Ch. 43
“Stormbound Confessions”
The storm brews behind me, its thunder echoing through the vast emptiness, illuminating the void in stark, silvery flashes that cast twisted shadows in the distance. I can feel the storm’s icy residue prickling against my skin, as though it, too, is trying to seep into my soul. The cold clings, a constant reminder of the wild power I have coursing through me. As I sit here, though, Oana’s presence steadies me.
Oana is cross-legged, her figure an anchor in the dim glow of the Gand Library behind her, with its soaring shelves and air thick with secrets. She is grounded in the real world and I am stranded in this strange, desolate corner of my own mind. Our connection somehow bridges the space between. Her presence is a warmth against the cold vastness within me. I can only imagine the questions simmering behind her steady gaze, her mind turning over every detail I am about to give.
A sacred silence settles around me, weighty and expectant, like the pause before a spell is cast. I gather my thoughts, aware of the enormity of what I am about to reveal. For days I have been bound to my secrets, moving through shadows that even I am struggling to understand. I should be hesitant, guarding myself, but Oana’s presence pulls something loose inside me, uncoiling the barriers forged in my mind. Here, in this fragile space between worlds, I am vulnerable, exposed — but not afraid.
Unlike with Devlyn or Mother, whose loyalty is woven with motives I can barely grasp, with Oana, I feel a rare freedom. I can lay bare the truth, every dark corner of it, without fear of judgment or manipulation.
Oana breaks the silence first, her voice soft yet insistent, a hand reaching across the chasm between us. “Mi,” she says, her eye narrowing with careful scrutiny, “these last few days have changed you. I can see it in your eyes. There is something different, something… deeper.”
I draw in a shaky breath, feeling my breath coil and twist tight around my chest, as though my own secrets have taken root and refuse to be unearthed. For so long, I have been running — not from anyone else, but from the truths lurking, truths I barely knew existed. Yet Oana’s presence is unyielding, a steady pulse in the back of my mind, urging me to stop, to turn, to face them. She has always been there.
“I hardly know where to begin, Oana.” My voice feels thin, worn from everything I have carried alone. “I left the castle because I wanted freedom, space to breathe without… without feeling her around every corner. But what I found was more than I could have ever expected.”
Oana’s arms fold across her chest as she leans forward, her gaze sharp and unrelenting. Those icy blue eyes are like shards of glass cutting straight to my core, piercing through any half-truths or evasions I might throw up.
“Alright, Mihaela,” she says, her tone both challenging and reassuring, “no holding back this time. Tell me everything. Especially about this dangerously patient man you found.”
A faint smirk tugs at my lips, her bluntness cutting through the lingering chill like a blade. Only Oana could be so direct without breaking the fragile trust between us. My eyes drift back behind me, back to the storm rumbling in the distance, the flashes of lightning casting fractured light across the void. It is a strange comfort, that storm, untamed power I don’t fully understand, but can’t ignore.
“It started with a choice,” I say slowly, each word pulling me deeper into memories I would rather skirt around. “A choice I didn’t know I would have to make. I left, hoping to be free, to find myself beyond those walls and their endless constraints. I thought that maybe, outside the castle’s reach, I could understand why my powers were changing, why everything felt… off. Because nothing says ‘sound decision-making’ like flying straight into the jaws of a forest that usually doesn’t even let you leave once you’re in. So I flew, diving into the shadows of the Endless Forest, thinking I could control whatever might cross my path. Foolish, maybe. But I needed to know.”My voice trails off as the storm surge again, a violent reminder of how little control I actually had.
Oana’s gaze softens. “You have always been brave, Mi,” she says, her voice threaded with bond admiration and certainty.
I move uncomfortably, still feeling that shadow of recklessness that clings to my actions. “But it wasn’t just bravery, Oana. It was… something else. Something greater that I couldn’t ignore. It pulled me, urged me into the forest like a whisper I didn’t want to hear. There was something there, something I knew I had to confront.” I pause, memories flickering back like flashes of lightning in the storm, and I add, “It wasn’t just a curiosity, I realized — no, it was more like the forest knew me. Called me by name, not for any noble purpose, but because it knew how desperately I wanted to be found when I felt so lost in the caged world I left behind. And that’s where I encountered the Varcolacs, Onkiumas, even an Anansi. I watched some Halfbloods hunting down a white stag.”
Oana’s breath catches, her eyes widening in alarmed recognition. “An Anhanga?” she echoes, her voice hushed as if the words themselves were sacred. “Those only appear when… when something monumental is on the horizon. They’re omens. Warning woven by the forest itself.”
A wry smile tugs at my lips, though the memory sends a chill down my spine. “Well, it didn’t get much chance to fulfill its warning. It ended up as a feast for a pack of Halfbloods. If it was meant to tell us something, it couldn’ve tried a little harder.”
Oana chuckles, but her eyes grow distant, thoughtful, as if piecing together fragments of a puzzle only she can see. “Ha, ha, but an Anhanga doesn’t appear without reason, Mihaela. The forest doesn’t call them forth lightly. You’re not just anyone, and you saw one? It means something larger. Though honestly, what a waste of an omen, tossing it to a pack of Halfbloods like scraps to a gaggle of drunken dwarves.” She smirks, her laughter bubbling again. “Imagine the gods up there, pulling strings and cackling, thinking, ‘Let’s give them a hint',’ only to watch it get devoured with no understanding at all. Typical.” Her gaze sharpens, and the humor lingers in her tone as she adds, “And anyway, leaving wasn’t just bravery. It takes someone willing to stand at the edge of the unknown, look down, and think, ‘Why not?’ before they jump.”
I swallow, her words carving through my constant doubt, fears, if only a little. She sees something in me that I can’t and though I want to argue, she holds me in this moment, urging me to listen with just a smile. But my cruel mind rages with the distance storm. Why am I telling her all this? Was it because I needed someone to understand? Or was I just afraid of what it all means… about who I truly am and all the parts I still don’t know.
“Some would call that reckless.” I mumble, my eyes falling to the Grand Library behind Oana, its towering shelves filled with knowledge that I seemed to only scratched the surface of. I feel the weight of my own words. “But seriously, it wasn’t just about running. It was about feeling something other than the wild chaos inside — anything else — because everything was cold and numb, like I was being pulled apart from the inside. Flying further into the forest wasn’t just freedom. It was… proof. Proof that I could choose, even if it could hurt me.” My fingers curl into my palms. “When you spend so long being told who you are, what you can and can’t do, the idea of risking everything just to see what’s on the other side feels less reckless and more like survival. Like… reclaiming something they thought they’d taken from me.”
I glance at Oana, half-expecting her to shake her head at my madness, but she doesn’t. Oana looks at me, not like Devlyn, or even Zanir does. She just looks at me, seeing something I can not. Her expression, soft and unfearful.
“Still,” I continue, my voice a little steadier now, “it felt like the further I flew, the darker it got. Heavier, like something, was pulling me deeper. I wasn’t just running, I was being called.”
“And you keep going, you followed it,” she says with a gleam in her ice eyes. “That is what makes more than brave. You flew into darkness — even if you didn’t know what you would find.” In Oana’s eyes, a hint of assurance, a belief I can’t even grasp, but she holds fiercely enough for the both of us.
A shiver courses through me as I remember the way the forest seemed to wrap itself around my senses, breathing with its own life. “It was like the forest itself was waiting for me,” I say with a heavy breath. “As if it knew my name and whispered secrets I couldn’t ignore.”
Oana’s brow knit together, and her expression turns cautious, a perceiving look in her eyes. “The Endless Forest doesn’t speak to just anyone, Mihaela. It’s ancient, a place of purpose and power. The creatures you saw, the paths it led you… none of them were by chance. The forest has its own reasons, and I don’t think it would pull you in without one.”
Oana’s right, as always. The forest doesn’t speak to anyone, but I am apparently the exception to every rule, but I nod, her words resonating with a truth I know I can’t avoid… even though I want to. But Oana has a way of doing that, of pulling sense of my tangled emotions, and now the messy journey of figuring out more about myself and the world around us. I can just let my guard down around her completely. She has been the one I could trust. Even in moments, I felt lost within myself.
“I know. But that… was, unfortunately for me, maybe not for you, was only the beginning.” I say, taking a steadying breath. “It pulled me further, further into the heart of it. Until I saw… a man. Or something close to one.”
Oana’s eyes sharpen, highlighting her cheekbones, her full attention is on me. I feel a surprising comfort in her abiding presence. Her understanding has always been a balm to the turmoil I keep buried. With anyone else, I would be stumbling over my words, but with Oana, they come easily.
“But as I saw this, shadow in human form. No, he wasn’t human. He was something else entirely, something I had to figure out. I had to understand, because I was drawn to him… even when he moved further into the forest, I followed him. Unable to let go of the rope that was thrown to me, and I pulled until we collided.” I feel my breath catch as I spoke, but I don’t stop. “And when we collided, it wasn’t just the forest that seemed to recognize me — so did he.”
