Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
The floor opens beneath her feet. Vines coil around Gothel’s ankles. She claws for purchase on the stones. The darkest roots—her roots—reel away, hissing. The green vines climb, sure and slow, up her calves, waist, wrists, and around her neck.
She spits my name like a curse as the forest drags her down into the hungry spell she wove. It accepts her like a debt collected, like a feast delayed. Her hands claw the air, and her eyes reflect a hundred versions of my face, all caged. Her skin cracks and her bones twist as the magic she stole turns on her. I don’t look away as the roots finish their work.
Silence falls.
The blossoms tremble and settle. My hair drops around my shoulders, shorter now, the ends lit like fireflies. The window unseals with a soft sigh. The room smells like rain after a drought.
I turn to Brannock. He’s so still.
“No,” I whisper, crawling to him. “No, no, no—”
He’s cold. His chest doesn’t rise.
“Don’t you dare,” I sob. “You don’t get to leave me. Not now. Not after I finally found you.”
My short hair lifts, swaying around us like a curtain. The strands glow with firelight and forest magic, pulsing not with pain but with hope. With love. With me.
“I’m not done,” I whisper. “You said you love me, so come back and see what your love made me.”
I place my hands over his chest and pour it all into him—my magic, my will, my heart.
“Breathe,” I command.
Nothing.
I press closer, bow my head, and let the song in my chest spill out. It isn’t a melody I’ve learned. It’s the song I hum when I shell peas and stare at the tree line. The one I dreamed before I knew what dreams were.
My magic responds. The moss thickens beneath his shoulders, cupping him. Tender vines slip from the cracked floorboards and coil around my wrists, steadying my hands.
“Breathe,” I tell him again, feeding the command with everything I am.
The vines at my wrists thin into luminous filaments that slip into the gash without pain. Beneath my fingers, the ragged edges of his wounds reach for each other, knitting together. They weave over and under until they cinch tight.
“Come back,” I whisper, palms moving in small circles over his heart, coaxing. “Come back to me, Brannock.”
A faint thrum. Then a stutter. One beat, then two. The green filaments dissolve into him like dew. The seam of the wound glows once, softly, and the skin finishes knitting—first muscle, then fascia, then a thin, pearly line of scar that looks like frost kissed jade.
His chest hitches. A shallow breath scrapes in. I lean closer, tears slipping off my chin and dotting his sternum like glassy beads.
“That’s it,” I breathe. “Follow my voice.”
He coughs harshly and turns his head with a groan. Color seeps back into his lips. The cords in his throat loosen. Another breath, deeper. Then another. His lashes flutter. His beautiful green eyes open and find me, dazed and fierce all at once.
“Hey,” I choke out, laughing and crying. “Took your time.”
His mouth crooks. “Bossy,” he whispers, his voice raw.
He lifts his hand and clumsily brushes a lock of my hair away from my face. “It’s shorter,” he murmurs, his voice full of wonder and relief.
I laugh, half a sob. “You don’t like it?”
“I love it,” he says, and the way he says love makes my bones melt.
I press my forehead to his. “We’re free, Brannock. I can feel it. It’s over.”
He brushes his fingers down my cheek. “No, princess. It’s just beginning.”
Chapter 13
Brannock
I wrap my arms around Rapunzel as she stands in the window with the moonlight on her face. Her hair rises like a tide, and the living vines answer, uncoiling from the sill, testing the air, then braiding themselves into a wide, green ribbon.
“Ready?” I murmur against her temple.
“I am and I’m not. Catch me if I faint.”
“Always.”
We climb over the sill together. The vine cradles our weight and lowers us slowly. The tower stones glide past. I see claw marks from the roots; the ghost of Rapunzel’s old life etched into the mortar. A second vine slides across our backs like a safety bar. A third loops her hair into a tidy knot at the nape of her neck so it won’t dangle.
“Someone’s showing off,” I rumble.
She beams at me. “Isn’t it amazing?”
I laugh softly. “Yes, you are.”
We drift below the branches, then into them. The leaves shiver as the canopy parts like a curtain. Fireflies gather like lanterns on strings. The ground rises to meet us, the moss as thick as a mattress, and fern fronds extend like helpful hands.
Rapunzel’s feet touch the earth for the first time.
The vines loosen and slide away, pausing long enough to squeeze her waist in what looks like a hug. She presses her palm to the warm soil, and the forest hums under her hand. Straightening, she looks up at the tower, her expression hard to read.