Chapter Text
The trees breathed around Regina, tall, silent things that blotted out the sun. Damp earth clung to her boots. A root jutted from the forest floor, nearly tripping her as she walked, but she didn’t curse or scowl like she once would have. She only blinked down at it, eyes tracing the splintered bark, the moss curling like veins across its surface. Her hands twitched, but not from the cold.
Somewhere in the distance, a raven called out once, then went quiet.
She pressed her palms together, fingers curling inward, trying to remember the shape of it. Not the magic, she’d never forgotten the feel of that, but the other thing... the weightless relief, the rush of it.
She’d been nineteen, maybe twenty. Ruth had sliced her hand wide open on a chipped basin in the servants’ quarters. Blood had spilled fast, too fast, soaking the apron at her waist. Ruth looked up at her with those round, fearful eyes. She wasn't supposed to be in the servants' quarters; Mother would punish her if she found out. She should have fled, but instead, Regina, foolish, trembling Regina, had reached out.
She didn’t think, she felt, and the magic, for once, didn’t burn. It warmed and threaded itself through the air, through her fingers, through Ruth’s skin, knitting it closed like a promise. Ruth had cried. Regina had smiled. It had felt like salvation. She’d told herself that day meant something. That it proved she could be more than her mother, more than fear, more than fury, but that was before. Before grief nested in her ribs, and before she started flinching at her own reflection.
Wind moved through the trees, sharp and sudden, slicing across her face like a warning and bringing her back to the present. Regina didn’t flinch. She just let it pass. The forest didn’t care who she used to be. It reached for her regardless. Thorny branches tugged at her sleeves like fingers aching to tear. The air reeked of damp earth, rot, and something older and buried. She walked ahead anyway.
A branch snapped under someone’s foot behind her. “Wait up!” Snow’s voice, breathless, too hopeful, cut through the hush like sunlight where it didn’t belong.
Regina didn’t wait.
“This isn’t the part of the forest I remember,” David muttered. “We’re too far west.”
Regina bit her tongue before she could say something cutting. Too far west, too far east, what did it matter? It all looked the same now. The same gnarled trees, the same choked underbrush, the same haunted ache in her chest. They passed a hollow log, collapsed and slick with fungus. Something skittered inside.
Snow jogged to catch up, her steps crunching dead leaves. “We’ll find shelter soon. Maybe near the riverbend?”
Regina didn’t answer. Her gaze drifted to a knot of trees twisted so tightly together they looked like they were strangling each other. She could still see the blood on the bark, memory or imagination, she didn’t know anymore. Once, Cora had brought her here to learn how to make a heart stop with just a look. Once, she had begged not to try.
“Regina?” She blinked. Snow was beside her now, close enough to touch. “You okay?”
A ridiculous question. Regina turned away. “We should keep moving. You said the sun would set early.”
Snow hesitated, then nodded. David pulled ahead to scout the incline, and Snow lingered for just a second longer before following.
Regina exhaled slowly. Magic prickled at her fingertips, subtle and sharp like static caught beneath her skin. She didn’t release it. Not yet.
Everything here remembered her, and she remembered it right back. The forest whispered with ghosts. Her boots sank into the mud with each step, thick and reluctant, as though the land itself wanted to keep her. Gnarled trees loomed like sentinels, their branches stretched thin as bone, clutching at her sleeves. She walked faster. She didn’t see Henry’s smile in the dappled light. She saw blood on bark, a mother’s sneer, and a lover’s grave.
The weight rose slowly in her chest, like cold water filling her lungs. She blinked hard, trying to will it back. Her breath caught, just once, sharp and sudden. The sting of tears pressed at the corners of her eyes. Not here. Not now. She clenched her fists, nails biting her palms.
The diamonds at her throat, once symbols of power, felt like shackles. Her dress was too tight, too formal, the corset unforgiving. Her hair, pinned into an elegant twist, pulled like it was trying to anchor her to a woman she no longer wanted to be.
A low, buzzing murmur reached her ears. Distant, indistinct. Voices. She barely registered them until a hand closed gently around her elbow.
“Regina?” Snow’s voice, soft and wary.
Regina blinked, her thoughts stumbling back into her body.
Snow's brows were knit with concern as she started to ask: “Are you—”
Regina snapped, “I’m fine,” too fast, too hollow. She pulled her arm free, more forcefully than necessary. “We need to keep moving.”
Snow didn’t argue. She only nodded, falling a half step behind as they emerged into a clearing.
The air shifted. It was heavier and wet as mud oozed around their boots in thick, sucking sloshes. The stench of decay coiled in their noses, earth and mildew and something fouler beneath it. The light filtering through the canopy was pale and sickly, more shadow than sun.
Regina slowed. Something wasn’t right. The forest no longer felt like a home she’d fled. It felt aware, watching. Each tree was a silhouette. Each shadow, a threat, and beneath it all: something new. It wasn’t just the past here anymore. Something had grown in their absence, something cruel, something wrong. She felt it humming beneath her feet, rising through the soil like a heartbeat.
“I’m fine,” she whispered again, more to herself than to anyone. The words tasted sour. She hadn’t noticed the tears until the wind dried them on her skin, leaving behind a sting of salt.
“You don’t look fine,” Snow said, softer this time.
Regina didn’t respond. The concern in Snow’s voice scraped against her skin. She didn’t want sympathy, especially not from her. She wanted silence. She wanted Henry. She wanted to forget.
The magic here was old, older than her, older than the curse, older than bones buried beneath roots. It coiled through the forest like a pulse, thick and wild, brushing against her senses with a low, primal hum. These trees were not the loyal sentinels she remembered. Their twisted limbs curled in warning, not welcome. Bark split like cracked teeth. Leaves rustled with secrets. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold.
Snow stepped closer, worry etched into every line of her face. “You really don’t—”
“I am,” Regina cut in, sharper now. A lie, but necessary. None of them were fine. There was something here. Something wrong. Magic surged beneath Regina’s skin, no longer subtle or still. It pulled toward the clearing’s edge like iron to a magnet, responding to a presence she couldn’t yet see but could feel. It was familiar, but not in comfort... in dread, like a dream she’d once buried.
Regina hadn’t felt magic like this in decades, not since before Henry, not since before she tried—genuinely tried—to be more than the woman her mother made her into. But magic remembered, and it wanted.
Like attracts like, dearie, Rumple whispered in her mind, a cruel echo she couldn’t shake.
Her jaw clenched. The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Nearly thirty frozen years had passed since she last stood in this land, in this skin, beside these people. She knew this forest like the scars on her hands. Knew its paths, its dangers, its lies.
But this, this feeling? This taint in the air? That was new. The scent of decomposition threaded beneath the moss and mud, faint but cloying. It coiled through the roots like breath and warning.
Regina stepped through the trees into an open clearing and stilled. The air pressed in around her. The leaves barely moved. Even the birds had fallen quiet. She inhaled slowly and flinched.
A sick, metallic sweetness clung to the back of her throat. She knew that scent. Regina recoiled a step. Her breath hitched.
Death.
It wrapped around her like a shroud: old, intimate, and inevitable. The darkness here wasn’t just a feeling; it was a presence. Still, her mind split down the center. Half of her rooted in this moment, in the blight and fog and the pulse of something ancient crawling under her skin. The other half aching for her son. Henry’s small hand in hers. His laugh, bright and boyish. The way he said Mom like it was a truth, and not a title she’d fought tooth and claw to earn.
She pressed a hand to her stomach. It felt hollow. Her lip trembled, and she bit down hard. Somewhere behind her, the others spoke, murmurs of reassurance, worry, and maybe hope. She blocked them out. Feathers in her hair stirred in the wind, tickling her neck like fingers she didn’t ask for. The forest reeked of death, and still, all Regina could think about was safety. Henry’s safety.
It was a cruel contrast, this feral need to protect him, while surrounded by everything she’d spent years trying to shield him from. But death had always followed her.
Her first love. Her father. Now Henry, not dead, no, but gone. Gone in a way that felt final. She was an open wound. Grief raw beneath her skin, and under the grief was fury. Fury at herself, at fate, at the laws of magic that demanded suffering as sacrifice. And at Emma.
Emma, who got to keep what Regina had lost. Emma, whose cursed memories now held all the good Regina had built. The birthdays. The bedtime stories. The mornings filled with laughter and little-boy warmth. All the proof that Regina had changed. That she could be good. Now, stripped away. Handed off. A final gift. The fucking irony. She gave them a happy ending, and in return, she got this.
Something slick and cold slithered inside her chest. It coiled along her spine, a whisper of temptation. Not rage exactly. Something quieter and hungrier.
“The people are scared, but everyone’s all right,” David said, stepping into the clearing with her. His voice broke through the fog. “Where are we?”
Regina didn’t look up. She scoffed, then knelt, her palms meeting damp earth.
“I’d say that’s obvious, don’t you think?”
Magic thrummed through Regina’s fingers. Not just hers, something else. Something ancient. It pulsed beneath the roots, threaded through the earth like veins. Fog crept low and heavy, curling around her ankles. Just past the southern tree line: a carcass. A bear, long-dead, its hide blackened and peeling from bone. The miasma wasn’t just in the air. It was here.
David shifted behind Snow, tension radiating from him in thick, uneven waves. When Regina glanced up, he looked away, eyes flicking down, jaw clenched. He moved half a step behind his wife like a man not quite brave enough to meet her gaze.
Of course he hadn’t seen this part of the forest before. Why would he? Nothing heroic ever brought men like him this deep into shadow. The viridian oaks with leaves like tar, the black sludge sucking at their boots, the air thick with mist and grief, every part of this place screamed danger.
She felt a curl of satisfaction watching his composure slip, just slightly. But she couldn’t deny it: when danger came, David faced it. That courage of his, steady, stupid, and blinding, was both a flaw and a virtue.
“I think this is the Netherwood,” came a voice low and gravel-edged beside her.
Ms. Lucas, Granny to the sentimental few, stepped forward, eyes narrowed, her tone quiet enough to keep their conversation between them. Her sharp profile was framed by silver-streaked curls, and her worn weaved cloak smelled faintly of iron and pine. “Can smell it in the trees,” she muttered. Her nose wrinkled. “This place is rotten.”
Regina nodded. She didn’t need a wolf’s nose to know it. The air thrummed wrong. “She’s right,” Regina said aloud, rising to her feet.
A shock of magic spiked through her like a flare behind her ribs. She hissed through her teeth, the sting familiar.
She could feel the Netherwood's venom seeping into muscle and bone. Her magic surged in response, fighting the corruption cell by cell, burning away decay just as quickly as it rooted. It was already trying to claim them. With a swift motion, she dragged her thumb across her wrist, drawing a sigil in mud and magic. Iridescent purple shimmered in its wake, then vanished into her skin with a pulse.
She turned, grabbed Snow’s arm before the woman could speak.
“Hold still.”
Snow flinched, but didn’t pull away. Regina traced the same protective rune across her pale wrist. The magic sank in immediately, sealing with a faint shimmer. A tethering ward. Temporary, but it would buy them time.
“What are you doing?” David’s voice cut through the fog, sharp with alarm. He stepped forward like a man seeing danger in shadows.
Regina didn’t even look at him. “I’m casting a tethering spell.”
He moved closer. “Without asking? On her?”
She turned, eyes flashing. “Would you rather I let the forest rot her from the inside out?”
David hesitated. Regina let the moment stretch just long enough for his silence to be its own answer. Then she stepped away from Snow and began drawing the next sigil on her own skin. The forest breathed around them, watching and waiting.
Snow’s low voice cut through the tension. “Regina… what’s the Netherwood?”
Regina didn’t answer. She focused on completing the triquetra, her fingers moving with swift precision as she pressed her thumb to Granny’s wrist. Incantations flickered through her mind, stringing together faster than breath.
They had to get out. The iridescent symbol soaked into Granny’s skin, and Regina held her gaze.
“Get Red. Both wrists. Thumbs over her pulse—like this.” She demonstrated the grip, firm and certain. “Repeat after me: Animabus nostris, et vinctum.”
Granny repeated the words without hesitation. Her voice was gravel and bone, but steady. Regina moved to Snow. "Same thing. Everyone. No exceptions.”
They obeyed.
“This’ll work?” David asked, holding still as Regina pressed her fingertips to his wrists. Her magic flared against his energy, awkward but usable. She needed only three to pass the spell through the group like a current. Regina had long since learned to cast through others. Magic wasn’t just hers alone; it lived in blood, in breath, in will.
Granny grounded it. A wolf’s nose tethered to the forest. Snow purified it. Her will was sharp as glass, her heart a rare ingredient in any alchemy.
“It’ll work,” Regina said flatly. “As long as we stay together. We head east.”
As Snow and Granny moved through the crowd, repeating the incantation and pressing symbols into wrists, the magic pulsed stronger. Threads of light stitched them together, small and trembling at first, then stronger and brighter.
David’s brow furrowed. “Everyone? Regina, there are... hundreds here.”
Thousands, she thought, watching his eyes widen. Math wasn’t his strength. The dwarves and fairies would need to carry the rest. And Rumple— her gaze darted to the edge of the clearing. Nothing. No cane, no shimmer of gold. She ground her teeth. Where had the Imp disappeared to?
David stepped in again, gesturing wildly. “Can’t you just… I don’t know, poof us out of here?”
Regina stared. “Poof.”
He blinked. “You know. Teleport.”
She dropped his wrists like they were made of dung. “I’m casting a tethering spell so your lungs don’t disintegrate in your chest, and you want me to... what? Snap my fingers? Open a portal the size of a small kingdom while keeping a thousand people intact through corrupted ley lines?”
David hesitated.
“And even if I could? You want me to blindly drop us into White Orchard, with no idea what’s waiting? Magic comes with a price, David. You should know that by now.”
He said nothing. Regina sighed, dragging a hand down her face. Her head throbbed. Her joints ached from magic pooling in her bones.
David tried again. “What is it with the Netherwood that has you and Granny so on edge?”
He said Granny like he'd earned the right. Regina stiffened and muttered under her breath: "She's not your pack." And then louder, she said: "It's not the forest."
She glanced over her shoulder; the fog had thickened. "It's what lives in it."
Something skittered along her spine. The wrong kind of memory. She didn't elaborate. She couldn't, not without dredging it up. The cold, the scent, the way your mind fractured just before it fed.
"He's older than anything that's supposed to still be breathing," she said, choosing her words carefully.
Somewhere nearby, a child laughed. It was high-pitched and brief, too brief. Regina's eyes snapped toward the sound, but there was no child. There were only trees and shadows. Snow called softly to someone behind them. Granny turned, her ears twitching. Regina's breath came shallow and too fast. Her fingers tingled with magic she didn't remember summoning.
She swallowed. "He feeds on fear," she said, intentionally refusing to speak his name. "He feeds on grief. Twists you up until you can't tell what's real. Until you don't want to. Until there's nothing left to save." She steadied herself, but barely, her mind swirling with what-ifs. She'd seen him wear a familiar face once. She hadn't spoken for three days after.
Across the clearing, someone whispered her name. She didn't look. The group had gone still. Even the birds had stopped. And the wind, gods, the wind smelled like decay again. She could see blood, and entrails, and butchered streets, and--
Regina shook her head hard, forcing the images back... and blinked. "I'm trying to make sure he doesn't get the chance to do that again."
Her voice was tight and shaking. "To any of us."
David didn't speak. He stood pale and motionless, eyes fixed on her like he was waiting for something... answers, maybe or reassurance. She had neither to give.
"That sounds..." he faltered. "That sounds horrible."
Regina looked away. A dry wind rustled through the trees like bone dragging across bark.
"It was," she said quietly, and then sharper: "Which is why we can't stand here doing nothing."
She turned from him; her magic was already buzzing beneath her skin again.
“Decades before I cast the Curse, a coven tricked and trapped him in this corner of the realm. But something’s… off. This place feels awake, like it did before.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “We’ve been gone too long. I don't know what the Curse did to this land.”
He looked like he wanted to ask more, but they didn't have time. The trees felt closer than they had a moment ago.
“How long to clear the Netherwood?” David exhaled slowly.
“A day. Maybe more. Then Sherwood, then the Gorge, then White Orchard.”
“Can we keep everyone safe?”
“We have to,” she said.
The words caught in her throat. Henry’s voice rose unbidden in her mind.
Keep the family together, Mom. Keep them safe.
A whisper of panic crept beneath her ribs. The crowd around her blurred, voices dull and distorted. She needed quiet, focus, magic. She had to stitch their strength together, tap into the wolves in Granny and Red, the dormant elemental blood in the dwarves, the old kinetic lines that ran through the townspeople like ley currents. She’d drain herself dry by the end of it. Would need to draw from flora and fauna to stay standing. But it was the only way they’d survive this journey.
Otherwise, they’d start dropping. One by one. And still—
All magic comes with a price, dearie.
You’re not enough.
You’ll never be enough.
Not long ago, she’d stood triumphant while Snow sobbed over David’s body, their newborn gone to another realm. She thought she’d won. Thought vengeance would feel like something, but even a world built from her own desires hadn't been enough. Thirty years. Thirty fucking years. And still, she’d lost everything. Again.
No longer the Evil Queen, but not just Regina, either. Cursed into something in between, and now, trapped in the fucking Netherwood, far too close to the monster she’d helped bury. She tried to hold it together, pressed the fury and grief down into the box she kept hidden under her skin. Boarded walls, collected tears, a place where a wand had once split her lip, where blood soaked the sheets. All of it, locked away.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity fuck.
The scent of rot was stronger now, curling through the air, thick and wet and wrong. It coiled in her throat, turned her stomach. The land couldn’t be trusted.
Her hands were shaking. She clenched them into fists and focused on the sigils, each one cast, each one pulsing faintly against skin. The magic tethered them all now, thin as thread but holding. She didn't know how long it would last.
Snow turned to her. “What do we do now?”
This time, Regina heard the question. Really heard it. She looked at Snow, her long hair curling just like it had during their war years. Behind her, David stood in a bloodstained shirt. The others, too, looked exactly as she remembered them before Storybrooke.
Only now, they were all looking to her. The dwarves. The tiny cricket. Even Granny. She didn’t have the answers they wanted, but she knew the only one that mattered.
“Now, we move.”
She didn’t repeat what she’d told David. Granny would understand without being told, she could feel the wrongness of this place. And the last thing they needed was fear spreading like fire.
David's expression was already more than enough to manage. She couldn’t coddle them. Hell, she could barely hold herself together. A headache pounded harder, every beat a reminder of the magic she'd already burned through. They’d barely returned to their homeland, and danger had already found them.
Snow didn’t know what the Nether was. Not yet. David would tell her eventually. Regina would answer the questions when she had to. Not before. Because the real problem wasn’t that she cared what happened to these people. The problem was that she did. And she'd made Henry a promise.
Keep the family together, Mom. Keep them safe.
She would, no matter the cost. Even as the barrier between herself and the Nether grew thin and brittle, even if it broke, even if she broke with it.
They had to make it to Sherwood, before it was too late.
And as the group gathered their things and began their slow march through the dying woods, not one of them noticed the figure that slipped from the forest shadows and disappeared into their ranks.
~:~:~
A/N: Are you still with me?
Chapter 2
Summary:
My original 2013 summary: Regina groans, pushing herself off the ground. Tiny cuts on her palms sting, mud stains the cream night gown she wasn't very fond of anyway. Leaves and twigs embed in her hair. She's stuck, somewhere in the in between, without her Henry, without her everything. Grief and sorrow call all her attention, and she doesn't see the hooded man stalking her from the trees.
If you're joining for the rewrite? 2025 summary: The Curse is broken, and Regina Mills has been dragged back to the Enchanted Forest, a realm that remembers everything she tried to forget. Trapped with Snow, David, and the remnants of their kingdom, Regina must lead a fractured people through the heart of a haunted land. As old enemies stir and the land itself turns hostile, Regina must reckon with the person she used to be, the mother she longs to become again, and the terrifying possibility that she may not survive the journey home. But the forest isn't the only thing that sees her clearly, and sometimes, the way back isn't about magic. It's about the people who choose to walk beside you.
Notes:
I've been a bit overwhelmed (in the best way) by your messages on Tumblr and AO3. Thank you so much for still being here for this story. For embracing the changes. For getting excited alongside me as we tiptoe through the The In Between and see where this new version goes. You’ve made returning to this world feel like coming home to a warm hearth and someone handing you your favorite drink (spiked or not, your call). Seriously, after so many years of letting this fic gather dust, it’s wild and wonderful to share it again and see you all still care.
Now, I won’t spoil the story length. Should I? Would it help if I told you whether to hydrate or bring snacks first? Or do we like the suspense of not knowing when the emotional damage will end? This chapter digs deeper. We’re not just setting the scene anymore, we’re walking it. There’s grief here. There’s magic. There’s a heartbeat trying not to falter. And for Regina… there are people she’s not sure she wants to save, but can’t seem to let go of either.
So once again, thank you for reading, commenting, reblogging, shouting into the Tumblr void, or even just quietly lurking. I see you. You matter. You’re helping me finish something I’ve loved for a long time.
With all my love (and questionable forest survival instincts),
BelleoftheBallpointP.S. There be gore in this chapter.
Chapter Text
It felt like someone was taking a hammer to the base of her skull. Blinding, hot pain zinged up and down her spine. Pins and needles stabbed the soles of her feet with every step, but she couldn’t stop. They weren’t far enough from the Netherwood’s edge. Sherwood’s trees might offer shelter, but the Nether… he didn’t honor boundaries. The name scraped the back of Regina's throat, unspoken but dangerously close.
“Don’t.”
The word came sharp and low, and she nearly jumped. Granny Lucas was beside her now, her breath fogging in the brittle air. Her coat was threadbare at the seams, patched where something sharper than thorns had once torn through. Her face was a map of old roads, all the more lined by exhaustion, but her eyes were clear and flint-bright.
“You almost said it.”
Regina didn’t answer, only tightened her jaw against the chill, the pain, the pull of the thing they were fleeing. Without ceremony, Granny reached into her coat and pulled out something small. She pressed it into Regina’s hand, firm, calloused fingers closing Regina’s around it with a quiet kind of insistence.
It was a piece of iron, cold and dulled with age. Worn smooth at the edges, like it had been turned over in someone’s palm again and again, worried into memory.
“I kept that by Henry’s crib,” Granny said. “Back in Storybrooke. I didn’t know why at the time.”
Regina blinked, startled. Her fingers curled tighter around the charm.
“You don’t remember it the same way I do,” Granny said. “Not anymore. But I used to bring you soup when you looked too tired to stand. Watched you fall asleep in that stiff-backed chair with a bottle half-warmed in your lap.”
There was no accusation in her voice, no pride either. Just a quiet accounting.
“I thought I was just being cautious. Superstition, maybe. Old habit.” She looked ahead, toward the trembling edge of the woods. “But iron always felt... right. Like it meant something. Like it was older than logic. Like it knew things, long before we did.”
Regina looked down at the charm again. It was unremarkable, just a rust-dark disc no bigger than a button, and yet her fingers burned where they touched it. The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, but it carried weight. Years of it. Wounds scabbed over, torn open, half-healed again. Regina’s throat tightened. Her voice came out low.
“You cared for him.”
Granny’s expression didn’t shift. But her voice, for just a moment, went softer. “Still do.”
Their eyes met.
“And you,” Granny added after a beat, the words landing not quite gently, but not unkindly either. “I suppose I did too. Before I remembered everything.”
She looked away, jaw tight. “Before I remembered who you used to be. Who we all were.”
The quiet returned, sharper this time, but Regina didn’t look away.
Granny sighed, turning back toward the path. “Keep it close. He listens for names. But he smells doubt.”
Regina closed her fingers fully around it, and they walked in silence after that, Granny half a step behind her, like she always had been in Storybrooke. Not a protector, not quite a friend, but someone who had once kept a light on in the dark.
But the quiet didn’t last, not with the way the current kept gnawing at her insides, healing and hollowing all at once. Regina's muscles screamed. Her vision blurred at the corners, colors swirled in muddy spirals of umber, mustard, and sienna, the dying breath of autumn smeared across the forest like war paint. Power coursed beneath her skin like an underground river: lifeblood stolen by the world above, flora and fauna taking without thanks.
That was how he lived, too, feeding on what was meant to give. All Regina could do was keep walking and beg that the energy restoring her cells was enough to outpace the essence draining her dry. Mud latched to her boots like cement, dragging her down, down, down into the dark. The trees loomed above like judges; sunlight flickered through gaps in the canopy, and humidity clung to the forest like breath held too long.
Rebels, dwarves, royals, misfits... she didn’t know how they were upright. She didn’t know how she was. A bitter chuckle slipped out before she could swallow it.
Not long after the Curse broke, she'd felt relief, real and radiant relief. Henry was alive. The lies were over. No more masking her own face in a world that couldn’t hold her magic. No more pretending to be normal. She could breathe again. Magic returned to her bloodstream like white-hot, unrestrained, and delicious wildfire. It had seared through her with a violent but vital force. She had felt whole. But peace, for her, was always borrowed, never earned. And the moment she realized she was going to lose Henry, that peace began to unravel. The Curse breaking had torn him away, and every breath since had cost her more than the last.
It didn't help when Snow said Henry would always be with her, didn't help when David promised they'd get through this together. Their hope-speeches rang empty, because the Nether didn't care for hope. He fed on the ache beneath it. She wiped sweat from her brow, concentration narrowing on Snow and David just ahead. Their fingers interlocked, holding fast the same way grief clutched at her chest.
They had each other, and all she had was magic, and it blistered. It scorched through her bloodstream, all-consuming. The ache became pressure, and the pressure became static. Her ears buzzed; her knees buckled. And then, something shifted, not in her but around her. The wind changed, the light dimmed slightly, like a cloud passing over the sun, except there were no clouds, and there was no sun. There were just trees and shadow.
Her skin prickled, heat recoiling beneath it. She slowed, trying to listen, trying to understand what it was warning her of. Then Leroy barreled into her from behind.
“Watch where you’re fucking going!” he barked, flinching like he’d touched fire.
She stumbled forward, catching herself against the gnarled bark of a tree. The sting in her palms vanished beneath a sudden, unexpected pulse of power, a warmth that coiled up her arms in a grounding, welcome rush.
“You bumped into me,” she spat.
“Who asked you, lady?” he grumbled, storming past.
She turned, jaw tight, power rising. The instinct was there, to bare her teeth and remind him exactly who she used to be.
But then: You’re not the Evil Queen anymore, Mom. Henry’s voice, quiet in her mind. She blinked. She’d tried so hard, given up so much, and played by the rules of magic. Only for magic to cheat. Storybrooke hadn’t been the reward the Dark One promised. It had been crueler, trickier, and unfair. It let her believe, let her build a life, gave her friends, a routine, a family. A life built upon cursed lies, and the truth obliterated it.
The old wolf outpaced her with grim determination, and Red darted through the trees to the east. Regina pressed her forehead against the bark and exhaled slowly, dragging air into lungs that refused to feel full.
Keep moving.
She’s coming.
A warning slithered through her like a chill in her marrow.
“Regina?” She flinched at the sudden interruption and the hand on her elbow. Snow, of course.
"What?" Regina bit and shrugged the touch off.
Snow crossed her arms, brows lifted. “You don’t have to snap at me.”
“If brain matter started leaking from my nose, it would be less agonizing than this,” Regina muttered. “Snapping is a kindness.”
Snow’s irritation faded and concern took its place. “You’ve overdone it again, haven’t you?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I said I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but she’d die before letting Snow White see her falter.
“You’re just as stubborn as Henry,” Snow muttered.
Regina’s head snapped up. “Excuse you?”
“That brave face isn’t helping anyone. Let’s stop for a minute. David?”
She waved her husband over, but Regina already knew how this would go. He wouldn’t stop the group, not after what she’d told him about the Nether. And right on cue, Snow’s voice cut off as David waved the others forward, then jogged toward them. Regina smirked at Snow’s pinched expression.
“I’ll be right back,” Snow said, touching her shoulder. “You sit. Just for a second—”
But Regina had already tuned her out. She wouldn’t sit. She couldn’t with that gnawing behind her ribs and that warning in her bones.
Run. She’s coming.
“Don’t bother,” she grunted, pushing off the tree and forcing one foot in front of the other. Sweat slicked her brow. She wiped it away with a trembling hand.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Snow huffed, stepping into her path. “You’re expelling too much energy—”
She reached for her sleeve, but her fingers slipped on the damp fabric. Regina jerked away, gaze locked on the dense wall of trees ahead. She didn’t look back, couldn’t, not when every glance risked unraveling the threadbare control she barely held.
“You need to take a break—”
Regina pushed forward, shoulders hunched, muscles trembling. Her body moved like her bones were packed with sand, but she kept going.
Snow stepped in front of her again, this time arms out like she could physically block her. Regina didn’t pause. She sidestepped smoothly, brushing past her like low-hanging branches.
“I said, you need to rest—”
“I said, keep walking,” she bit out, barely above a whisper. Her pace didn’t falter. Snow stood frozen behind her, arms out, hands empty.
“White Orchard isn’t going anywhere,” Snow said, trying to recover, her voice softening. “Sit down—please. Just for a minute. Then we’ll keep going. No harm done.”
Regina rolled her eyes so hard her mother would’ve slapped her for it. Was Snow really this naïve? After everything? Did she not understand that if Regina was willing to burn herself out, the danger had to be real? There was no pause button when lives were on the line.
“You’re an idiot,” she snapped. “Keep walking.”
Her whole body rebelled. Sweat stung her eyes, cramps twisted in her gut, sunlight carved through her like blades, but still, she shoved past her.
“Regina—”
Snow reached again, this time for her hand. She was cautious, like a tentative ant nearing a hornet, but her grip was steady when it closed around Regina’s fingers.
“If this is hurting you…” Her voice cracked. She gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You don’t have to keep going. We’ll find another way. We always do.”
We always do. The words made her stomach churn and her blood boil. As if Snow hadn’t tried to keep Henry from her. As if she hadn’t wielded hope like a club every time the Charmings found another way. But there was no we in this. This was hers to bear. There wasn't another way, because she could already feel the Nether pressing in from all sides, forcing itself into her pores, pounding against every ward she’d thrown up to protect them. A spasm ripped through her chest; the migraine turned her vision to static.
The Nether was just as relentless as Snow White.
Regina ripped her hands free and staggered back, heels grinding into the dirt. The very thought of Snow’s hopeful, cloying presence, day after day, step after step, made her want to scream until the trees split open.
“If I stop, you’re all dead,” she seethed, clutching her temple as pain spiked behind her left eye.
“Dead? Regina, look at you,” Snow pleaded. “If you don’t stop, you’ll be dead.”
“Well then, I guess we’re all fucked, aren’t we?” Regina growled. If Henry looked as awful as Regina felt, she’d usher him up to his room with the promise of tomato bisque and a toasted sourdough grilled cheese and force him to sleep, watching over him as his distressed aura returned to that dusty periwinkle she loved so much. But Henry wasn’t here. It was just her and these people and their puke pink auras, and she gave Henry her word that she’d protect these neanderthals, so she didn’t have a choice. No breaks. No stopping. Even though Snow wasn’t wrong. She could feel death invading her bones, fusing nerves together.
Snow tried to grab Regina’s shoulder and turn her around. Her skin burned beneath Snow’s grip, the Nether damaging her cells at a molecular level faster than her magic could regenerate her deteriorating body. All the while, these fucking idiots stayed untouched.
“Snow!” Regina mustered up the energy to push the woman away from her.
Snow’s face twisted, and it wasn't quite anger, but it did look like frustration worn thin. “Can you just take a minute?” she asked, sighing as if it might soften the edges. “You’re shaking on your feet, Regina. Please.”
Her voice was quiet, too careful. Regina didn’t answer at first. She pressed her fingers to the back of her neck, digging hard into the muscle where the migraine had rooted deep. Her skin was clammy. Her pulse throbbed against bone.
“You’re not listening,” she gritted, jaw clenched.
“Then talk to me,” Snow shot back. “And I’ll listen!”
The world pressed inward, so narrow and loud. Up ahead, the dwarves jostled through the undergrowth, oblivious to how the path tugged at her wards. One misstep, and they’d walk straight into something they couldn’t name. David’s boots hit the ground like hammers. Red flashed between trees, a streak of fur and muscle, vanishing and reappearing like a pulse. Behind them, Granny moved in steady sync with her crossbow. Too many heartbeats, too much motion.
The Bakerman coughed. A child whimpered. Wings rustled. The air smelled like wet bark and iron and sweat. And every sound stuck to her skin, every movement tugged at her magic. And through it all, threads pulled taut, trembling under the weight. She couldn’t keep them safe, not like this. She could feel it; something close and watching, growing hungrier with every heartbeat.
Her vision spotted. Her power surged. She exploded.
“I can’t stop!”
The trees rang with it.
Snow blinked. Her hands came up, defensive and unsure. Then they dropped to her sides.
“Then tell me why,” she said, louder this time. She stepped into Regina’s path, chin high, eyes locked. “I don’t understand!”
No judgment in her voice now, just strain and breath, and for a second, Regina couldn’t look away. Snow didn’t look like a princess, not here, not now. Her wide eyes glistened, pleading, and for a breath, for one foolish, vulnerable beat, Regina saw the child with curled hair and rosy cheeks she once saved on Firefly Hill. That same softness, that same open heart. They’d almost been friends, once, back when she carried hope in her hands instead of ash.
She squeezed her fists tight, then let go, shaking the memory from her head. David jogged up behind them and clapped a hand on her back. Heat flashed across her skin like an open flame. She didn’t flinch, but her nostrils flared.
Why the hell did people keep touching her?
“Hey, you two,” David said lightly. He gestured to the uneasy audience watching them from the trees.
“Maybe you can talk some sense into her,” Regina muttered, stepping out of his reach.
Snow looked between them, brows furrowing. “David?”
“We need to keep moving,” he said. “Now’s not the time.”
Regina let the smallest curve tug at her mouth. Oh, death loomed. But watching this charming mess trip over themselves? Almost made it worth it.
“She needs to rest, David.” Snow stood firm. A breeze curled between them, carrying the sharp scent of decaying moss.
“A ten-minute break won’t kill anyone.”
But it would.
Move. Run. She’s coming.
“We don’t have time for this,” Regina murmured. Gooseflesh rose across her neck, and the hair on her arms stood like sentinels.
David nodded. “None of us can stop now.”
Snow stepped in front of them. “Then tell me what’s going on. Why won’t either of you tell me what’s so bad about the Netherwood?” She pointed toward Regina. “Can’t you see she’s tearing herself apart?”
“I’m fine,” Regina rasped, and immediately coughed, a wet sound buried in her chest. Her knees buckled slightly. Sweat slid down her spine and pooled along her jaw. She looked like hell, and felt worse.
“No. You’re not.” Snow’s voice was low. “Why aren’t you listening to me?”
“Because you’re not listening to me!” Regina hurled.
“You’re being stupid!”
“You’re being stupid!” Oh, brilliant. Now she sounded like a child.
Snow’s arms flew up. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself for weeks. Just look at you!” Her voice cracked with frustration. “Are you trying to punish yourself?”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Regina hissed. Her throat was raw with it now. She was done. Done with the questions, the pity, the performance.
Where had this concern been when Greg and Tamara had strapped her to a table in Storybrooke? When Pan nearly gutted her in Neverland? When she'd killed her own mother and no one said a word? Snow hadn’t cared then. Why now?
“Oh, I don’t know,” Snow snapped, sarcasm cutting sharp. “Maybe because of what you did—to me. To everyone.” But already her voice was fraying, the anger unraveling. “We're not your responsibility. You’re not the mayor. You’re not even queen anymore.”
Regina’s jaw clenched so tight it hurt. Every instinct told her to turn, to leave, to walk straight into the forest and never look back. Instead, she stayed.
“Go to hell,” she hissed. “I didn’t ask for your concern. I’m not doing this for you.”
Snow crossed her arms. “Then who? Who are you trying to prove this to?”
Silence. Then, flatly: “Henry.”
Snow blinked. “What?”
Regina’s gaze was like glass, hard, brittle, catching the light just wrong.
“He asked me to protect you,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but it scraped her throat on the way out. “All of you. Before the curse broke. Before this place... before any of this.”
She didn’t blink, didn’t breathe.
“I gave him my word.”
For a moment, it landed like a stone dropped in deep water, no splash, just pressure, heavy and sinking.
Snow’s mouth opened like she meant to say something — argue, apologize, anything — but whatever words she found weren’t enough to carry the weight.
And Regina? She turned, not in retreat, in resolve, in exhaustion. In that quiet kind of grief that looks like anger when you don’t know her well enough. Whatever needed saying had already taken too much air.
But Snow wasn’t finished. “Well, I’m sure he didn’t want you to kill yourself doing it,” she shot back, closing the distance between them in three clipped steps. “Because that’s what this is, Regina. That’s what you’re doing.”
Regina didn’t turn around, but her spine stiffened. Her magic surged, hot and restless behind her ribs, and her hands curled in response. Her fingertips buzzed with it.
“Why do you care?” she said, voice sharp and frayed all at once. “You’ve hated me since the day we met. You ruined my life. Why save it now?”
There was a beat of silence. Then Snow said it, louder than she meant to: “Because this is my fault!”
The words cracked like lightning. Regina turned slowly, startled. Not by the words themselves, but by how they sounded coming from Snow’s mouth. Like they’d been waiting years to get out.
David froze behind them, unreadable and watching. And Snow... Snow looked small for just a second. She looked stripped bare, but the moment passed. Her shoulders squared, and her eyes sparked with something more than anger, something messier.
She stepped forward and jabbed a finger into Regina’s chest, hard. “You don’t think I’ve been paying attention, but I have. You’ve been a ghost for weeks. Sleepwalking. Going on patrols you don’t remember. Speaking like you’re already gone.”
Her voice shook. “You think I don’t see that?”
It didn’t sound like self-blame. Not yet. It sounded like accusation.
Regina’s expression twisted. She smacked Snow’s hand away like it burned. “And whose fault is that?” she snapped. “You turned my son against me. You made me the villain in his eyes.”
“I know I did,” Snow said, and this time her voice cracked, no edge, no venom. Just splinters. “And I’m sorry, Regina. I am.”
Her eyes were wet now, rimmed red. Her breath hitched. “I see it, okay?” she whispered. “I see what I did. I just... I didn’t know how to fix it.”
A sting rose in Regina's throat. She could feel her jaw tightening, the words lodged behind her breastbone. Apologies were currency she’d never trusted, not from enemies, and certainly not from Snow White.
“I wish I could undo it all,” Snow continued. “But I do know what you gave up. For him. For Emma. I know what it cost you.”
You have no idea, Regina thought, but the bitterness lacked its usual heat. It was hollow now, dulled by exhaustion and the kind of ache that never quite left her. Snow stepped forward, reaching for her hands.
Regina stiffened at first, reflex. But she didn’t pull away.
“Stop punishing yourself. Please. We are all we have left. Whether you like it or not… it’s back to just you and me. And I’m not letting you kill yourself to protect us.”
She stared at their joined hands, the tremble in Snow’s fingers. It should’ve felt like a trap, like manipulation, but all she could see was desperation.
And grief.
She didn’t speak. She couldn’t.
Snow held tighter. “Not when it’s my fault we’re here in the first place.”
David blinked. “Snow, how could this be your fault? Pan—”
Snow turned toward him, her voice razor-sharp. “If I’d believed Regina when she told us she didn’t kill Archie… if I hadn’t let anger blind me, I never would’ve pushed her back toward her mother.”
Regina flinched. Mother. Even the word was a wound.
“She wouldn’t have been vulnerable to Greg and Tamara. We wouldn’t have ended up in Neverland. Regina wouldn’t have had to cast that curse. And none of us would be here.”
Her voice didn’t waver now.
“It’s my fault we lost our children.” Snow turned her gaze back to Regina.
And Regina, for the first time in what felt like years, didn’t look away.
“Snow—”
The word hung there, suspended between them like breath on a winter morning.
Then came the sound. A hush, no birds, no wind, just the uneasy rustle of brittle leaves clinging to autumn branches. And the smell. Stronger now. Thick and sour, like rot blooming beneath the surface.
She felt it deep, behind her knees, through her molars. The vibration grew, fast and deliberate, as if something enormous was swimming just beneath the surface, shoving aside roots and stone. Dirt flexed, cracked, and buckled. Snow turned toward the sound, but Regina had already braced.
A thunderclap split the earth.
The blast knocked the air from her lungs. Her ears rang, vision whiting out for half a second. She staggered, caught herself, just barely, as the world erupted.
A fissure tore open in the forest floor. Mud, roots, jagged stone flew like shrapnel. Something vast surged upward, trailing mucous and decay. And then it reared. The trees looked small beside it. Thirty feet, maybe more, of pulsing muscle and rot-slicked scale. Fangs dripped viscous saliva in heavy strands. Spines jutted along its back in cruel rows, like obsidian spears. Fungal growths bulged from its sides, black and throbbing. Beneath its belly, the ground smoked where its slime made contact, grass curling, leaves shriveling.
Regina couldn’t breathe.
Snow’s hand gripped hers. Regina hadn’t realized how tightly she held on.
The creature’s roar tore through the glade like an avalanche. Her bones rattled. Her stomach twisted.
“Eyes down!” she barked, wrenching her focus from its face. “Don’t look at it—do not look!”
Too late. Snow flinched, eyes wide, and David caught her by the shoulders.
The basilisk’s gaze cut through the clearing like a blade, and even glancing toward its head made Regina’s vision swim.
“Down!” she barked again, heart thudding like war drums. “Down, down, don’t you dare meet its—”
She caught the shimmer of its eyes, just a glint, and her legs nearly gave.
It slithered forward with a grotesque grace, leaving behind a scorched trail of venomous slime. Its barbed tail lashed, uprooting a sapling with a wet crack. The earth behind it hissed and smoked.
Regina raised her hand. Fire ignited in her palm, erratic and wild.
Not just a basilisk.
Herpo.
Her gut clenched.
Far too large. Far too old. Far from the tunnels of the Ancient Isles, and twice as deadly. She'd read about it, fragments in half-charred scrolls and crimson-stained grimoires. Most scholars believed Herpo was a legend, a mistake in taxonomy, a warning disguised as myth. But the sheer weight of the creature's presence crushed that doubt. Her magic shrieked at the nearness of it, already weakening under the strain of holding the wards. This thing wasn’t just a threat.
It was a reckoning.
The fireball snapped to life in Regina’s palm, volatile and hungry. It licked up her wrist, siphoning from the charged air around her, particles folding, atoms crackling like kindling as the realm fed her fury.
Screams erupted. People scattered in chaos, slipping on moss, tripping over roots. A child cried out. Someone fell hard.
Herpo struck.
The tail lashed once, twice, and bodies crumpled in its wake. Regina’s stomach turned to stone. She didn’t need time to think. Her mind had already splintered into triage: the way ribs cracked on impact, the spray of crimson from a temple blow, the limpness of a limb that wouldn’t recover. Who she could save. Who she couldn’t. Who would bleed out before she reached them.
Too many.
They’d been packed too tight, all of them huddled close like sheep behind her shields. One threat traded for another. Safety bought in borrowed seconds.
And now? They were boxed in. No clear paths. No exits. And she— She wasn’t going to reach them all. She wasn’t going to keep her promise.
The fire in her palm flared, shifting—magenta, deep and violent. Not the color of fury, but of something far more ancient. The kind of magic she couldn’t summon in Storybrooke. Not without this place. Not without the air here, thick with power like iron in blood. It coursed through her veins, electric and sharp, flooding her with the sick rush of adrenaline and something darker.
A scream cracked through the chaos. Behind Herpo’s bulk, a boy stood frozen. He was small, paralyzed. Wrong place. Wrong time. Henry’s face flickered over the child’s features for one breathless second, and Regina didn’t hesitate. She ran, without spell or thought, just movement, boots slamming into packed earth, heat trailing from her outstretched hand as she reached the boy, yanked him up against her chest, and spun. Her shins ached. Her legs threatened collapse. But she pushed, wove through flailing arms and shrieks and the smell of singed moss where Herpo’s venom struck.
Behind her, the basilisk shrieked. A tail smashed into the forest with a thunderous crack. More screaming, close. But she didn’t look. She kept running. The dwarves blurred past. Uprooted splintered-trees tore by. She locked eyes on the wolf.
“Take him,” Regina gasped, shoving the boy into Granny’s arms. Her breath sawed in and out. Her heart pounded in her ears.
She turned, ready to meet death head-on, but a hand snapped around her wrist, rough and iron-strong, stopping her cold.
“What d’you think you’re doin’, girl?”
Granny’s voice hit like a sharp, low slap full of fire. Her steeled eyes cut through Regina’s panic with something more powerful than fear. A lump formed in Regina’s throat, but she couldn’t stop, and didn't have time to feel it.
“I need to stop it.” Regina yanked her arm away from the old wolf, but her grip was unrelenting.
“It’ll kill you,” the old wolf insisted, gripping more tightly to Regina’s wrist as chaos reigned around them.
“A favor to you! Let me go,” Regina commanded, but Granny wasn’t listening. Her tone and grip were firm.
It had taken years, years and Henry, for Granny to speak to Regina with anything more than curt disdain. And once the ice fractured, it hadn’t stopped. Words became gestures: hand-knit baby booties, soft hats too small for anyone but Henry. And those gestures became habits, meals delivered when Regina forgot to eat, a seat kept open at the diner, even when uninvited. Eventually, Granny started sitting with them. First Henry, then Regina too. By the time Red began joining their little trio, it was understood, expected. Regina had chalked it up to pity for a long time. That was easier, cleaner. But deep down, she knew better. Somehow, without asking for it, without deserving it, she and Henry had been folded into the Lucas pack. Not tolerated, but claimed.
“Let me go,” Regina said again, sharper now. But the old wolf didn’t flinch. The child in her arms wailed as Herpo’s roars ripped through the sky, shaking the forest around them.
“Not happenin’, girl!”
“It’s killing them! I have to do something.” Regina gripped the woman’s wrist, tried to pry her fingers loose. “Please. Let me go.”
The old wolf’s brow furrowed, not with disapproval, but something more searching. Her fingers didn’t loosen.
“I already lost too much,” she said. “Not you too.”
Regina froze for just a second. The words cut deeper than any command could.
She swallowed hard. “Then let me end it before anyone else dies.”
Something shifted in the woman’s expression, something that looked like resignation and faith, bound together. Her grip eased and fell away.
“I’ll kill you myself if you let that thing take you,” she muttered, reaching for her crossbow.
“I’m counting on it,” Regina breathed, already turning toward the fray. “Get everyone clear. Head northeast. There’s a clearing by Whispering Creek. Go now.”
“I’m not leaving you behind.”
“You’re not,” Regina said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Red sprinted toward them, out of breath. “We have to move!”
The old wolf handed off the child, turned without another word, and vanished into the chaos, crossbow drawn.
Granny’s jaw locked tight as she yanked a bolt from the leather holster at her side. Her hands didn’t tremble. She raised the crossbow with the steadiness of someone who’d been through war before, aimed for the side of the creature’s head, and fired.
“Eyes down!” Regina snarled, throwing an arm across the woman’s face just as she stepped into her line of fire. The bolt veered, thudding into the moss-covered bark behind the beast.
She didn’t look up, couldn’t. Instead, flames poured from her fingers, each blast blooming with heat and fury as she rained fire over the serpent’s writhing body. Some licked harmlessly off its armored hide, others caught, and the stench of scorched scales filled the air.
Screams rose behind her. Bodies moved like a tide, breaking apart, tripping, scrambling into the woods. A few didn’t move at all. Red appeared, grabbing the old wolf’s arm, dragging her back, both of them corralling the stragglers away from the blaze, toward safety, if there was such a thing left.
Herpo screeched, slamming her coils into the earth. Flame clung to her underside, blistering skin in sizzling sheets. She thrashed to douse it.
Regina’s fireball died on her fingertips as the Basilisk’s head reared high.
The Bakerman stood frozen. Then the tail cracked like a whip. It struck him around the middle, lifted him off the ground. Regina’s breath caught in her throat.
The dwarves—Leroy, Tom, and others whose names never made it past her walls—pelted the serpent with rocks. A few bounced off, one found soft tissue and lodged in its eye. The Basilisk opened her jaws. A wet hiss, and then the Bakerman vanished down her gullet.
“Run, you stupid dwarves!” Regina shouted, breaking into a sprint. Her breath came ragged, but she barreled toward Leroy, shoved him aside just as the beast lunged again. Its bulk slammed into a tree behind her, pulverizing it like dry bone. She pushed Herpo back, magic flaring at her fingertips, keeping the monster at bay, but it wasn’t Regina the monster wanted. The Basilisk paused, line of sight sliding past her shoulder.
Snow.
Regina didn’t need to turn to know. Her name echoed behind her, sharp with terror. Her hands shook. Her vision blurred. Magic seared beneath her skin like wildfire without oxygen. She had to end this, had to stop it before it found Snow.
Her knees hit the ground hard; she didn’t feel it. Dirt clung to her palms as she slammed them into the earth.
The soil drank what her body couldn’t hold... hers, someone else’s, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
She dug her fingers deep. Mire and gore clotted beneath her nails. Magic answered like a struck match. Power raced through her left hand, skittered up her arm, a sunburst imploded behind her sternum and tore down through her right. Her palm blistered with heat. Fingers bent in ways they shouldn’t, trembling against the storm inside her.
Then—
A scream. Hers. A war cry. A release. A magenta blaze erupted, brilliant, unnatural, hungry, and furious. It swallowed Herpo whole. Scales bubbled and peeled, flesh blackened, tendons split. The serpent shrieked, a sound that shredded the trees themselves.
She crumpled before she saw it fall.
A jagged rock stabbed into her side. Her breath hitched, then stopped altogether.
The blaze kept burning.
The monster stopped moving.
Ash choked the clearing. The stink of seared meat coated the inside of Regina's mouth.
And far beyond the trees, in the jagged slate mountains where silence festered, the Nether stirred, and breathed her in.
~:~:~
A/N: I'll either regret posting this late at night or I won't. As if life. FYI, at the last second, I cut off the scene that was right after this and moved it to Chapter 3. Don't hate me.
P.S. I haven't posted the update on ff.net yet. I'm honestly debating if I should.
Chapter 3
Summary:
My original 2013 summary: Regina groans, pushing herself off the ground. Tiny cuts on her palms sting, mud stains the cream night gown she wasn't very fond of anyway. Leaves and twigs embed in her hair. She's stuck, somewhere in the in between, without her Henry, without her everything. Grief and sorrow call all her attention, and she doesn't see the hooded man stalking her from the trees.
If you're joining for the rewrite? 2025 summary: The Curse is broken, and Regina Mills has been dragged back to the Enchanted Forest, a realm that remembers everything she tried to forget. Trapped with Snow, David, and the remnants of their kingdom, Regina must lead a fractured people through the heart of a haunted land. As old enemies stir and the land itself turns hostile, Regina must reckon with the person she used to be, the mother she longs to become again, and the terrifying possibility that she may not survive the journey home. But the forest isn't the only thing that sees her clearly, and sometimes, the way back isn't about magic. It's about the people who choose to walk beside you.
Notes:
Okay, so… you all have officially wrecked me (in the good way). The comments on this story? Unreal. Some of the sweetest, most motivating words I’ve ever gotten, and I mean that. I can’t believe you still care about The In Between after all this time. Honestly? It floors me. Like, knocks-the-breath-out-of-me floors me. Thank you for reading, for screaming/crying/feeling things with me, and for keeping these characters alive in your hearts. You’re the reason this chapter exists and why I even wanted to finish it in the first place. 💜
This is shaping up to be roughly a 20-chapter-ish fic (give or take, depending on the chaos of edits), so I hope you’re in for the ride, because I shan’t be abandoning you or this universe. Buckle in.
Chapter triggers: blood, cutting/self-harm (for a spell), depression
Chapter Text
David’s arms were sure beneath her, and still each step jostled something raw in her ribs. Regina kept her eyes closed. It was easier not to see the trees spinning overhead, easier to pretend she was floating instead of being carried like a broken thing.
The canopy thinned, and she felt the shift in light before she opened her eyes. Soft twilight brushed against her eyelids, and the scent of river water cut through pine and blood. The ground sloped downward into a meadow, cradled by stone and stream. When David set her down beside a fallen log, his hands were too gentle, like she might crack if he touched her wrong. She hated that.
He jogged off without a word, already calling orders, snapping branches, fashioning shelter from what little they had. Around her, survival instincts clicked into place like old gears grinding into motion. Snow bound wounds, Doc moved between the injured, Victor barked for supplies, and the dwarves hauled limbs for shelter. They worked like they’d done this a hundred times, forest-born souls who knew how to endure.
They didn’t need her, not right now, so she let exhaustion take her, like a tide drawing back from shore.
When she woke, the sky had turned violet, that liminal hour when dusk smudged the horizon line. A lean-to had been built over her, bark lashed to pine boughs with careful, practiced hands. It was solid, serviceable. It wasn't her work, but good enough. Cool, damp soil pressed against her hands. She let her fingers sink into it, felt the vibration beneath the surface, slow, unwavering, familiar.
Magic.
Not the kind she had to call for or command. It found her on its own, seeping through her skin like steam through cracks. Heat threaded through the cuts on her arms, the pain in her wrist eased, and the bruises faded without ceremony. No bite of the Nether, no migraine behind her eyes, just calm.
Regina inhaled deeply, and for the first time in days, her lungs didn’t protest. Beside her, someone had folded her gown, a single snowbell resting on top. Her hair had been brushed, too, with the unnecessary care one might give a fragile keepsake.
She sat alone beneath the lean-to, not far, but not close to the other. Whoever built it had placed her just off-center from the rest of the camp. Just far enough to be polite, just close enough to pretend it wasn’t exile.
Smoke mingled with the aroma of roasting root vegetables, drifting in the air. Parsnip, maybe. Or turnip. Mushrooms, too, if she wasn’t mistaken, had an earthy smell, crisping at the edges. Her stomach gave a sharp twist, loud enough to make her scowl into the dark, like a mutinous child demanding attention.
She pushed herself to her feet, careful not to groan. Her legs ached, her bones throbbed, and her magic, still simmering somewhere deep inside, buzzed like a half-lit fuse. She hadn’t bothered to put her boots back on. Normally, that would’ve been unthinkable; Regina Mills did not walk barefoot through forests like some woodland stray. But here, now, the allure of the earth was too rich to resist. The flow of essence through the soles of her feet was warm and anchoring, delicious in its familiarity. Let the forest mark her; she welcomed the contact.
Voices carried from the main clearing, low, tired, and threaded with the weight of too much responsibility. Snow, David, Red. A few of the dwarves. And Blue perched at the edge of the fire like a gargoyle carved from salt and judgment. Their words blurred into half-heard phrases: White Orchard… danger… can’t risk another attack.
Regina didn’t wait for an invitation. She never had.
“The castle’s safe,” she said, voice flat, worn. She stepped into the ring of firelight and lowered herself onto a stump beside Snow. The bark dug into her palms as she balanced herself. Her knees protested, but she maintained her upright posture. If she had to look broken, she’d do it with dignity.
Snow didn’t argue. She didn’t ask questions, didn’t give sympathy. She just reached forward, nudged a few roasted parsnips off a flat stone, and handed Regina a grapevine leaf lined with charred rabbit meat and scorched greens. Nothing fancy, or soft, but it smelled like food. Real food. Regina's mouth watered.
She took it, fingers closing around the makeshift plate, and she tore a strip of meat with her teeth before Blue’s voice cut through the murmur like a blade drawn in the dark.
“And how exactly do you know that?”
Regina didn’t look at her. She just kept chewing, swallowing, and then licked the grease from her fingers.
“Because that’s how I left it,” she said, calmly. And because no one else had the power to unmake what she’d carved into that stone.
“A lot’s changed in thirty years, your majesty,” Blue replied, tone clipped. “Wards fade. Especially ones tied to a curse.”
Regina took her time tearing the rabbit meat with her teeth, wiped her fingers on the hem of her sleeve, and only then spoke, not to Blue, not really, just to the fire.
“That’s why I didn’t use wards,” she said flatly. “I’m not in the habit of leaving keys under the mat.”
From the corner of her eye, she caught Snow raising a brow. “Then what did you use?”
Regina swallowed. The meat scraped her throat like dry tinder. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, let the silence sit a beat longer than necessary, then finally lifted her gaze.
“Blood magic.”
Blue didn’t flinch, but something in her posture turned brittle. Her expression held that false, benevolent mask, but Regina watched the edges. Always the edges. Her eyes were too glassy. Her skin was too smooth, like candle wax just beginning to melt, hiding something rancid at the core.
Regina wasn’t the only one who felt the current in the air; it resonated beneath the soil like thunder holding its breath. Blue felt it too; Regina would bet her life on it. She could see it in the way the fae’s nostrils flared ever so slightly, how her fingers curled inward, twitching like they were aching to press into the dirt and drink.
Energy called to Blue like blood called to wolves.
Before, Regina had watched her work on the man with the crushed arm, all glowing chants and clean hands, a performance in silver light. But beneath it, Regina had felt the shift. The magic twisted, silver slipping toward something darker, blight reaching under the polish. The man had survived, but he hadn’t stopped trembling.
She took one last bite and chewed methodically, not for the flavor, but for focus. Her eyes didn’t leave Blue. The fae wasn’t dangerous now. Not with her power spent and her bones still hollow. But vipers didn’t stay harmless forever, and Regina knew how to spot the ones that bit with honey on their tongues. Blue was a threat lying in wait.
Somewhere to Regina's left, someone cleared their throat, a sharp interruption split through the crackle of sapwood and the subtle tension bristling at the fire’s edge.
“We’ll head out at first light,” David said, his voice rising just enough to carry across the camp. He crouched beside the fire pit, jabbing a stick into the glowing coals until sparks leapt up and spiraled like fireflies into the dark. “We’re on the edge of Sherwood. Four, maybe five days from White Orchard on foot. Granny, how many are too injured to walk?”
There was a pause, then came the grounded rasp of a whetstone.
“Just over a dozen,” Granny replied. Her tone didn’t waver, and her hands never broke rhythm as she dragged each bolt along the stone. “The faeries patched the worst of it. Leroy and the boys rigged stretchers. We’ll get them home. You can be sure of that.”
Home. The word hit heavier than expected, and Regina blinked against the sting behind her eyes. For a moment, the fire and the talking and the damp ache in her limbs all slipped away.
She pictured a clearing tucked between the orchard wall and the bend in the brook, that secret glade she never spoke about. Rich soil, sunlight caught in tall grass; a place meant for something to grow. Something good. She imagined pressing her palms into that dirt, fingers stained black with it. One apple tree for every soul they’d buried. Henry would have approved.
“Then it’s settled,” David said, his voice grounding Regina's attention. “Rest, and then we move at first light.”
“What happens when we get there?” Blue’s voice cracked across the camp like a whip: silk-wrapped but barbed.
Regina’s spine straightened before she could stop herself. Her gaze slid across the fire. The fae sat too still, too composed, but wasn't looking at her, never at her. Blue’s eyes fixed on Snow and David, as if Regina were smoke, something ephemeral and inconvenient between them. David’s stick jabbed at the coals again. Sparks hissed.
“Regina will help secure the castle,” he said, too fast, like a man trying to outrun his own words. “We’ll take stock of what’s left. We’ll—”
“No.”
That single word from Blue wasn't raised or shouted, but it was sharp. Her leer turned, then, just slightly, and Regina felt it in her marrow. The shift in temperature.
“What will happen to her?”
A few heads turned. Leroy’s whetstone scraped to a stop. Red glanced between them, jaw tight. Even the fire seemed to hesitate, its crackle dulled under the weight of the question. Regina felt the eyes, not all, but enough, sliding her way like they were measuring, waiting.
Blue didn’t blink. She didn’t need to raise her voice. That was the danger of her... the stillness, the patience, the resolute certainty that justice, when delayed, only grew hungrier.
“The Evil Queen has crimes to answer for,” Blue said. “Were she any other soul, judgment would have fallen swiftly. Cleanly. Without reprieve.”
She let the silence stretch, her mouth curving into something that was not quite a smile. “But we have been… patient.”
Snow’s voice broke the stillness. “I know what she’s done. I’ve lived it. Lost to it.” Her gaze flicked to Regina, and for a heartbeat, the history between them lay bare: curses, graves, and shattered kingdoms. “But this time… she stood in front of us. She took the strike meant for me, for all of us. That was her choice. No curse. No bargain. Just her.”
David’s voice came steadier, carrying the weight of someone who’d seen battlefields. “She’s had a lifetime of running from the wreckage she’s made. But today, she didn’t run. She fought. Saved lives she had no reason to save. If that doesn’t count for something… then nothing does.”
Blue’s gaze swept over them, then settled last on Regina. Not with hatred, that would have been easier, but with the unblinking appraisal of a force of nature deciding whether the thing before it was worth sparing.
Her words came low and final. “The debt remains. The scales will balance… in time. But tonight, the blade stays.”
The air thinned, the night sharpening in Regina’s lungs. Even the fire seemed to hesitate, its crackle fading into a low, sullen hiss. Cold threaded through the clearing, curling around ankles and wrists, carrying the faint metallic tang of stormwater.
Then Blue turned and vanished into the trees.
What Snow and David had said hung heavier than the cold. Not absolution, never that, but something rarer. A stake driven into the ground between her past and her present, fragile and exposed. She knew how easily it could be pulled up, how quickly the tide could wash it away.
Regina stared into the flames as if they held answers, as if they might burn clean what couldn’t be forgiven. The fire cracked and spat, a burst of sap catching and snapping sparks into the air. Smoke drifted sweet and sharp, pine and resin wafting through her nose. Her muscles should’ve ached after everything, but the ground beneath her feet pulsed with warmth. Magic rose through her toes, seeped into her bones. The land recognized her, even if its people didn’t. It greeted her like a wayward daughter finally home.
She drew her knees in and wrapped her arms loosely around them, fingers laced. The fire reached out in pulses, warming cold places inside her she hadn’t realized were still frozen.
“Are you okay?” The question called her back, gently, carefully. Snow’s voice.
Regina turned her head slowly. Most of the others had retired for the night, lean-tos scattered across the clearing like debris after a storm. Bodies shifted beneath blankets and cloaks. Lumenbeetles pulsed faint green in the tall grass. An owl called once from the trees. Something rustled low in the underbrush. The forest didn’t sleep. Neither did she.
Snow sat beside her, knees drawn up, gaze pinned to the fire. Snow spoke again, softer now. “You thinking about Henry?”
The name landed like a stone dropped in still water. Regina didn’t answer right away. Her eyes caught the emberlight glinting off Snow’s lashes, tears unshed.
Regina inhaled. The smoke bit at her lungs, enough to anchor her. Henry was never far from her thoughts, never gone from the landscape of her mind, but now he shared that space with something older, wilder.
Magic moved through her like roots unfurling beneath soil, like veins in stone drinking the slow seep of water. It threaded through the cracks in her bones, weaving them in the same way that ivy reclaims a fallen wall. From the earth’s deep hum to the whisper of leaves, from the pulse of hidden springs to the slow, patient heartbeat of the creatures watching from the dark, it all rose to meet her.
She had nearly forgotten what true power was. Not fury, not control, not fire fed by pain. This was the fire that kept the forest warm in winter, the tide that carried seeds to new ground, the wind that bent the trees without breaking them.
She didn’t have to wrench it from the air, or bargain for it, or bleed for it. It was already hers. And for the first time in longer than she cared to admit, it came willingly, steady, sure, and without condition.
A tremor passed through her, dissolving into warmth that bloomed outward, and for a flicker of a moment, she felt…
“I can’t stop thinking about Emma,” Snow whispered beside her, voice catching on the words.
The moment snapped. Regina’s spine straightened. Her gaze didn’t waver from the fire, but her focus shifted. She answered before she could think too hard about it.
“She’s with Henry.” A small shake of her head. “She’ll be okay.”
The silence swelled around them like a house with all the doors shut and none of the windows cracked. Grief lived there, pressed into every corner.
“We’ll be okay too,” Snow said after a moment. But her voice… it was brittle, hope whispered because if you said it too loudly, it might shatter.
Regina didn’t argue. She reached for a dry branch and fed it to the flames. Sparks leapt skyward, startled birds cast in gold and ember. The firelight painted her hands in molten hues, but the ache in her chest stayed cold.
“I’ll always be thinking about Henry. Just like you’ll always be thinking about Emma.”
The flames shifted, settling into themselves with a low groan.
“But they’ll be all right,” she added after a beat. “And so will we.”
A spark snapped in the dirt near her foot, turning into ash. Snow didn’t answer.
Regina turned her head, studying the other woman in profile. She saw the hesitation, like the words inside her were too raw to speak. The fire caught on Snow's cheekbones, throwing warm gold across tired skin. Her jaw twitched once, then again.
“We lost people today,” Snow said finally, and her voice came out frayed. “Jacob died.”
Regina's mind immediately went to flour-dusted hands and warm pastry boxes. Powdered sugar on Henry’s nose. Sticky fingers wrapped around still-warm croissants. The jingle of the bell above the bakery door. Almond, cardamom, pistachio. Smiles traded without words.
She’d made Jacob a baker in the curse, given him that peace, that sweetness. One of her few deliberate mercies, not for him, but for herself. A selfish indulgence she’d never allowed herself to regret. Until Emma was the one Henry chose to take him to the bakery.
“You almost died,” Snow said, softer now. “How can you be so sure we’ll make it?”
Magenta flame bloomed across Regina’s palm, opening like a flower, heat coiling up her arm and into her chest. The truth pressed against her tongue: I can’t be sure. I just can’t afford not to be.
“Because I have to be,” she said instead, the same voice she’d used when she kissed Henry goodbye at the town line. A lesson from her mother: If you must lie, lie with grace. Make them believe it’s truth.
She glanced at the trees, at the quiet pull in the earth beneath her bones, and kept the rest behind her teeth. “I’m getting stronger,” she said. “Whatever’s poisoning the land… it doesn’t reach this far. Not yet.”
She still dared not name him. The Nether might be absent, but he would not stay gone for long.
Snow looked like she wanted to press further, but the fight had drained from her shoulders. Fatigue dulled the sharpness in her features. Regina offered a promise instead: “Tomorrow. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.”
Snow nodded once, then stood. “I’ll see you then,” she murmured, and her hand came to rest lightly on Regina’s shoulder for just a moment. The fire cracked behind her, and the woods sighed as Snow turned in for the night.
Eventually, the fire turned to coals. Lean-tos glittered with the lull of sleep, and starlight pooled in the hollows between bodies and branches. And still, Regina lingered. She sat long after the others had disappeared into dreams, her hands cupped near the embers, palms kissed with residual heat. Orange light licked at her fingers, but her gaze drifted upward, past the canopy, to the fractured stars. So many promises made under that sky. To Snow. To Henry. To herself. Promises she already knew she couldn't keep. Not all of them. Not the ones that mattered most.
And yet… the stars hadn’t shifted. The forest still breathed. The world, impossibly, kept turning. She pulled the warmth deeper into her chest and let herself pretend, just for a moment, that this, this return to something ancient and rooted, was what Henry would’ve wanted. That maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t failing yet.
She lay back eventually beneath her lean-to and folded her hands across herself like a woman laid to rest. The soil was cool beneath her, soft in places, gritty in others, and she let the texture anchor her. Magic twined around her, subtle and unhurried, less a force than a presence now. Not loud, not demanding, it was just there. She let it hum against her skin and seep into the remaining bruises.
For a moment, she let herself believe she might sleep. The stars blinked overhead, and then the dark began to move.
Regina’s dreams seeped in like smoke beneath a locked door, creeping and impossible to keep out once they slipped inside. A sheen layer of clamminess clung to her skin. Her legs twitched beneath the blanket. She shifted and twisted, caught in that slurred space where memory bled into dream.
It began like it always did: the shape of something wrong just outside her vision. The sting of the void behind her eyes. The pressure of a weight she couldn’t name. Then the sounds came, muffled like underwater echoes. Her own voice caught in her throat. The beat of hooves. The snap of bone.
Then, shapes, not formed or full. Shadows pretending to be people. The smell of fire, blood, and mildew on old stone. The dreams never asked permission. They just came. The glint of teeth hit like a blade to the chest. That was where it always turned. That was the hinge. One moment she was chasing whispers, the next she was locked in a battle already lost. A mouth split into a smile far too wide, too sharp, too sure. Her legs wouldn’t move. Her magic fizzled in her palms. She could hear the sound of her own breathing, ragged and panicked, over the hiss of something behind her. Somewhere, everywhere, someone screamed.
The Nether followed next. A faceless weight, dragging itself around her wrists, yanking her toward some unseen pit. No eyes, no mouth, just need. It whispered in thoughts that weren’t words, promises made of emptiness, and she could never tell if it was trying to swallow her whole or make her part of it. And always, somewhere nearby, stood Henry. He was frozen in place. Then Pan, grinning and plucking the light out of Henry’s chest like petals off a flower. The boy crumpled. His body hit the dirt.
Regina screamed.
And her magic failed her again. She was paralyzed in place, watching it all happen. Watching everything she’d failed to protect get devoured, piece by piece, by all the horrors she’d already fought and all the ones she hadn’t.
Daniel next. The blood on his chest was always fresh. The hay in the stables always smelled like crushed lavender. And her mother, always her mother, stood behind him, hands clean, smile cruel, pride gleaming in her eyes like a knife still wet from the kill.
Regina twisted under her blanket, chest locked tight as a snare. She begged her body to move, to wake, to do something. And when the dream finally snapped, she was already sitting upright, gasping. The forest was still. Moonlight spilled through the branches, soft and scattered. Her lungs strained from how tightly she’d folded in on herself. Her nails had left crescent marks in her forearms.
The lean-to felt suffocating.
She crawled out on all fours, her hands sinking into the soil, and the thrum of power rose up to meet her and rooted itself deep in her bones. The connection was immediate, like being seen by something ancient and unafraid. Magic recognized her, claimed her. For a moment, it was almost enough to banish the remnants of the nightmare still clawing at her throat. Almost. But Henry’s still body was there when she blinked. Pan’s laughter echoed behind her eyes.
A cold tremor ran through her limbs. The night pressed too close, air thick and muffled. Her pulse thudded in her ears, drowning out the world until all that remained was the rasp of her own breathing.
She staggered forward, and then—she ran.
The forest roared past in a blur of green and midnight. Branches lashed against her sleeves with dry snaps, leaves hissing as they tore free. Twigs scored her shins in sharp, stinging lines. Her breath ripped out in ragged bursts, loud in her own ears over the pounding drum of her feet on the soil. She wasn’t running toward anywhere, only away, away from Pan, from Herpo, from the hollow snap of Henry’s magic going dark. Away from the Nether. Away from her mother’s voice, cold and absolute, pulsing in her veins.
A root caught her toe. The world pitched sideways.
She slammed down hard, knees grinding into bark-splintered earth, palms stung by gravel. The impact jarred her teeth, knocked the breath clean from her chest. She stayed there, facedown in the damp reek of moss and rot, her pulse thundering against the ground. Breath came shallow, uneven. Regina pressed her cheek to the earth and listened, trying to remember how to be whole.
The dream still clung to her skin like smoke, seeping into every fracture. Henry’s lifeless body. Pan’s laughter. Daniel’s second death. Her mother’s voice, sweet as poison. It never stopped. None of it stopped. She had buried too many people, lost love, lost kingdoms, lost herself. And still, somehow, these people looked to her, counted on her, trusted her to be something more than what she'd been. To protect them, to lead.
Her ribs ached, her eyes stung. So she stayed there, let the dirt cradle her spine and the moss cool her cheek. Let her heartbeat thud against the soil like a confession. Out here, there were no promises to keep. No expectations to shoulder. No eyes were watching to see if the queen would break. Just the hush of the forest, dispassionate and wild, and the gutted sound of a woman remembering everything she’d survived.
She had shattered unseen for years, piece by piece, and now, finally, she let herself break down. Regina turned onto her back, sucking in gulps of air. Her hair fanned out in the dirt, tangled with leaf litter and dew. Twigs bit into her scalp. Gravel pressed into her spine. She didn’t care. She barely noticed.
Cora’s voice rose like a ghost from the marrow of her memory. Look what you’ve done to yourself. Regina inhaled sharply. You’re a disappointment. You should be ashamed. You’re a queen, act like one.
The words didn’t surprise her. They never really left, but something else came too, a whisper.
Breathe. Just breathe.
So she did. Air scraped into her lungs in shallow drags. She didn’t count the minutes, didn’t register the cold or the faint rustle of night creatures moving through the brush. She dug her fingers into the earth, and tendrils twined up around her knuckles, responding to her need without question, without judgment. The warmth of it was subtle, but real, comforting, almost. A wordless yes from the land itself.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, carving lines through blood and dirt. She let them fall. No one could see her out here. Not as she was. Not as she truly was. Regina stitched a dome above herself without opening her eyes. Light shimmered faintly between the trees, pushing back the dark. The barrier dulled the sounds of the forest and cocooned her in a breathless sort of sanctuary.
She thought back to the lonely nights, to dreams where hearts crumbled to dust in her mother’s hands, to the echo of stolen lives and the sick rhythm of dozens of nameless tokens thudding inside a vault. Each memory yanked her awake in the dark. The mansion had always been too big, too quiet, too empty. Until Henry.
Everything had shifted the moment she held him, this tiny, wriggling thing with milk-soft skin and ten perfect fingers. His body had fit into the crook of her arm like it had always belonged there. She hadn’t known then what he would become to her: her tether, her gravity, the only thing that had ever made her want to be more. She hadn’t been ready. And she had never been enough.
The thought gutted her more than she’d ever admit. She didn’t know what she wanted now, peace, maybe, or the kind of scream that shattered worlds. A release. Anything to keep from drowning in the pressure boiling inside her.
For a breath, she considered the old, cruel answer: rip her own heart free, smother the pain before it swallowed her whole. But that would only turn her into something less, something fractured.
This needed something else. Something older. Wilder.
She moved to the center of her shield, where moonlight pooled brightest and the ground dipped as if the earth itself had exhaled. The trees loomed at the edge of the barrier, their shadows barred from entry. The air inside was damp with moss and river mist. She let the hush press in, let her magic uncoil, aching beneath her skin. The ground felt ready to hold her, the air ready to listen.
This spell wasn’t one she’d found in a book. She’d built it from memory and instinct, from half-remembered lessons whispered by her mother, and fragments of rituals older than any kingdom she had ruled. With the heel of her foot, she carved a careful circle into the soil. It was small, precise, unbroken. Her voice moved with her, low and coaxing, a whisper to the land, the river, the watching sky. The ground pulsed faintly once beneath her palm.
She pressed her palm to the earth. The soil was cold, damp with river mist, and clung to her skin as if reluctant to let go. Something shifted, not language, not thought, but recognition. It felt her, and it opened. Her magic, thin and threadbare from days without sleep, wove into the roots and stones like breath poured into lungs that hadn’t drawn air in years. The ground responded in kind, as if testing whether she truly meant to pay the price she was about to offer.
At the river’s edge, just beyond the shimmer of the dome, the surface darkened. A ripple pushed outward. From its depths rose a crystal smoothed and sharpened by centuries of current, moonlight caught in stone, slick with silt and time. It hovered briefly, suspended above the water, before gliding into her outstretched hand as though it had always belonged there.
It pulsed once against her skin. Not in welcome, in hunger. The spell was ready, and it needed blood.
Not a gesture. Not a pinprick offered like an afterthought. This kind of spell, the kind that broke the barrier between realms, that wrought sight from absence, demanded sacrifice. It didn’t care for justification. It didn’t honor grief. It asked only one thing: What will you give me?
Regina drew the crystal across her palm in a single sure stroke, the cut blooming red as blood streamed into her hand and down her wrist.
The pain consumed her. Muscles locked, jaw clenched, breath punched from her chest, but she didn’t cry out.
She couldn’t. The spell demanded voicelessness now. Energy surged, feral and fraying at the borders. She staggered as the blood hit the dirt, and the earth shuddered beneath her feet. She stumbled back into the circle and dropped the crystal onto the blood-soaked soil. It hissed, not audibly but through her bones. The stone glowed, then cracked once down the center. Light poured from it like liquid glass, swirling up through the circle until the air itself bent inward. Her pulse faltered, her vision blurred.
The spell took hold, and the world began to change. The glow beneath her feet grew steadier, like moonlight through fog. Her magic latched onto the stone, the wound, the shape of the air itself.
One word.
She spoke it.
The world rippled.
And then, he was there—Henry—not illusion, not dream, a shimmer through the veil. A one-way mirror drawn thin between realms. He stood on a city street she didn’t recognize, hands buried in the pockets of a coat too light for the weather. He seemed happy.
She couldn’t hear the wind that ruffled his hair, couldn’t hear the scuff of his shoes against the pavement. The street was silent but for the echo of her own breath. Even his laughter, when it came, was soundless, only the movement of his mouth and the faint crinkle at the corners of his eyes. The absence rang louder than any noise could. A backpack slung over one shoulder. Earbuds trailing from his collar. His head tilted toward someone out of view, that same open, expectant angle she remembered from a year ago. His mouth curved into a smile… small, natural, unguarded.
It unmade her. He didn’t see her, of course, he didn’t. He wasn’t meant to; that had been part of the spell’s design. He would live free of her shadow. But watching him now, so alive, so at ease, was the same as it had been in those months after the first curse shattered, when she’d had to stand by and watch him live a life that no longer needed her. She could still see it: Henry on Main Street with Emma, ice cream dripping down his wrist, head tilted toward her in that same way, his laughter bright and easy in a way it never was with Regina anymore. Even before Pan stole him away, she’d felt him slipping from her, day by day. Always close enough to see him, never close enough to reach him.
She didn’t know what she’d expected. Comfort, maybe. Closure. But all she felt was the cold.
Then Henry turned the corner, the faint shape of his smile vanishing with him, and the image began to stutter. The shimmer tugged tight, then vanished like breath in winter.
Her hand fell to her side. Overhead, the moonlit dome shivered. Threads of light fractured and drifted away like ash on the wind, the last of her focus bleeding out with her magic. The spell circle dimmed to nothing. The crystal dulled to gray, cracked through the center like something pried open too far.
Regina sank to her knees, her palm still bleeding, breath breaking into shivers she couldn’t stop. Blood soaked the cuff of her sleeve, warm against the night air, but she barely noticed. Her vision swam; the ground pitched once beneath her, as if the earth itself had pulled away. Every muscle felt wrung out. Her heartbeat faltered in uneven bursts, the echo of magic still burning in her bones like aftershocks.
She had seen Henry alive, safe, smiling, and now she had nothing left. The forest held its silence, and her magic, strained to the breaking point, was a well tapped dry. The clearing felt hollow in its stillness, and for a moment, she wondered if she had hollowed with it.
A twig snapped.
Her head turned toward the sound before she even realized she’d moved. Her fingers twitched, but magic didn’t rise.
A shape emerged between the trees, broad-shouldered with a bow slung high, quiver shifting against worn leather. Her gaze tracked the travel grime on his boots, the looseness of his stance, the way his hood stayed low enough to shadow his face. A stranger’s face.
Her knees protested as she shifted her weight, making herself taller, straighter. The blood on her hand was bright in the moonlight.
“I saw the light,” he said after a pause. His voice was low, cautious. “Didn’t realize I was walking into… this.”
Regina’s gaze slid over him once, from the bow to the boots, to how he hadn’t crossed the circle’s edge. Smart, wary, she thought, but said: “Then walk out.”
His eyes flicked to the blood dripping onto the soil. “You’re hurt.”
She flexed her fingers, smearing more red into the dirt. Let him look. “I’m aware.”
“And doing nothing about it?”
Her mouth curved without humor. “Do you make a habit of interrupting people in the middle of the night, or am I just especially lucky?” The word lucky tasted bitter. Of all the moments to be found, kneeling, bleeding, hollowed out, it had to be this one.
He didn’t flinch. “It’s not every night I find a stranger sitting in a magic circle, bleeding into the ground.”
Her shoulders drew back a fraction, posture straightening on instinct. “Then leave before you see something worse.”
He studied her like a man used to reading danger at a distance, weighing whether she was worth the risk. She caught the faintest shift in his expression. Not fear, not exactly, but respect, sharp and wary, the kind that passed between predators meeting on open ground.
Then he reached into his coat and drew out a folded strip of linen. “For the hand,” he said, offering it just far enough that she’d have to step forward to take it. “You don’t have to thank me.”
Her eyes lingered on the cloth, then on his hand. Scarred knuckles, the faint line of an old burn across his thumb, the deep bowstring callus along his fingers. Steady grip. No tremor. She took the bandage with a quick flick of her fingers, making sure their skin didn’t meet.
“Whatever this was,” he nodded toward the cracked crystal, “it looked… costly.”
Her pulse skipped. She kept her voice flat. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Most things aren’t,” he said easily, “but that doesn’t stop people from caring.”
Her grip on the linen tightened, the knot in her jaw clenched. Caring. She didn’t believe in it from strangers, not without a price. “You don’t know me.”
He tilted his head, studying her face under the shadow of her hair. “No. But I know dangerous when I see it. And I know beautiful.”
Her eyes narrowed, not flattered, but calculating. Compliment or distraction? “And I know a man who’s outstayed his welcome.”
That earned the ghost of a smile before he stepped back into the treeline. “Try not to waste the bandage.”
He was gone as quickly as he’d appeared, footsteps swallowed by the dark.
Regina stayed where she was, the bandage warm in her palm, the scent of leather and forest still clinging in the air. She hadn’t asked for help, hadn’t wanted an audience, and yet… he’d stood there anyway, watching her like he’d understood something no one should.
She wound the cloth around her hand with quick, precise motions, rose, and stepped out of the circle. The cracked crystal lay in the dirt behind her, catching no light now. She didn’t look back.
A/N: It's a long one. What did you think? Any guess on what happens next?
Chapter 4
Summary:
My original 2013 summary: Regina groans, pushing herself off the ground. Tiny cuts on her palms sting, mud stains the cream night gown she wasn't very fond of anyway. Leaves and twigs embed in her hair. She's stuck, somewhere in the in between, without her Henry, without her everything. Grief and sorrow call all her attention, and she doesn't see the hooded man stalking her from the trees.
If you're joining for the rewrite? 2025 summary: The Curse is broken, and Regina Mills has been dragged back to the Enchanted Forest, a realm that remembers everything she tried to forget. Trapped with Snow, David, and the remnants of their kingdom, Regina must lead a fractured people through the heart of a haunted land. As old enemies stir and the land itself turns hostile, Regina must reckon with the person she used to be, the mother she longs to become again, and the terrifying possibility that she may not survive the journey home. But the forest isn't the only thing that sees her clearly, and sometimes, the way back isn't about magic. It's about the people who choose to walk beside you.
Notes:
Thank you for sticking with me. This one was a beast to wrangle. I wanted this chapter to feel like the ground shifting beneath everyone’s feet, where even victories against the [REDACTED} don’t feel clean or safe. As always, thank you for reading and letting me explore this darker, slower-burn corner of the Enchanted Forest. Your thoughts and comments help me keep shaping this world. Chapter 5 will shift the setting slightly, more Sherwood, more unease, and maybe a spark of hope amid the tension.
Chapter Text
Chapter 4
Red didn’t speak at once. She rarely did when the night still lingered, silence draped over her like another pelt she chose to wear. Across the low circle of dying coals, and through the early beams of morning, Regina watched her, the faint lift of her nose, the tilt of her head, always attuned, always measuring, as if the scrape of branch or shift of wind carried meaning meant only for her.
A crow called somewhere in the dwindling dark, rough and distant. Red’s head snapped toward it, too certain to belong to the human half of her. Then, just as quickly, her gaze slid back, wolf-clear, fixing on Regina. Her nostrils flared, and words followed with the inevitability of breath.
“You’re bleeding.”
Regina’s eyes dropped to her hand, the crease of her palm still streaked with red where the bandage had slipped. She curled her fingers into a fist at once, as if that could hide it. But Red didn’t look away; those wolf eyes stayed on her, patient, merciless.
“Cover it all you like,” Red said. “I still know it’s there.”
The words scraped against Regina’s spine. Red exhaled, and Regina thought of the years the wolf had stood beside Snow through kingdoms lost and curses cast. Somehow, against expectation, she herself had been folded into the Lucas pack in Storybrooke, close enough that Red still cared enough to speak, even if only to point out she was bleeding. But neither reached for the rest of it, and neither pressed at what the other left unsaid.
Then Red tilted her head. “You should see this.”
They moved quietly through brittle needles and lichen until Red stopped at a thicket of warped trees. She crouched, brushing her fingers against a deep impression in the soil. It wasn’t a pawprint, not a hoof either. The edges shimmered faintly, as if the earth itself resisted holding the shape.
“There are more,” Red said. “Southward. A trail.”
Regina knelt beside her, knees aching against the cold earth. She held her hand above the print, not touching, only feeling. The trace of magic clung there still, thin, stale, like smoke long since burned out, yet present enough to prickle her skin. A hollow pressure gathered in her chest.
“Not one of ours,” she murmured.
Red's voice was hard. “No."
Regina’s gut clenched, the hairs along her neck lifting in warning. Whatever had passed this way hadn’t gone far. She could feel it like breath pressed against the back of her skull, an absence that made the air heavier.
Red rose abruptly, head snapping toward the trees. Her nostrils flared, pulling in the air like a hound on a trail.
“What is it?” Regina asked, following her gaze into the dark tangle of pines, but saw nothing.
“Not that thing,” Red whispered. “Men. Oil on leather. Bowstrings. Smoke.”
Regina’s breath cooled. Snow stepped forward, rubbing sleep from her face, and David joined her, buckling his sword belt. Neither spoke, but the tension in their movements told Regina they sensed the shift as well. The air was different, not yet blighted, but charged, awake.
Snow opened her mouth, then a sharp twang split the stillness. An arrow thudded into the birch beside her, bark splintering.
Hands drifted to hilts, muscles coiled, Granny rose from where she’d crouched among the bedrolls, planting herself like a stone at the center, all grit and growl beneath her shawl. Regina reached outward, her magic seeped into the trees, cautious, careful. The forest answered as shadows peeled from bark and haze. Cloaked, masked, moving with the deadly quiet of something practiced, a dozen or so of Sherwood's scouts stepped from behind the trees.
“Warning numbers,” Red murmured.
“I know,” Regina said softly.
The scouts parted, opening the shroud for one man. No mask, no swagger, his cloak was the brown-green of crushed leaves. He surveyed their group swiftly until his eyes met hers. Then, he held.
“Well,” he said, voice easy but edged, “you lot don’t exactly scream ‘low profile,’ do you?”
Regina’s jaw gave the smallest twitch.
He cocked his head. “Didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Your Majesty.” His glance flicked toward the arrow.
“Message clear enough?”
Her breath caught, too slight to see. So he had known her last night. Daylight hadn’t changed him; he was all wind-ruffled hair, bramble-stained boots, and rugged, but something in him struck a chord she couldn’t place, a flicker of familiarity where there should have been none.
Snow’s voice broke in, calm and diplomatic. “Clear enough. We’re passing through. We’re not looking for trouble.”
"You crossed the creek. That was the boundary. You’re in Sherwood now. And Sherwood does not take kindly to trespass."
David lifted his chin. “We’ll move quietly. We mean no harm.”
The man’s brow arched. “You brought fifty armed souls and lit fires against blight. Trouble notices when you don’t knock.” His gaze flickered over the dark wood. “And something else has been shadowing these woods. It has already noticed your presence.”
Regina’s throat constricted. The prints.
Robin’s voice carried, certain: “Sherwood doesn’t forgive carelessness, and neither do the things that hunt in it. But you’re not on tribunal ground. We don’t detain people without cause. If you want passage, it must be asked, not taken.”
A rustle went through the cloaked figures at his back, subtle but unanimous. He let the silence stretch a breath longer, then spoke the words like a simple fact, no flourish at all: “I am Sherwood’s warden. Robin of Locksley.”
The introduction was given not to the crowd but to her. He gave her a nod, neither smug nor humble.
Snow spoke quickly. “We only want passage. We’ll avoid villages, keep quiet.”
“You can’t move quietly,” Robin said. “The Nether sticks to sound and fear. Both are dripping from your camp like rot.”
The word hung there—The Nether—raw and unsoftened. Regina’s pulse skipped. He’d said it aloud, without fear.
He turned just enough, the line of his stance deliberate, voice edged with certainty. “And your fire? Bright enough to mark from miles. That’s how we found you.”
The space between them tightened, and pride stiffened in her spine, even as truth scraped her raw. Magic always left residue, but she had told herself it was faint, buried beneath stronger scents. Now he’d stripped that lie bare. If his scouts could follow her, so could the Nether.
When Robin spoke again, his tone shifted, stripped of judgment, leveled to the group. But every measure of him remained turned to Regina.
“There’s a trail west of the Ashen Ford. Not well-worn, but not dead. We’ve been clearing blighted snares from it. If your people can hold formation, and if your magic is strong enough to keep the corruption from touching you, we’ll allow you passage. But only if you follow our route and obey our signals.”
There it was. Terms, plain and spare. They weren’t generous or cruel. It was as much a test as an offer.
Regina’s answer was steel. “My people will hold. I’ll keep the corruption off them.”
Robin’s brow arched, almost amused. “Directions aren’t always easy to follow.” He lifted two fingers. The scouts vanished back into the trees. Robin didn’t follow them. For a heartbeat too long, his focus pinned her, as if weighing more than her words, more than her answer. She held it, refusing to flinch.
The weight in Regina’s chest didn’t ease. If anything, it pressed heavier, like an argument stolen before it could begin. Around them, the camp shifted uneasily, boots scraping against earth, gear shifting, and cloaks tugged tighter.
And then a small, hesitant voice, “Madam—” the girl caught herself, fumbling. “Your Majesty?”
Regina blinked. A child stood a few feet away, one of Henry’s classmates, Mara or Marnie. Mara, yes. Her cloak was too thin for the cold, and she looked tired, though not afraid.
Majesty. The title still rang awkward in Regina's ears. She’d heard the start of another name once worn smooth by years of use: Madam Mayor. A reminder of the strange fracture in her life: queen in one world, mayor in another, belonging fully to neither.
Regina straightened. “What is it?”
“I… I think my sigil’s gone dull,” Mara said. The girl held out her palm. Sure enough, the inked line that should have glimmered with pale magenta looked faded. The tether was weakening, of course it was.
Regina exhaled slowly and stepped forward. “Hold still.” She pulled a small blade from her belt and drew it across her own thumb without flinching. A thin bead of blood welled there. She pressed it lightly to the girl’s palm, then traced a new line beside the old one, whispering Magenta light flared between the sigils, then settled into a steady glow before seeping into Mara's skin.
“There,” Regina murmured. “It’s not permanent, but it will hold for the day.”
The girl nodded, thanked her, and stepped back into the moving camp. Regina turned toward the rest of the group. There were dozens more who needed the same. She rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Each ward took a few drops of blood. It wasn’t a spell designed for elegance; it was meant to link, not beautify, to hold people together when the world unraveled around them.
The last sigil hissed shut, a faint shimmer sinking beneath a boy’s skin. He flinched, as they all did, and shuffled back into the column. Regina exhaled through her teeth, forcing her hand steady as she wiped blood from her thumb. The ground tilted faintly beneath her. She ignored it, and instead focused on the shimmering marks anchoring, one by one, as magenta threads pulled taut.
Snow noticed, of course she did. The way she looked at Regina caught for a moment, but she didn’t press. Their conversation from last night still hung between them, fragile as spun glass.
Across the clearing, Blue knelt beside two of the injured, her voice low and calm, words smoothed like oil over stone. Regina didn’t need to hear them to know. The shape of Blue’s hand on the man’s shoulder, the way the girl at his side flinched, she was planting seeds. Doubt disguised as benevolence. Are these wards really protection? Or bindings? Do you even know what you’ve let her carve into you?
Her fingers closed over the wound, pressing until the sting steadied her. And then Blue's steely eyes met hers, and the fae glided toward her.
“Fascinating,” Blue said, posture immaculate, hands folded like a prayer. A faint smile touched her mouth.
“You’re holding them all through yourself,” Blue said, as though admiring the artistry. “How very… selfless.”
Regina stiffened. “It isn’t selfless. It’s necessary.”
Blue tilted her head, porcelain-smooth, but her voice pointed. “Unnecessary suffering, perhaps. There are other ways. Stronger ways. A permanent binding, for instance. Their strength fed back into you, your wards feeding back into them. No fraying. No risk of collapse. A single, seamless weave.”
Regina’s stomach turned, though her face stayed stone. Blue wasn’t offering kindness; she was baiting a snare. Wrap poison in silver light, call it unity, and wait for someone desperate enough to take it. She kept her face unreadable and called out the truth. “Slavery, dressed in prettier words.”
“Unity,” Blue corrected softly. “Permanence. You wouldn’t need to bleed yourself dry, wouldn’t need to wonder if you can hold another day. They would never falter, because you would not allow it.”
Her voice dipped lower, intimate, coaxing. “You’ve lived as queen, as mother. Why not as anchor? You’ve always known they can’t survive without you. Why not admit it?”
Heat flared in Regina’s chest. She wanted to spit, to summon fire, to burn the smirk from Blue’s face. Instead, she drew herself taller, every syllable honed to a blade.
“I would sooner burn the whole forest to ash than make them mine that way.”
The faintest flicker passed over Blue’s expression, disappointment, maybe, or triumph at having provoked the reaction she wanted. She smoothed her hands together like a schoolmarm, voice returning to its polished lilt.
“As you wish,” she said. “But I wonder how long your body will last, bound to all these souls and bleeding for every one of them.” Then she turned, skirts whispering against the damp grass, and drifted back into the shadows without waiting for reply.
Regina exhaled once, through her nose, refusing to give Blue the satisfaction of a glare. It was only then she realized she wasn’t alone. A figure stood at the treeline, half-shadowed, hood pushed back just enough that the morning light caught the stubble on his jaw.
“She's a prickly one, isn’t she?” Robin’s voice came low, edged with dry amusement. Then, quieter, almost an afterthought: “But she’s right. You’ll hollow yourself.”
He waited for her at the edge of the trail, hood pushed back just enough that sunbeams caught on the stubble of his jaw. He hadn’t drawn closer, but his eyes hadn’t left her since he spoke, always weighing, always watching.
“Your concern is noted,” she said, voice flat. “Unnecessary, but noted.”
“It isn’t concern,” he replied, and that almost disarmed her, almost. “It’s fact. My people don’t use tether-sigils because they drain the caster dry. We root them through the forest. Stronger when shared. Harder to break.”
Her laugh came without humor. “Sherwood’s tricks won’t keep my people alive.”
“Maybe not,” he allowed. “But neither will pride, if it kills you first.”
Her jaw locked. He didn’t press further. He only gave the faintest tilt of his head, not deference, not challenge, just an acknowledgment that he’d spoken, and left it there like a stone in her path. Then he turned and left her staring after him, teeth gritted against the truth she refused to admit. Pride told her to dismiss him, told her she could carry this burden, that she always had. But deep in her marrow, the forest thrummed, steady and ancient, as if it knew better.
The march through Sherwood began in silence.
The trail Robin had named threaded westward through dense stands of oak and ash, overgrown but strangely navigable, as if the forest itself had decided it was a path. The trees leaned with purpose, roots bending like warning fingers. Vapor crawled low to their ankles, carrying hushed voices Regina couldn’t quite catch.
Robin and his scouts appeared only in glimpses. A shape in the branches, a flick of two fingers, the faint gleam of steel. Their signals were precise, but half the column missed them, shuffling late, out of step. David tried to bark order back into the line, but nerves ran high. Too many glances cut sideways, at Sherwood, at Regina, at the shadows that didn’t belong.
Red padded near the front, nostrils flaring at every shift of wind. She fell back once, eyes narrowing. “It clings to us,” she murmured low enough only Regina caught it. “The Nether. Faint, but there.”
Regina’s skin prickled. Later, when the others’ attention drifted, she pressed her palm to the soil again. Power stirred reluctantly, sluggish, like the ground didn’t trust her. Sherwood’s magic worked, but with friction, as if testing her before it yielded. She withdrew, unsettled.
That was when Robin dropped from the canopy without warning, cloak brushing branches, his stride sure as if the forest had set him down at her side.
“You sense it,” he said quietly, not a question.
Regina kept her eyes on the pale drift ahead. “The air’s gone wrong.”
His stare flicked to her hand, still faintly stained with blood. “And yet the forest leans toward you. I saw it when you touched the ground.”
Her mouth curved, humorless. “Would you prefer it spit me out?”
He didn’t answer at once. His eyes swept the trees, but when he finally spoke, his voice was measured, as if weighing each word. “Sherwood doesn’t give freely. Not to me. Not to anyone. And yet…” His glance cut back to her, searching. “It opened.”
Regina let the corner of her lip tilt upward, though her pulse still beat tight in her throat. “Perhaps it knows better than you.”
For a moment, something unreadable flickered in his expression, but before either could speak again, the path itself seemed to darken. A sour rot permeated the wind, wet stone clinging like mildew in the lungs. The sigils on weaker townsfolk flickered, their glow faltering.
The forest went quiet. The fog heaved, and shapes lurched through.
Wolves, or what had once been wolves, their hides bulged and tore with pale fungal growths, fruiting bodies splitting through fur and flesh. Eyes clouded white, muzzles foamed with rot. When they moved, it was with jerks, as if a master puppeteer controlled what disease had consumed. Sherwood’s blight.
Panic ripped the column wide. Villagers stumbled, crying out, some clutching their wards, others bolting into the line ahead. A woman screamed a child’s name; a man dropped his pack and shoved past, tripping into the mud.
Robin’s scouts moved as one, arrows hissing across the clearing, each shot clean and lethal.
“Hold the line!” Snow’s voice carried, blade flashing as she cut down a wolf that broke too close.
“Shields! Shields up!” David bellowed, his sword cleaving through snapping jaws. He planted himself in the breach, shouting orders that scattered almost as soon as they were given. The dwarves barked curses, Leroy’s axe biting deep, others scrambling to form a shield wall.
Red lunged, half-shifted, teeth sinking into a beast’s throat. Spores burst under her bite, the stench of carrion and human bone making her gag even as she tore it down. Granny’s bolt slammed another to the dirt, but still it writhed, legs clawing, until a scout dropped flame and burned it to stillness. She swung her crossbow like a cudgel into a lunging jaw with a crack of splintering bone.
“Left flank!” Robin’s command cut through the noise, not shouted but precise, and the scouts turned in perfect unison. Another volley of arrows hissed, pinning three wolves before they reached the line. “Again. Burn them clean.” His hand flicked in signal, and fire arrows struck, igniting rot into choking smoke.
Regina anchored the wards. Magenta flared through the tether, pulsing outward. She felt it steady them, the panicked breathing, the trembling hands, the half-broken lines, but the magic’s weight nearly drove her to her knees. Her vision blurred, sweat needling down her temple. Still, she held.
Then one wolf broke the line. It barreled through, scattering two villagers. Its fungal maw clamped down on a cloak, until an oil-soaked arrow struck. Robin’s signal again. Flame roared across its hide, fungus bursting wetly until the beast collapsed, thrashing. He didn’t look at her when he gave the command, but the precision of it told her he’d been waiting for the breach.
And then worse. One wolf’s muzzle tore open, a rasping sound spilling out that almost shaped itself into words. The man beside Regina shrieked, clawing at the threads of her magic on his arm. “It knows me—it’s calling me!” His terror spread like wildfire through the line.
The wards frayed; threads snapped.
Regina lunged. She seized his arm, carved her thumb open again, and slammed a new line of blood into his flesh. Magenta blazed, consuming the old sigil and etching a new one. The man gasped, body shuddering as the ward reattached. But the image—Regina’s hand bloody, the man writhing—seared into the watching crowd.
The reaction was immediate. A woman cried out and stumbled back, dragging her child with her. Another man clutched his own sigil, scrubbing at it as if he could wipe it clean. Frantic murmurs rippled: What is she doing? It burns, did you see? She marked him like a beast. Someone dropped their weapon with a clatter; someone else shoved away from the line, trampling mud.
Regina’s chest heaved. She wanted to shout, I saved him! but no voice would carry through the panic.
Then Blue’s voice bellowed, silk-wrapped but venomous, slicing through the chaos like a bell. “See how she binds you!”
The words struck harder than claws. The fear that had scattered now swung inward like a honing beacon. The crowd froze, their terror no longer wild but focused, funneled onto Regina. They stared, horrified, as if they couldn’t decide which threat was worse: the blight hollowing flesh, or the Evil Queen burning her mark into it.
Finally, with fire and fang and magenta light, the blight broke. The creatures collapsed into smoldering husks, spores dispersed like smoke. Scouts prowled the edges, blades slick, burning anything that twitched. The stench clung to the gray air, thick and choking.
When the last corpse stopped twitching, the column slowly drew back together, ragged and shaken. Dozens of terrified members of the column turned on Regina. It pressed on her like shackles she hadn’t agreed to wear. every glance sharpened by Blue’s venom, every silence too loud.
"Witch," someone spat into the dirt. The word spread without being repeated, a contagion of doubt moving faster than any plague.
Regina’s attention snapped, searching, and found Blue at the far edge of the line. The fae’s hands were folded, her expression serene, but her snide teeth glittered with the quiet satisfaction of poison doing its work.
The mist thickened as branches leaned like ribs closing overhead. And though no one spoke of it, Regina could feel the truth in her bones: the Nether was patient. It did not need to strike tonight. It only needed her people to stop believing she could save them.
:.:
A/N: I'm winded.