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

Chapter 49: Time Running Out pt 2

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"Shouldn't you be looking for the Storian?" Tedros asked in the dark hall, trying to track Filip's fluffy h/c hair past the teacher dormitories. "Past midnight now–"
"Want to show you something first," Filip said, sliding through two narrow rock columns.
"Where are we going?" Tedros moaned, stomach still bloated from his dungeon feast. "All I want to do is take a bath and go to be–" He fell quiet.
They were standing on the teachers' balcony, perched over the Blue Forest, giving them a panoramic view of the terrain. A strange, icy haze broke apart in the air, as if a thick fog had just passed.

As the air grew clearer over the Forest, Tedros saw the leaves and the grass fluorescing magically with an arctic-blue sheen. Wind ranked across fronds and flowers in harplike waves, sounding steady, oceanic breaths. Close to the north gate, the electric-blue Fernfaild, just blooming out from the snow that had disappeared, fanned over the thin west path; over the east path, the willows gained more of their shein as new leaves budded out, while the Cyan Caves to the south a bubbled shadow over the pumpkin patch.

Tedros had seen so much beauty traveling with his parents when he was little– the paradise grottos in the Murmuring Mountains, the beautiful lakes of Avalon, the Wish Fish oases in the Shazabah Deserts... But high above, the prince looked at this small, gated forest, innocent to the dangers of the world, and knew what heaven could be. Two nights from now, he'd be the one who turned it to hell.
He suddenly noticed movement near the gate... two human shadows slipping out the Forest...
Tedros squinted closer–

"Are you going to join me?" Filip said behind him.
Tedros turned to see him sitting on the wide, flat marble ledge, kicking legs over the Forest.
"Or do you still want that bath?" his cell mate said archly.
Tedros climbed up onto the ledge and sat down closer to Filip than he would under any ordinary circumstances. He wasn't especially fond of heights.

"How's your arm?" Tedros said, inspecting his cell mate's gash, still raw and bloody. "I don't want it to get infected–"
"I've had worse," Y/n said, looking up at him with a sad smile. She then looked down into the woods. "Do you feel guilty about it? Sentencing two girls to death? Forcing one into a marriage?"
Tedros said nothing for a moment. "There's always three in a fairy tale, Filip. Sure, usually one is a villain, but Y/n could make it work, between me and Agatha. But there can't be four, it just doesn't work. One had to be a villain then. And I don't have a problem playing the villain if it means protecting Y/n. It's what's best for her."

"You're acting like a mad man again," Filip said with a chuckle. "But it's so weird. Everyone just wanted to find love, and now everyone just wants to kill each other."
"With all due respect, Filip, what the hell do you know?"
Filip laughed.
"Oh who's the mad man now, huh?" Tedros scoffed. Filip laughed even more, burying his face in his hands.

Somewhere below, crickets thrummed off rhythm. Tedros peered down at a stork wadling through the Blue Brook, while two bunnies chased each other over the bridge. Tomorrow Manley and the girls' Dean would lace the Forest with traps, and the animals would go into hiding until the Trial was over and its dangers passed.

"So what's your castle like, Filip?"
His cellmate blinked. "Castle?"
"You're a prince, aren't you? Don't live in a tiki hut, I presume."
"Well, it was less of a castle and more of a fort," Filip said, looking down at the glowing forest. That's what Gavaldon had felt like after all. A fort, a place where she was closed off from the world, a place she was trapped. "It wasn't very big. Pretty closed off too, often never allowed out really."

"Sounds cozy. Never liked living in a big castle. Spend most of the day trying to find people. Does your whole family live with you?"
"No, my parents are dead, died before I could even remember them, never had any siblings either," Filip said. "All I had was a caretaker, but... he was old. I had to learn a lot of stuff on my own, to take care of both him and me. Had to learn how to cook, sew, do basic housework, almost anything really. Had to learn magic on my own too, and was lucky to find someone who could unlock it for me."
"Least you have someone," sighed Tedros. "I have nothing to go home to when school's done. Just an empty castle, thieving advisors running things, servants who do nothing, a people starving, and a failing kingdom."