Page 15

Story: The Hazelwood Pact

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, curled into him.

Her hands fisted tight in the rough linen of his tunic.

Her face pressed to the space just beneath his collarbone, where his heartbeat pulsed steady and warm, like the roots of a tree holding fast through storm.

She hadn’t cried like this in years, hadn’t let herself break open like something tender and still green inside.

But in his arms, the grief unspooled like thread from a worn spool, and he held her as though her softness wasn’t a flaw but a kind of quiet miracle.

When she finally pulled back, her breath still hitched, his hands didn’t let her go.

They only moved, slowly, reverently, sliding from the curve of her shoulders down to her wrists, to the backs of her hands where her pulse fluttered.

His thumb brushed the soft skin there, and it felt like something sacred.

Like a promise whispered in the language of touch.

She looked up.

He was watching her the way plants watched the sun. Not hungrily, not with any demand but with a kind of bone-deep yearning. Like she was both necessary and dangerous. Like he’d been waiting for this moment without ever expecting it to come.

"Come with me," he said softly.

No command. No pleading. Just Linden Thorn, steady as the tide, warm as spring soil after the thaw.

Rowan nodded.

She didn't trust her voice. Didn’t trust her hands to stop shaking. But she followed him.

They didn’t speak as he led her through the winding garden path, their feet brushing against lavender and mint, the scent rising in startled clouds.

Fireflies floated lazily above the herbs, the world limned in a soft kind of magic that didn’t demand anything from her for once.

Just witnessed. Just held. Moonlight spilled across the stones in broken rivulets.

Somewhere nearby, a nightbird sang low and sweet.

The arched glass of the greenhouse stood ahead like a cathedral of green things, domed and veined in ivy and memory.

When Linden pushed the door open, it creaked like something ancient giving way.

Warm, damp air spilled out, thick with the perfume of night jasmine and soil, ripe figs, marigold sap.

It wrapped around her like a shawl, clung to her skin with familiar weight. A breath. A welcome.

Inside, the glow of fae-lanterns blinked like starlight caught in glass. Vines curled from the rafters in lazy spirals, their tendrils reaching down like hands. Ferns rustled as they passed, as if recognizing him. As if forgiving her.

Linden led her to a seat in the center of it all, beneath the hanging moon-vine and ironseed blossoms. Her heart rattled inside her ribs like a trapped bird, fluttering hard enough to bruise.

The air felt too full to breathe, and yet she breathed him in anyway.

Loam and rosemary and crushed rosehips and Linden.

He moved past her without a word, struck a match, and lit a few beeswax candles along the shelves.

The firelight caught on the curve of his cheekbone, the soft braid of his hair, the small gold leaf pinned at his collar.

There was no need for the extra light, not with the enchanted glow that already filled the space, but somehow, it felt necessary.

Ritualistic. As though he were laying down softness before breaking something open.

He turned to her, knelt in front of her. His eyes were pools of earth after rain.

“I need to tell you what happened. Why I left.”

Her throat worked. She tried to speak, but the words caught behind her teeth like thorns. She could only nod.

His voice, when it came, was low. Not hesitant, careful. The way a man might speak while digging through dense, ancient roots, trying not to damage anything still living.

“That night, after we fought…I went into the woods. Just for a little while. Just to clear my head. You were so furious. I’d never seen you that angry. And I… I was ashamed. I’d made you feel small. Like I didn’t believe in you. And gods, Ro, I did . I always did.”

She looked at his hands then. They were shaking. Just faintly. Enough to undo her a little more.

“I only meant to stay a few minutes. To breathe. But the Hollow…” He swallowed.

“It was already changing. I felt it the moment I stepped past the last witchlight. The ley lines had started to tear, and the wild magic… it was like a beast uncaged. Hungry. Directionless. When your power flared, when the sky went white, I felt it. I saw it. I saw you.”

His eyes flicked up, searching hers.

“I saw the light crack. I saw you fall. I heard the screaming. I tried to run to you, but I couldn’t move.

The forest held me. Its claws sank deep into me.

Roots through bone, thorns through magic.

I couldn’t even call your name. I couldn’t do anything.

I just watched, paralyzed, as they carried you back. ”

He took a breath like it hurt to take in that much air.

“I’m so sorry, Ro. I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t save us . It took me months and most of my power just to pry myself free. And when I did… the Hollow was broken. You were broken. And I… I couldn’t protect you. I couldn’t save you.” He stopped, voice cracking like dry bark.

Rowan’s lips parted. Her voice came out as a whisper, a breath, a spell with no incantation. “You didn’t leave me.”

He nodded. “I was trapped.”

“And after?”

“I wanted to come back. Every day. But I wasn’t ready. Not like that. Not full of rot and rage. I had to understand what happened. I had to learn to listen to the land again. To tend what had been torn. And I needed to be someone you could trust again.”

"You left," she said. Her voice was paper-thin but razor-sharp.

"Yes." A beat. “And I hated myself every day for it.”

He leaned his head close to hers. Not reaching. Not taking. Just being there. A steady flame that never asked her to burn.

“I came back for you, Ro. I never stopped loving you. When the Council sought my help, I said yes because of the Hollow. But mostly…” He exhaled, eyes full of bare-souled truth.

“Mostly because of you . If there was even a sliver of a chance to help you, to earn your forgiveness… I would’ve walked through flame. ”

The words hit like soft thunder. Like rain breaking through drought. Her breath hitched. Her knees went loose.

All her fury, her walls, her stubborn bitterness — cracked like old clay in drought. She had hated him, yes. Had built entire altars of rage in his name. But she had also missed the steadiness of him, the quiet warmth. She had mourned him like he was a limb she’d lost and learned to limp without.

But now, he was here. And something was growing in her again. Something reckless. Something alive .

“You idiot fae boy,” she breathed, the words tumbling out on a sigh that didn’t quite know if it was grief or relief or some terrible, beautiful in-between.

He smiled. The kind of smile that reached into her chest and snapped the last of her anger in two. A smile like hope returning to a place long left fallow.

And something inside her just…broke. Like a dam releasing. A surrender to gravity. A breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding for ten long, hungry years.

She surged forward, caught in that smile, caught in him , and threw her arms around his neck, crashing their mouths together. Not with fury this time, not like before, when she'd kissed him as if it could punish and forgive him all at once.

This kiss was something else.

This kiss was slow.

Worshipful.

Her lips parted for him like a flower unfolding to the sun, and he kissed her like she was something sacred, something half-wild and wholly his.

His hands framed her jaw, thumbs grazing her cheeks with reverent care, like she might slip from his grasp if he wasn’t gentle.

There was no haste. No heat demanding to burn.

Only the low, golden glow of something older than time.

Their magic threaded together in soft braids. Gold and green, light and loam, weaving like ivy through stone. Humming like two parts of the same spell rediscovering their shape.

He pulled back only enough to rest his forehead to hers, and gods, she could feel him shaking.

“Stay,” he whispered.

“I am,” she answered, breath warm against his lips.

And then he stood, pulling her gently with him, fingers laced through hers.

He led her to the wooden bench beneath the hanging moonvine, where plush blankets lay waiting like they knew this moment had been years in the making.

The air was honeyed with the scent of lavender and crushed rosemary, and the light from the fae-lanterns above danced across the curves of her face, catching the tears drying at her temples.

When Linden laid her down, it was like a prayer. A sacred rite. A return.

He undressed her with slow, careful hands. Tunics lifted. Laces loosened. Fabric whispered away from skin. Each inch revealed was touched like a blessing. He kissed the inside of her wrist, where her pulse skittered like a hummingbird. Her collarbone, where magic used to gather like stormlight.

She trembled with anticipation. With the terrible, aching relief of being seen again.

He murmured to her in the old tongue, low and lovely and full of meaning she could only half-remember. Words like wind through trees, like loam beneath bare feet. Words that said you’re mine, you’re safe, you’re loved.

When he moved between her thighs, she gasped, soft and broken and hungry.

His mouth was devotion. His tongue, worship.

He held her open like a secret, not just her body but her heart , and she gave it to him, trembling and raw.

Her magic unfurled like ivy climbing toward morning, no longer jagged with mistrust, no longer bristling with fear. Just...safe. Just hers. Just his .

And when he slid into her, slow and deep and right , she cried out from the sheer rightness of it. It was not like being claimed. It was like being met . Like coming home after a long, long winter.

They rocked together in a rhythm that felt older than either of them. Like tides learning the shoreline. Like wind learning the shape of leaves.

He kissed her jaw, her temple, the soft hollow beneath her ear. He whispered her name like it was a secret he’d carried too long and could finally speak aloud.

“Rowan,” he murmured, again and again. “Rowan, my love. Rowan.”

She came with a sob, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder, magic cresting through her like wind through treetops. She clung to him as if he were the only solid thing left in the world, and maybe he was.

When he followed, when he spilled into her with a gasp that sounded like breaking and healing all at once, she wept. Quietly. Without shame.

Tears slipped down her cheeks and into the hollow of his throat. He held her face in his hands and kissed each one away, lips soft against salt.

“Shhh, love,” he murmured, voice thick with everything he’d never said. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

And gods, he did. She didn’t have words for what filled her. Only breath. Only heat. Only the golden hum of her magic where it nestled against his, purring like a contented beast.

He held her through the aftershocks. Through the tears. Through the quiet unraveling.

Held her until her shaking stilled. Until the old, crumbling walls inside her gave up their long war. Until there was only Linden.

And above them, the stars blinked gently through the greenhouse glass, like sentinels returned to their post, like hope slipping back into her sky.