Chapter 12 CHAPTER 12
There was no escaping from here. Not by climbing down. Not with the state I was in.
A quiet, disbelieving breath left me.
I was in a tower of a palace.
The thought didn’t sit right. It felt too big, too unreal, like something from a story rather than something I was actually standing in. My eyes scanned the horizon again, trying to make sense of it, trying to ground myself in something familiar, but there was nothing.
Just endless forest, covered in thick white snow, stretching as far as I could see.
No smoke, no movement, and no sign of the village.
A chill ran through me, and it had nothing to do with the cold.
If this was a palace… then where was everyone?
My thoughts lingered on that for a moment, turning over the question, searching for an answer that didn’t make my stomach twist. But there was only one thing my mind kept going back to.
Last night, the way the beast had killed my stepfather.
The sound.
The speed.
The way it had meant nothing to him.
The image forced its way back into my mind, sharp and vivid, refusing to be ignored. I swallowed hard, trying to push it away, but it clung to me, heavy and suffocating.
A sick feeling rose in my throat.
Did he do the same thing here?
Did he kill everyone in this place…and take it for himself?
The thought made my stomach turn.
I squinted into the distance, straining my eyes, hoping to catch even the smallest sign of something familiar. A trail of smoke. A break in the trees. Anything that would tell me I wasn’t completely alone out here, but there was nothing but snow and forest as far as the eye could see, and the unsettling truth that I was far more trapped than I had first thought.
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The cold air brushed against my face as I stood at the balcony, my fingers lightly gripping the stone edge while I stared out over the endless stretch of snow-covered forest. The wind carried a quiet stillness with it, one that felt too empty, too far removed from anything familiar.
There was no way down...not from here anyways.
The height alone was enough to make my stomach turn, and even if I somehow managed to climb past the thorn-covered rose vines, I wouldn’t survive the fall. I tightened my grip slightly, frustration building in my chest as the truth settled deeper.
I was trapped.
A faint shift in the air behind me made my body go still.
Slowly, I turned and there he stood inside the room, watching me.
My heart jumped as I straightened, instinctively taking a small step back from the balcony. I hadn’t heard the door open. Hadn’t heard him enter at all.
He moved forward, slow and controlled, his presence filling the space again as if it had been waiting for him.
In his hand was a bundle of cloth.
He stopped a few steps away and tossed it onto the bed without a word.
“Change.” The command was simple. Cold. Final.
My eyes flicked from him to the clothes and back again, suspicion rising immediately. I didn’t move, my arms crossing slightly as I held his gaze.
“Why?” I asked.
His expression didn’t shift. “Because what you are wearing is not fit for this place.”
That wasn’t an answer. “Why am I here?” I pushed, my voice firmer now. “Why did you bring me here?”
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then his gaze sharpened. “Why were you in the forbidden woods?” The question caught me off guard, but I didn’t back down.
“That’s not an answer,” I said.
“It is,” he replied, his tone lower now, edged with something sharper. “Answer it.”
My jaw tightened. “I was hunting,” I said. “We had no food. There was nothing left.”
“You knew the woods were forbidden.”
“Yes,” I snapped, frustration slipping through. “And I knew starving wasn’t exactly a better option.”
Silence fell between us again, but this time it felt heavier, tighter, like something was building beneath the surface.
He stepped closer.
Not fast, but enough to make my entire body go completly still.
“You should not have been there,” he said.
“And I shouldn’t be here,” I shot back, lifting my chin. “So what’s your point?”
Something in him shifted. It was subtle, but I felt it immediately. His control tightening. His patience thinning.
“You ask too many questions,” he said, his voice dropping lower, no longer calm in the same way.
“And you give none,” I replied, refusing to back down.
That was when it snapped.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
But enough.
He moved closer in a single step, closing the space between us completely. The suddenness of it made my breath hitch as his presence pressed into mine, overwhelming and inescapable.
“I said,” he murmured, his voice low and dangerous near my ear, “you ask too many questions.”
My heart pounded hard against my ribs as I forced myself not to step back, even though every part of me screamed to.
“Then answer one,” I said, quieter now, but still holding onto what little defiance I had left. “Why am I here?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t respond at all.
Then—
“You would not have survived the night.”
The words were quiet.
But they hit harder than anything else he had said.
I swallowed, my chest tightening slightly. “And now what? I stay here like this? For what?”
His gaze darkened.
“You stay,” he said. “Because I allow it.”
The bluntness of it stole whatever response I had been about to give.
I stared at him, something uneasy settling in my chest as I realized just how little control I had in this situation.
“You will change,” he continued, stepping back slightly, but not enough to make me feel any safer. “And you will eat.”
My hands clenched at my sides. “You can’t just—”
“Enough.”
The word cut through me instantly, silencing everything else.
For a moment, neither of us moved.