Wizard's Wish - (Kinda) Yandere SGE x reader

Chapter 35: Red Hoods Ride

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Y/n heard the men's shouts recede with the light of their torches. Kneeling against a wet, crumbly tree trunk in darkness, she canceled the invisibility spell on her and Agatha.

A dew distant hoots and skitters muffled to silence. The two girls didn't move, and Agatha could feel her spine throbbing from where rocks had struck her. Y/n felt her breath heavy, deep in thought. All this time she had focused on rescuing her best friend and going back. Back to what? Murderous Elders that wanted to marry her off? More assassin attacks? A village that wanted Sophie gone.

She thought of innocent women burnt publicly in a square, not so long ago, and her stomach turned over. The fact that if they had known she came from the woods, she could have been killed when she was just a baby.
"We won't go back." Y/n said. "We can't." Agatha nodded in agreement, clutching Y/n's hand tighter. Their future in Gavaldon was just as dark as the Woods around them now. Nor could they just rescue Sophie, they needed to defeat these assassins, whoever they were.

But she had no idea how to even begin looking for her friend. For hundreds of years, the villagers had stormed into the forest, seeking its lost children–only to come out the other side,right where they started. Like all missing children, she and her friends had seen what lay beyond the forest: a dangerous world of Good and Evil that had no end. They had been the lucky ones to return, sealing the gates between reality and fantasy forever... or so she'd thought. One wish, and the gates had reopened.

Wherever Sophie was, she was in terrible danger.

Rising from a crouch, Y/n and Agatha stepped into the Endless Woods, shoes crunched on snow. Finger aglow, she swept it like a torch through knotted trees, searching for a path, like Yuba had thought them. Like all the group leaders at the School for Good and Evil, the old gnome had used the Blue Forest, a lush, tranquil training ground meant to mimic the Endless Woods and prepare students for what they'd face.

Y/n and Agatha squeezed between two rotted tree trunks, Agatha feeling pain from the bruise on her back. Y/n couldn't help but feel like the Blue Forest was the School Master's cruel prank. For she had gone through the Trial of Trail, which seemed much more horrible than the woods they currently traveled through.

Still, with each step, Y/n felt a growing sense of doom. She'd been in the Endless Woods twice before, but this time was different. She didn't have someone watching over her or a school. She didn't have Tedros.
She felt her soul flutter.
Tedros of Camelot.
Finally she said his name to herself, here, with Agatha beside her in the Woods. The last time she'd seen her prince was in the twilight of her and Sophie's kiss, a kiss he thought would be his, and then her kiss with Agatha. As he watched her disappear into thin air, he reached for her, choking a scream– "Wait!"

She'd had the choice to take his hand, to let go of Agatha and Sophie. She had the choice to stay in the world she was born in. She felt her head spin, feeling dizzy, trapped between worlds. But she still felt she made the right choice. Tedros might be her true love, but so was Agatha. And there was no denying that she loved Sophie, as a friend at least, still she also felt her soul yearn for Sophie. She couldn't let go of Sophie and Agatha, never.

Still, the more she tried to forget him, the more her prince came. In dreams, day and night... his pained blue eyes... his body lunging... his big, strong hand, reaching for hers.
Until one day she reached back.
Just find Sophie, she gritted, remembering her promise to Stefan. All she wanted was Sophie, alive– charming, maniacal, ludicrous Sophie. They'd figure something else out then, together. She'd never doubt her happy ending again.

As she and Agatha wadded through a mess of fallen branches towards the gap in the trees, Y/n held up her lit finger and saw it wasn't a path at all. It was a vast cesspool of mus, rusted red, stretching east and west as far as she could see. She picked up a rock and lobbed it into the pool. The splash wasn't shallow.