Chapter 97 The Fairytale That Didn't Take
Bella
We step out of the woods as if nothing had happened. That’s the first insult. One second, we’re pushing through twisted roots and bad memories wearing the skin of fucked up fairytales, and the next, the trees simply… stop. No shimmer. No crack in the world. No dramatic threshold. Just an open stretch of road and the faint impression that we were never inside anything at all. The same road we entered on. I slow to a halt, staring at the flat, empty path ahead of us. No obstruction. No fallen stone. No broken earth forcing us off course. Just clean dirt and open sky, stretching forward like it’s always been this way.
“That,” I say quietly, “is deeply unfair.”
Damien comes to a stop beside me. His presence is solid again, but I can feel the echo of tension under his skin; the dragon is restless but contained. He looks down the road, then back over his shoulder at the treeline behind us. The woods stand there innocently.
“Nothing was blocking the path,” he says slowly.
Red snorts. “Of course not.”
Ashlyn turns in a slow circle, squinting. “Wait. Are you telling me we could’ve just… walked straight through this whole time?”
Red gives her a look. “You could’ve tried.”
“And?”
“And you would’ve ended up right back inside,” Red replies. “Probably with better table settings.”
Ashlyn grimaces. “Rude.”
I glance back at the forest again. The shadows between the trees don’t reach. The branches don’t creak. It’s just a collection of trunks and leaves now. Ordinary. Boring. Like it hasn’t just tried to rewrite our lives and steal my mate.
“So what,” I ask carefully, “it just… lets us go?”
Red’s expression tightens, something dark and knowing settling into her eyes. “It doesn’t let you go,” she says. “It loses interest.”
“I'm not sure if that's worse or not,” I mutter.
She shrugs. “The woods don’t trap people. They lure them. They show you something shiny enough that you stop walking forward on your own. You end up trapping yourself.”
Damien’s jaw flexes. I don’t miss it. He totally wants to punch a tree for all that bullshit.
“They didn’t want to keep us,” Red continues. “They wanted us to stay.”
Silence settles over us, heavy, thoughtful, and very confusing...
I picture the version of Damien I saw—the perfect one. The gentle, polished lie. The life with no scars, no dragon, no fire. A future where nothing ever hurt badly enough to change us. My stomach turns at that thought.
“Well,” Ashlyn says brightly, clapping her hands once, “on the bright side, I did not get trapped in a teacup forever, so I’m counting this as a win.”
I snort despite myself. "Oh, but how easily you could have."
Red turns back to the road. “We should put distance between us and this place before it decides to get creative again.”
No one argues with that. We start walking. The farther we go, the lighter the air feels. Not magically—just… normal. The oppressive weight lifts inch by inch, like my lungs are remembering how to work properly again. My steps slow, my shoulders drop, the world starts behaving. Damien drifts closer to my side, and our arms brush. Then his fingers hook loosely around mine. Neither of us speaks for a while. There’s too much to untangle, and saying the wrong thing feels dangerous somehow. Like we might accidentally name the thing that almost took us and call it back like an Ouija board. Ashlyn, blessedly, breaks the silence first.
“So,” she says, peering back at the treeline, “anyone else almost become something wildly depressing, or was that just me?”
Damien exhales through his nose.
I glance up at him. “You first.”
He hesitates, then answers honestly. “A soft king people weren’t afraid of.”
Ashlyn winces. “Yikes.”
I squeeze his hand. “I’m glad you hated it.”
His thumb strokes once over my knuckles. “I did.”
Red keeps her eyes forward. “That’s how you know it wasn’t meant for you.”
Ashlyn tilts her head. “Mine offered me eternal leisure and zero responsibility.”
“That tracks,” I tell her.
She grins. “I said no out of spite.”
"Proud of you, honestly."
We walk until the road bends just enough that the woods disappear behind a rise in the land. Only then does Red slow and raise a hand.
“Here,” she says. “This is far enough.”
The soldiers move with practised ease, breaking formation, setting down their packs, already shifting into camp mode, like muscle memory taking over. There’s comfort in that—normalcy, routine, things that don’t try to psychoanalyse your soul. Damien gives a few quiet orders. Tents go up. A fire is built. Someone starts boiling water for actual, non-suspicious tea. I lower myself onto a patch of grass and let out a breath I think I’ve been holding since we fell down the rabbit hole. The sky above is blue. Real blue. No cracks. No illusions. I lie back and stare at it. Damien joins me a moment later, sitting close enough that our shoulders touch.
“What do you think it showed you?” I ask softly, eyes still on the sky.
He considers that. “What I would’ve chosen if I’d been too tired to fight.”
That answer settles heavily in my chest.
I turn my head to look at him. “You weren’t.”
“No,” he agrees. “Neither were you.”
Ashlyn plops down on my other side, hands behind her head. “For the record, if a forest ever tries to give me a perfect life again, I’m setting it on fire immediately.”
Red passes behind us, checking the perimeter. “That’s the correct response.”
I smile faintly. The fire crackles. The soldiers’ voices blend into a low, steady tone. Safe. We made it out. But the thing about almost becoming someone else—It lingers. Not like a temptation but more like a warning. I close my eyes, Damien’s warmth anchoring me to the present, and make a quiet promise to myself. Whatever comes next, whatever choices we’re forced to face—I will never choose easy over true. And if the woods ever come looking for us again? They’ll find we’ve already decided who we are.