The fae realm did not forgive love when it was betrayed or left abandoned.
Cassius learned this anew with every step he took away from the veil between worlds. The air shimmered like a living thing, cool and perfumed with crushed leaves and wild magic. Light bent strangely here, filtering through the towering trees in soft hues of silver and green, as though the sun itself had been taught new rules.
He should have felt relief to be moving alone once again. Purpose, at least. Instead, his chest ached with a dull, relentless sorrow that refused to loosen its grip.
Candice walked beside him in memory, her presence as vivid as the moss beneath his boots.
He remembered the way she had stirred in her sleep, murmuring his name as though it anchored her. How she had reached for him once, fingers brushing his bare chest, and sighed when she found him still there. He had not dared move then. He had remained perfectly still, afraid that the smallest sound might wake her and unravel his resolve.
That was when he knew he would leave.
Not because he did not love her, but because he did.
The thought sat bitter on his tongue as he pushed through a curtain of low-hanging branches. Somewhere nearby, water trickled over stone, its song too deliberate to be natural. The fae realm listened. It always listened. It delighted in secrets and regret, and Cassius had brought both in abundance.
He had left her a letter, careful and measured, every word weighed until it nearly broke him. He had written out of duty and necessity, of a curse that demanded an ending. He had not written of the way his hands had trembled as he set the page on the table. He had not written that his heart had bled with anguish, begging him to stay.
Candice would awake alone.
The image struck him harder than any blade. Her confusion. The way she would sit up too quickly, sheets falling away, calling his name once before pride or fear silenced her. He imagined her finding the letter, her fingers tightening around it as understanding settled like frost.
"I am a coward," he murmured aloud.
The words vanished into the trees, swallowed whole.
Deeper within the forest, the light dimmed. The path beneath his feet softened into loam and fallen petals, their glow faint but constant. Cassius slowed, recognizing the shift in magic. This place lay close to the old currents, where spells answered more readily but at a cost.
It would be enough.
He drew a slow breath and reached beneath his cloak, withdrawing a small obsidian disk etched with runes dulled by age. His curse pulsed faintly in response, a familiar ache threading through his veins. The enchantress was bound to him still, no matter how far he traveled. That bond was his compass and his chain.
He knelt, pressing the disk into the earth. The ground was warm beneath his palm, alive with ancient power.
"Show me," he whispered, voice steady despite the storm within him. "Not for vengeance. Not for pride. Only for release."
Magic stirred.
The forest leaned closer. Leaves rustled without wind. The air thickened, heavy with expectation. Cassius closed his eyes and opened himself to the spell, allowing memory and longing to bleed into it. The fae realm responded best to truth, even when it cut deep.
Pain lanced through him as the curse flared, dragging images from the depths of his mind. Candice's face surfaced unbidden, her laughter soft and surprised, her gaze earnest and warm. The spell faltered.
"No," he said, forcing the thought away. "Not her."
He centred himself, gripping the obsidian disk until its edge bit into his skin. Blood welled, dark against the black stone, and the runes flared to life.
The world shifted.
For a breathless moment, Cassius stood nowhere at all. Then vision rushed in. A glade bathed in twilight. A pool of glassy water ringed with pale flowers. At its centre stood a woman crowned in thorns and moonlight, her smile slow and knowing.
The enchantress.
She turned, as though sensing his gaze, and her eyes burned with something dangerously close to triumph.
The vision shattered.
Cassius gasped, bracing himself against the ground as the magic recoiled, leaving him shaking and hollow. The birds of the forest withdrew their presence, disappointed, their curiosity satiated for now.
"She knows," he said softly.
Of course she did. She always had.
He rose slowly, wiping the blood from his hand, his thoughts already turning to the path ahead. The spell had given him direction, but not peace. That remained behind, in a quiet chamber, with a woman who had trusted him enough to sleep unguarded at his side.
"I will return," he whispered, though no one stood to hear it.
Candice's face rose in his mind once more, not as a weakness, but as a promise. The ache of leaving her sharpened into something harder, something resolute.
If ending this curse was the price of loving her freely, then he would pay it.
Now all he had to do was find the enchantress; the disk had shown him that she would be in the place he had long guessed she could not keep away from. That was the Queen's library of spells and ancient fae magic.