Page 18 of Rose's Untamed Bear

“Alarion the Wise, he called himself. Wise in cruelty, perhaps." Cold sweat broke out down my neck. I knew that name. It was the same name Derrick had used when he told me about the curse on him and his family. Before I could follow the thread of my thoughts, Mother continued, not realizing how pale I must have become. "He came to the king’s hall, enraged that she had fled. His power was greater than any soldier’s blade. The king sent his men to spirit the girl away into the woods, but it was too late. The wizard cursed them all. The king, his hall, and every man within its walls turned to stone. Only the girl made it out alive.”

The fire spat, flames leaped high, and for an instant the room seemed to hold its breath. Mother’s gaze lingered on us. “Remember this, my girls: choices have prices. The forest remembers every bargain, every promise, every betrayal.”

Snow shivered. My chest felt tight, too full, as though the story had reached across years to wrap icy fingers around my throat.

A cold ran through me deeper than the one nesting in the stones. My jaw ached, the roots of my teeth jittering. I wanted to say that the story was nothing but a warning, an old wives’ bone-rattle. Instead, I whispered, “He told me the same. All of it. The king, the curse. The wizard.”

Snow’s fingers curled into the kerchief until her knuckles went white. She stared at me with round, frightened eyes, as if she’d missed something crucial, or as if I had. “Who told you?”

I licked lips that felt stiff, too raw for the room’s warmth. “Magnus.” Even saying the name aloud felt like conjuring. “Only he called himself Derrick. He said?—”

Mother’s hand went to her heart so quickly I thought she’d clutched something pierced inside her. “Derrick?” she echoed, as if the shape of it hurt.

“He said his father’s name was Roderick,” I continued, the pieces slotting together with a sickness I didn’t want to taste.

Mother’s breath shuddered. “Saints.” She pressed her fists to her mouth, then let them fall. “He would have been your age,” she said, and then—as if she could not stop herself—“He was King Rodrick’s son. About the same age as me.”

Snow’s chair scraped sharply as she stood, horror and curiosity warring across her face. “Mother.” A single word, edged in bright danger. “Are you saying?—”

Mother looked at both of us, realizing she had given herself away. With a loud sigh, she nodded, “Yes, that girl was me.”

Snow put a fist to her mouth, as if she could push the words back in. “What about the wizard—Alarion?”

Mother’s gaze dropped to the scuffed planks of the floor. “Your father. Yes. I’m sorry.” She looked up at me, then at Snow; a heavy sorrow hung around her.

So much was going through my head. Too much. If Derrick’s father were a king, then Derrick would be a prince, but that was the least of what was giving me a headache. Something far more important scratched at the ends of my brain. “He’s still alive, Derrick said he was hunting him. That the curse?—”

Mother nodded, resigned. “He’ll always hunt me. It’s his nature to possess, to consume.” Something almost like a smile twisted her mouth. “But he never found this place. Not really. The forest hides what it loves.”

I closed my eyes and worked through the throb in my temples. My head was a tangle of fairytales and facts: our father was a monster; Derrick was a prince; our mother was both a hunted bride and the rescuer. I had grown up so sure we were the only people who mattered in this clearing, and now it felt as if every shadow outside the window was a ghost waiting to call our debts.

The silence gathered, thick and iron-heavy. I could hear the wind drilling again at the shutters.

Mother’s eyes closed for a moment. “Alarion is too clever for his own curses. It turned him strange, half-mad, more beast than man. He can’t bear to be alone, so he collects things. Treasures. Trinkets. Every lovely thing the forest produces, he tries to own.” She touched the base of her throat, as if remembering something precious.

Snow and I exchanged a look at that—two halves of one question.

“Why did you never tell us?” I asked, my voice as sharp and mean as the wind outside. “All these years. Why wait until?—”

“I was afraid,” Mother said softly. “Every mother is afraid for her children. Would you rather have grown up in the shadow of his name? Hunted, angry, or worse—like him?” She leaned toward us, urgent. “Better a plain life in a happy cottage than to hunger for what you cannot have.”

I wanted to be angry, but I heard the tremor in her words and remembered the hundred little sacrifices she’d made for us.Still, it felt like standing on a frozen pond and hearing the first spiderweb crack; you know you are warm for now, that you are safe, but beneath it all, you can feel the ice giving way.

From outside, the sound of a faint rumble of thunder reached us. Or was it the distant voice of a bear, calling from the dark?

I shivered, and Snow slipped to my side, wrapping her shawl around us both. “So what do we do?” she asked quietly.

“Stay alive,” Mother said. “And remember, your own stories have yet to be written.”

The fire snapped high, and outside, something enormous rustled through the trees, as if the forest itself was listening.

“But how can you be so sure Alarion won’t find us here?” Snow asked.

Mother smiled wistfully, “Because, when I came to this place, when it was nothing but rot and ruin, I swore to you both you’d be safe, no matter what I had to do.”

Her hands folded in her lap, as though remembering the ache of that night. “I had no spellbook. No charms. Only fear…and love. I pressed my palms against the threshold until they bled. I begged the forest to hide me, to shelter us. I promised it my grief, my hope, my very heart, if only it would keep you safe.”

The fire snapped loudly, and the first drops of rain pelted the window.