The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

The next morning, after a peaceful soak in the hot springs with a man that I would fully admit that I was starting to love… even if I didn't know exactly what that word met, I left the Crown Prince's manor before the sun rose.

No note. No servant. No guard. Not even Yaozu noticed me slipping away.

Shadow, on the other hand, followed without hesitation, his paws silent as snowfall. He didn't ask where we were going, he really didn't care. He just stayed at my side, a hulking black streak against the frost-bitten coble stones of the Capital City.

I didn't take a horse.

Didn't wear proper boots.

I just needed to leave, I needed the cold, I needed to be grounded. Even the bite of stone beneath the soles of my feet soothed something that seemed to have been broken inside of me without me noticing.

It wasn't escape. I wasn't trying to run away from my marriage, from the man who made me feel seen. I wasn't trying to escape the war that started because of me.

I just needed… silence.

Not the kind they offered in war tents or drafty courtyards. Not the silence filled with bowed heads and too-polite questions. Real silence. Like the kind that pressed in like snow-laden fog and reminded you that even the sky could be empty if you wandered far enough.

Shadow and I passed through the city gates before we took off into a sprint, we climbed through a thicket of twisted pine, and followed a deer path down toward a river I remembered seeing from a horse's back one day where there was no time to explore.

The sound reached me first.

It wasn't loud, it wasn't rushing. It was just steady. Like it never stopped flowing, even if no one was there to see it.

I settled on a flat rock at the bank's edge and let my feet dangle into the water. Shadow laid down beside me, chin resting on his paws, his golden eyes never blinking.

He didn't judge me.

Didn't ask why I'd come out here like a barefoot madwoman with no coat and a haunted look in my eyes.

I could still feel Yaozu's hands on me from last night—gentle, reverent, firm where they needed to be. Like I was a person and not a title. A woman, not a weapon.

And it made me feel like drowning.

Not in fear.

In relief.

Which was worse.

Because it made me want to stop moving. Just for a moment. Just long enough to forget the maps and the poisoned courts and the crown I wasn't even sure I wanted anymore.

I pressed my hands to my knees and stared out over the water.

Still. Glassy. Beautiful.

Too beautiful for a world like this.

The wind picked up. Shadow growled once, low and soft.

Footsteps behind me.

I didn't turn.

I didn't need to.

He found me anyway.

Shi Yaozu didn't say my name when he came closer. Didn't announce himself or demand an explanation.

He just stood behind me for a long moment.

Then—

"You're barefoot."

I exhaled. "I know."

"You're freezing."

I shook my head. "Not really."

There was a pause.

Then I heard the sound of him kneeling behind me, the crunch of gravel and pine needles as his coat shifted against the ground.

He sat beside me in silence. Not too close. Not touching.

Just there.

Shadow huffed once and allowed it.

The three of us stayed like that for several breaths. Maybe a hundred.

I finally asked, "How long did you wait before coming after me?"

He didn't lie.

"An hour."

"You knew where I was?"

"No," he said. "But I knew where you'd go. Somewhere clean. Somewhere you hadn't ruined yet with duty."

I turned my head to look at him.

He didn't smile.

He just looked back, eyes dark and steady, like he'd been waiting for me to see him.

"I'm not running," I said quietly.

"I know."

"Then why did you come?"

"Because you needed someone who wouldn't ask you to come back yet."

I turned away again.

The river shimmered beneath the early sun, and my toes curled against the chill.

"Yaozu?"

"Yes."

"If something happens to me—"

"No."

I closed my eyes.

He reached over and touched my foot lightly, fingers skimming the skin like it might break.

"You don't get to talk like that," he said. "Not today."

"I'm not being dramatic. I'm being prepared."

"I'm prepared enough for both of us."

A beat.

"You can't follow me into everything," I whispered.

"I can, and I will."

I opened my eyes again and found his gaze waiting.

There was no softness in it now. No shadow of court manners or quiet deference.

Only truth.

"I told you before," he said. "You don't have to carry this alone. You don't even have to win."

"What kind of ruler doesn't win?" I asked.

"The kind that lives," he replied. "The kind that knows when to let others bleed instead."

"I don't like watching people bleed for me."

He nodded once. "Then let them bleed with you."

Another silence stretched.

Then I asked, quietly, "Will you always come after me?"

His fingers were still resting on my foot, his palm warm against the cold.

"Yes."

"Even when I don't deserve it?"

"You always deserve it."

I looked at him then, really looked.

And I saw it.

The resolve.

The exhaustion.

The refusal to step back even when I was the one pushing him away.

"You're tired too," I said.

He didn't argue.

"Then rest with me."

He didn't ask what I meant.

He didn't have to.

He slid closer, legs folding beside mine, arm slipping around my waist in one steady motion.

And when I leaned into him—shoulder to shoulder, head resting against his chest—he held me like it wasn't weakness.

Like it was breathing.

Like it was us.

Just us.

The water. The wind. The hound. The boy who never left. And the girl who forgot, for one hour, what it meant to wear a crown.

Life might have taken a left turn somewhere were I wasn't expecting it, this wasn't the life that I had mapped out in my head ever since I was a kid.

And maybe, just maybe, that is not a bad thing.