Page 7 of Rose's Untamed Bear

Snow walked beside me in silence, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. For a long while, all I heard was the steady rhythm of our boots on ice and the whisper of pine needles underfoot. Then, at last, she spoke with a sense of longing in a voice I barely recognized as hers, “Don’t you ever want more?”

Her question took me completely by surprise. “More what?”

“More than this,” she said, sweeping a hand at the endless white, the dark trunks rising like columns around us. “More than resin and rabbits, more than Fable Forest.”

I laughed, soft and incredulous. “What could be more, when every need is met here? The forest feeds us, shelters us—and look how it sparkles.” I pointed to an ice plume hanging from a branch, refracting gold and rose.

Her lips pressed together. “But don’t you wonder what lies beyond? Beyond the villages with their narrow minds, the distant castles, and the woods? What world waits outside Fable Forest?”

I should have drawn her back then. I almost did. But the hunger in her gaze—fierce and bright—stilled my words. “You mean the Outside world?”

She nodded, barely able to contain her excitement.

I hesitated. “If that world is so fine, why do Mother’s tales always end with wandering souls racing back beneath the pines?”

Snow had no answer to this, but I felt her longing tremble between us. I wanted to urge caution, to keep her close where I could protect her. Yet I loved her too fiercely to stifle her heart.

We walked on in silence until the pines arched above us like ancient sentinels. Their trunks dripped resin in glistening amber tears. I drew my knife and began to scrape the thick pitch into our clay pot; the sticky shards fell in bright chunks. Snow held the vessel steady, her breath warming the rim even as her fingers turned numb.

A rasping voice shivered through the trees. “Well? Are you simpletons going to ignore me, or will one of you help a man in need?”

We froze. I spun. At first, I thought a stump had sprouted legs. But no—it was a man, if one could call him that. Barely taller than my hip, with a beard so long it dragged across the snow and—gods help me—was thoroughly tangled in a gnarled root. He thrashed against it, his face red as a beet, and he was kicking his little boots like a toddler in a tantrum. Snow gasped and gripped my arm. “Rose, leave him. He’s… wrong.”

The creature thrashed, dragging his beard this way and that. “Don’t stand there like gawping pigeons! My beard is worth more than your very souls, and it’s trapped! Free me at once!”

Snow shook her head. “Mother said?—”

“I heard what Mother said,” I muttered, sighing. “But look at him. If he yanks any harder, he’ll rip his own face off.”

Snow groaned. “Better his face than ours.”

The little man’s nose crinkled. “Useless girls! I’ll curse your names for three generations if you leave me here!”

“Well, let me see then.” I crouched down, reaching for the tangled mess of hair and roots. The beard was coarse, wiry, and so filthy I wrinkled my nose.

“Careful,” Snow whispered, hovering. “You’ll tear it.”

“As though I’d let these oafshandlemy beard,” the little man spat, jerking when I touched a knot. “Mind your clumsy paws, girl! Saints above, have you never worked with hair before?”

“I work with pelts,” I said dryly, tugging at one of the knots. “Yours is worse.”

Snow smothered a laugh, then leaned down to help, carefully prying the strands apart while I held them steady. Bit by bit, we loosened some of the snarl, the man yelping every time we gave the slightest tug.

“You’re pulling my chin clean off!” he screeched. “Deliberate cruelty, that’s what this is. I’ll have the crows peck your bones for this!”

Snow flinched back. “He’s impossible.”

I blew a strand of hair from my face, glaring at the stubborn clump wound tight around the root. It was hopeless. “Well, that’s as much as will come free.”

“Keep going!” he barked.

I tapped the knot with my knife. “The rest is too stuck. It’ll have to be cut.”

His eyes bulged. “Cut? CUT? You wicked wench! Do you know how long it takes to grow a beard of such magnificence?”

I sighed and drew the blade. “Longer than I’ve patience for.”

Snow groaned again, but she steadied the beard while I sliced through. With a sharp snip, the root gave way, and the man tumbled backward in a heap, clutching the ragged end as though it were a mortal wound.