The wind smelled wrong—thick with wild honey, wood smoke, and the faint sweetness of lavender. It should have been comforting, but it wasn't. It cut through me like a knife. I had left the kingdom before dawn, alone, carrying a small pack with stale bread, a dagger too heavy for my hands, and a heart twisted with questions I didn't dare voice. I shouldn't have gone. I knew that. Every instinct screamed to stay. But I could not.
She had left. My mother. My queen. And the whispers were true—there was someone else. Someone I had never met, feared and hated in rumors, called the beastwoman. I had to see. I had to know.
The forest stretched endlessly, gnarled and shadowed. Roots snagged my boots, branches tore at my cloak, and birds cried overhead like spies reporting my every movement. I stumbled through brambles and over stones, scraping my hands and knees raw. Hunger gnawed at me, but it was nothing compared to the knot in my chest. I had followed rumors, but my imagination could never have prepared me for this.
Finally, the ridge opened before me, and I saw her.
She was alive. She was laughing. She was whole. And she was not mine.
I sank behind the brambles, frozen. The queen—the woman who had birthed me, who had once smiled at me in fleeting, fragile moments—moved with freedom I had never seen. Her silver hair shimmered in the sunlight, and she laughed as if the world had no chains. The beastwoman's hand was in hers, their fingers entwined in a gesture so ordinary and intimate it seared my mind.
I should have screamed. I should have turned and run. I should have never come. But I couldn't. My legs refused. My throat burned, and yet no sound came. I only watched, and as I watched, my chest twisted and cracked in a pain I had never known.
She was happy. With her. She had chosen her. Over me. Over us.
The revelation hit me like a flood. All the nights I had cried alone in my room, whispering her name into darkness, imagining her cruel indifference, imagining the cold face of a mother who never cared—every memory became a knife. Every memory of her rare smiles and distant affection became a lie. She had not abandoned the kingdom because of duty. She had abandoned it for desire. For happiness. For someone else.
I pressed my hands to the earth, trying to steady myself, but the shaking didn't stop. Rage, awe, heartbreak, and jealousy collided inside me until my vision blurred. I had thought I hated her. I had thought I understood betrayal. But this—this was nothing like I had imagined. It was more vivid, more unbearable. It was real.
I could not stop staring. Every laugh, every glance, every gesture she gave the beastwoman burned into my mind. I memorized it all—the tilt of her head, the light in her eyes, the way her hand brushed the other's with a gentleness I had never known from her. She was alive. She was loved. And I was left behind.
The forest seemed to close around me. Shadows stretched and twisted like my thoughts. The roots and rocks beneath my feet were sharp and unyielding, but I didn't care. Every scratch, every bruise, every ache from the journey was worth it for this moment. I needed it. I needed to know. I needed to see.
I imagined running to her, screaming, shaking her until she remembered me, demanded answers. But I couldn't. My body refused. I was too small, too weak, too alone. I could only watch. And the watching tore me apart.
I thought of my father, lying in the palace bed, unable to rise, weighed down by grief. I thought of my siblings, growing up without her, learning to live in shadows she had left behind. And yet, even that thought gave no comfort. Only the knife of betrayal twisting, sharper and sharper.
I sank lower behind the brambles, pressing my forehead to the cold earth, willing myself to be invisible. My mind raced. Rage. Heartbreak. Jealousy. Confusion. Awe. How could she smile like this? How could she laugh like this? How could she be happy after leaving us? After leaving me?
My hands were raw from branches, my knees scraped and bleeding, my stomach gnawed with hunger—but I barely noticed. I couldn't stop thinking. Couldn't stop watching. Couldn't stop feeling the knife turn in my chest with every gesture she made.
She reached for the beastwoman's hand again, and my vision blurred. I imagined myself collapsing, screaming, throwing myself at her feet, demanding to know why. But I could not. I was a child, too small, too powerless. I could only kneel in the shadows, my chest heaving, my mind screaming at the injustice.
The world had shifted beneath my feet. Everything I believed about her, about us, about the kingdom, had broken in that moment. She had chosen herself. She had chosen someone else. She had chosen happiness. And I had been left to carry the shards.
I pressed my hands to the earth and rose, legs trembling, body aching. I had to move closer, to see more, to understand every detail of the life she had made without me. Every step was agony. Every breath reminded me I was alive, and yet painfully small, painfully unseen, painfully irrelevant in the life she had built.
Night fell. Lanterns glimmered faintly in the settlement. Fires glowed in cottages. Laughter floated on the wind. She belonged here now. Alive. Loved. And I wasn't.
I remembered the nights I had whispered her name, begging for any sign of love, for any memory of care, for any acknowledgment that I existed. And now I knew the truth. She had cared—just not for me. Not for us. Not for the kingdom she abandoned. She had chosen her life. Her love. Someone else.
I pressed my hands against the earth and rose to my feet, legs stiff, body trembling. The stars pricked the sky overhead, cold and indifferent witnesses. The shadow of the ridge stretched long and thin across the valley. My heart pounded. My mind screamed. Rage, despair, obsession—all tangled into one unbearable knot.
I could not forgive her. I could not rationalize. I could not make sense of it. I could only watch, remember, and burn. The journey had been long, but it had led me here. And here, I would stay—mentally trapped in the image of her happiness, obsessed, terrified, and more alive to pain than I had ever been.
The revelation had come. The truth was complete. She had chosen someone else. And I was left to bear it alone.
The journey was far from over.