, doesn’t care, but it still commands the cold.”
Silence settles over us, heavy and cold as snowfall.
“She hunts her own kind now,” I continue. “Anyone who starts to 'thaw'. Anyone whose heart begins to love.” I glance toward Damien, where he’s still grounding his soldiers, steady and unyielding. “We’ve learned that those of us who were labelled unstable were never broken or cursed as they say we are. We just needed balance, anchors, someone to stand with us instead of locking us away.”
Red’s gaze follows mine.
“So she hunts us,” I say quietly. “Because if enough of us prove the 'curse' can be broken, then everything she built—everything the kingdoms justified—falls apart.”
“It breaks her,” Ashlyn finishes.
“Or at least her control,” I add. “Over the Sanctum. Over the people trapped there. Over the story she’s told herself to survive.”
I exhale slowly. “We’re travelling to the Sanctum to see it with our own eyes. To stop her. To free whoever can still be freed. Maybe convince people that love is all we need and that we're not the monsters they say we are.”
Red drags a hand down her face. “So you’re walking through my woods to kill a legend.”
“To end her,” I correct gently. “One way or another.”
For a long moment, Red says nothing. Then she laughs. It’s sharp and quiet and edged with something like satisfaction.
“Well,” she says, pushing herself to her feet, “that sounds like fun.”
She rolls her shoulders as if settling a familiar weight back into place, eyes drifting once more toward the dark line of trees behind her. The forest answers with a low creak, branches shifting in a way that feels almost… resentful. Red ignores it. Her fingers brush the worn hilt of her knife.
“I don’t run from monsters,” she adds quietly. “I learn them, I track them, and eventually, I end them. It's been a while since I saw what evil lurked outside these woods.”
She looks back at us then, gaze sharp and steady, already measuring the road ahead. "I'm in."
Ashlyn blinks. “You… want to come?”
Red’s grin is all teeth now. “I’ve spent my entire life delivering justice to things that think they’re untouchable. Wolves. Spirits. Monsters wearing human faces.” Her gaze locks onto mine. “A witch who hunts her own people and rules through fear?”
She shrugs, rolling her shoulders like she’s already made up her mind.
“Sounds like exactly my kind of work.”
I hold her gaze, something steady and certain settling in my chest.
“Then welcome,” I say softly, “to the wrong side of a fairytale.”
Red’s smile sharpens. “Good. I was getting bored with my own.”