Prologue

The Enchanted Forest, 7 years earlier

The gusting wind of the portal was cool and dark by nature, sending shivers down Emma's spine. The crackle of the fire was almost to the tips of the page now, and Emma tried desperately to memorize what little she could see of the spell as Baelfire held it above the torch. It was the last guide of its kind, and once Baelfire lit it aflame, the spell to open the portal would be lost on humanity forever.

"Please, Bae. He'll grow up without you. Isn't that a worse fate than living with dark magic?" Emma knew it was a low blow, but then again, he was burning her only way to find him. Baelfire just grimaced.
"You know my reasons, Emma. But, you'll be a good mother. You'll take care of him." Emma wanted to scream, shove him, do something, because she shouldn't have to do it alone- and he was running away to the land without magic, leaving her and their unborn son behind. But, she was bloated and weak, 5 months pregnant, and the time for her to fight had already come and passed. He was going to leave her, leave them, and there was nothing she could do to stop him- because damn it all if Baelfire could ever be persuaded to live in a world where his father controlled dark magic.

"Your father won't always be here, Bae. You know that. You'll have an escape from him, one that doesn't involve jumping through that portal." Bae cast his eyes to the floor, and within the blink of an eye, he had raised the torch to meet the fading parchment, dooming it to a hail of ash that floated sadly down to the forest floor. He looked to Emma again, with pleading eyes and a scorched corner of the paper that he had just destroyed, clenched tightly in his fist.

"You can still come with me, Ems. I want a life with you, I do. Just not here." At the sound of his voice, Emma tore her red-rimmed eyes from the brown of his own, and choked back a sob.

"You know I can't, Baelfire. I'm the heir to the throne, I can't just leave. I have a duty to my people, to my parents-"

"To your love, Emma! You have a duty to me, to us." He interrupted, suddenly bubbling with anger, disbelief- and something that looked like sadness. Emma shook her head and glared at the trees as she turned her back to him. Her hands resting on her belly, Emma uttered those last phrases, the ones he'd hear before jumping into the portal for the first and last time:

"A duty to my son. Leave, and that's what he'll be: mine and mine only- he'll grow up knowing that he had no father important enough to be spoken of." Tears glistened in her green eyes, but she continued, because if this was her last chance to say goodbye to the son of the Dark One and the father of her child, she would make the most of it. "And he will grow to lead this kingdom to freedom from the fear his father cowered from," She sniffled, and cried out, her last hope of a truth, "And you will never see it."

At the sound of the portal closing behind her turned back, Emma dropped to her knees and wept.