Page 32 of Rapunzel's Outlaw Orc
I smile. “The biggest.”
I lie there with a heart that no longer feels like a weapon and a future I never could have imagined. I silently thank the forest. It chose well when it led me to my love.
When I finally close my eyes, the moss lifts an extra inch under my spine as if it heard me.
Epilogue
Rapunzel
Six months after the tower, the forest still wakes me up with birdsong that sounds suspiciously like my name. Sunlight still feels like a miracle. No stone walls. No roots in my floor. Just the forest leaning in like a curious friend instead of a jailer.
Our cottage sits between Screaming Woods and Fable Forest, where the trees are dramatic and the neighbors are delightfully monstrous. Brannock built the bones of the place—beams, stone hearth, a door you could ram with a minotaur—and I sang the garden into a riot of color.
It’s the first warm day of spring, and I’m barefoot in the garden, humming while coaxing a vine of whispering bells to wrap around the trellis. My hair, no longer weaponized, braids itself lazily around me like a sleepy cat.
Our life is simple and wild at once. We’ve planted a garden the size of a meadow, and it answers my moods the way my hair used to. When I’m happy, the beans grow faster. When Brannock kisses me behind the toolshed, the sunflowers practically applaud. The forest listens to me, it doesn’t drain me.It grows when I tell it to. Helps us mend fences, fetch herbs, and chase off nosy sprites. It’s mine, finally. Or maybe we’re each other’s.
Inside our cottage, I hear mismatched boots thumping across the floor and the hiss of a serpent as it knocks over something ceramic. Probably one of the mischievous snakes that cover Gordy’s or Gideon’s head instead of hair because, well, they’re Gorgons.
Today is perfect.
And also chaotic. In the best way.
Brannock steps out of the doorway, holding a massive tray of roasted mushrooms, honey-buttered bread, and something suspiciously shaped like a root—probably an accident. His eyes warm as he looks at me. I still get that tug in my chest, like the whole world clicks into place because he’s mine. Warm and solid and here.
“I think Alice charmed the cheese,” he mutters.
Behind him, Gordy pauses with a forkful of said cheese halfway to his mouth.
“It was a minor flavor enhancement spell,” Alice replies as she joins him. “I charmed it into singing. Is that a crime?”
“It is if it sings off-key,” mutters Gideon, ducking through the doorway with Verity at his side and their son in her arms—a chubby, dark-haired boy with sparkling eyes and a headful of tiny, writhing snakelets.
Felix immediately wiggles down from Verity’s arms and toddles toward the pile of pillows we’ve designated the “kid zone.” Arya and Gregor’s daughter is already there—curly auburn hair,pudgy fists, and the unmistakable determination of someone who has absolutely no interest in sitting still.
“Share, Sofia,” Arya says gently as her daughter attempts to steal a pinecone from Felix’s chubby grasp.
Sofia doesn’t share. Sofiayeetsthe pinecone across the garden.
Draven is blind and doesn't see it coming. It bounces off his chest and lands in Dahlia’s lap. Erik and Shelley, their children, laugh in delight.
Dahlia raises an eyebrow and deadpans, “A gift. I’m honored.”
Gregor, a huge, gray-skinned ogre, scoops Sofia up, blowing a raspberry against her cheek until she squeals with laughter. “She gets that arm from her mother.”
Arya snorts. “Please. I’veseenyou throw an axe.”
“Iplacemy axes with precision.”
Alice, refilling everyone’s tea with practiced grace, pauses beside me. “This feels like the start of something, doesn’t it?”
I glance around the garden: Verity brushing Felix’s snakes away from his brow, Gideon reading off an ingredients list like it’s a spell scroll, Brannock grumbling about the pizza oven being “possessed,” and Gordy trying to feed a piece of serenading cheese to a suspicious root near the shed.
Itisthe start of something.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “It does.”
“Who’s going to the Fayre next week?” Dahlia asks, carving the bread into perfect, identical wedges with a blade large enough to hunt a manticore.
