Emma wakes up before the bells sound.

It is not a slow process – she wakes up with a jerk, breathless and panting, the telltale prickle of magic bringing a cold shiver down her spine. She blinks away the darkness of her bedchamber, only the moon casting its slivery shadow inside the castle. Everything is quiet, still, but not for long. She can feel it under her skin, the goosebumps on her arms onlya physical evidence of what her mind speaks to her. Danger, death – curse.

"Killian," she says, perhaps a little softer than necessary, as she shakes his shoulder. "Killian, wake up."

He does so in a mumble of a groan, a wordless question muffled against the fabric of his pillow. Even so, he raises his head, confused and still half-asleep. The sigh of it would warm her heart were it not for the urgency of the moment. So Emma forces herself not to dwell on his messy hair or on the wrinkles of the pillow on his cheek as she shakes his shoulder once more, as to wake him up fully. Killian frowns at the world, then turns his head and frowns at her, still as lost as a few seconds ago.

"Something is happening," she tells him, unwillingly cryptic.

Because something is happening, indeed, but there is no way of knowing what beside the suspicion settling in her mind. Something is happening, indeed, when the bells sound high above their heads and startle them both into action. Killian jumps to his feet, offering his naked backside to her, but Emma doesn't have the luxury of blushing, or even remembering the events of last night, as she follows him and grabs her nightgown where it fell on the floor. She pulls it above her head swiftly, slips into her riding boots, then looks around for her sword.

Her lady mother would throw a tantrum if she knew the crown princess keeps weapons in her chambers, but it proves itself useful in times of crisis. Not that times of crisis happen every other day in Mist Haven, the kingdom peaceful for almost two decades now, ever since –

Emma's eyes widen at the thought and, all thoughts of her sword gone, she runs to the window. She opens it and gasps at the sight that welcome her in the distance – smoke heavy and purple above the forest, sizzling like a hundred small thunderstorms and looming closer and closer to the castle.

"The curse," she thinks, and perhaps says out loud.

Loud enough for Killian to hear, since he rushes by her side as he buttons the shirt of his uniform. His eyes widen too, at the threatening cloud, before he swears under his breath – something he almost never does, but desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures. When he looks back at her, it's with widening eyes and Emma sees the fear settling in them, along with no small amount of determination.

"We need to go to the wardrobe," she tells him as she forces herself to move again.

She finds her sword where it rests next to her cloak in a corner, and straps it around her hips. Killian does the same, grabbing his own sword and putting on his shoes all at once. They both make their way to the door in a hurry when someone knocks on it, strongly enough for it to rattle in its hinges.

"Your Highness!" Roland's voice comes from the other side, loud, hurried, but mostly panicked. "Your Highness, wake up now!"

She opens the door, effectively startling him. "I know."

His eyes dart back and forth between Emma and Killian for a second, no doubt taken aback by the lieutenant's presence in the princess's chambers that late at night – but Roland has always been a pragmatic man, the reason why he makes such a good guard despite his upbringing, so he shrugs off everything else to focus on the priorities of the moment. Mainly, bringing Emma to her old nursery safe and sound.

Which is no easy task, for they find themselves nose to nose with Black Guards when they round a corner, and Emma barely has time to grab her sword that they are already fighting back. She manages to stop a blow before it slices her arm, then sets into motion with the ease of someone who has been doing this for years. Of course, her opponents are more ruthless than her master of arms could ever be, but the adrenaline of the moment helps fighting back until the five men are lying on the ground, unconscious.

Emma wipes the sweat away from her forehead and tries to regulate her breathing, but she doesn't have time for her heart to beat slower when the nursery is still two corridors away and the Evil Queen seems to want her not to reach it. Understandingly – annoyingly so. So Emma heaves a sigh and glances to Killian before she steps over one of the guards she just defeated.

Both he and Roland follow suit, footsteps echoing eerily in the empty corridors. Emma tries not to focus on it too much, lest she drives herself mad with worry, but she still has a thought for her family, wonders where they are right now. She refuses to think the Black Guards found them first – her mother is too good of a fighter to go down that easily, and so Emma focuses on that thought as she grips the pommel of her sword a little tighter, knuckles turning white.

She frowns when she finally reaches the old nursery, the one that hasn't been used in many years. It was too easy, is the only thing she thinks as she raises her sword before opening the door. Only darkness and silence welcome her, the bells still tolling high above her head. The wardrobe is as she remembers, towering in a corner of the room and surrounded by an army of toys and plush animals. A little dusty, perhaps, but Emma brushes her fingers against the door, the lightest of caresses, and she feels the magic of the wood coming to life beneath her fingertips. It makes her smile, even if the curl of her lip is bittersweet on her mouth.

She was born for this, but birthdays came and went for seventeen years and nothing ever happened. She had thought the curse was only a long lost memory, naïve as she was. That, somewhat, the Evil Queen had forgotten about her revenge, forgotten about them. How wrong she was – prophecies are always true, even the ones that name you The Savior of all the realms.

"Emma, love." Killian's hand rests on the small of her back, and she looks up at him, her eyes as wide as his are full of sorrow. "You need to go before it's too late."

"I need–" she starts, remembering the second part of the prophecy. "Killian, I need–"

"Roland is taking care of that."

And, indeed, when Emma looks around her, she only finds the old crib in a corner, Roland nowhere to be seen. She wants to heave a sigh of relief, but her eyes catch a shadow in the corner, and she rises her sword once more with a scream on her lips. But the Black Guard barely makes three steps toward them before suddenly stopping, eyes going glassy as he falls to his knees and reveals Emma's father behind him, sword raised above his head.

He looks down at the guard, then up to his daughter. "Why are you still here?" he all but yells at her before another wave of guards enter the room.

The same deadly dance starts again, Emma and Killian raising their sword in one motion to help her father take care of the enemies. She almost loses her balance once or twice, the entire castle shaking with the strength of the curse, but always manages to find her footing just in time not to be harmed by a Black Guard's sword. She defeats one, and probably kills another one if the weird angle of his neck is anything to go by, before someone grabs her and pulls her away from the fight.

"Emma, you need to go," her father tells her in the voice he only uses with King George and lords he doesn't like – the voice of a King not to be contradicted. "Now."

"But Papa–"

She chokes on a sob, the end of her sentence dying on her lips as her father pushes her toward the wardrobe before surging back into battle. She stumbles against the wardrobe, but watches in horror as a guard attacks her father when he leastexpects it, sword slicing through his side like a knife through butter. The scream is out of her mouth before she can swallow it, and Killian turns his head to her, then to her father, before jumping between him and the guard. All he needs is one blow for the guard to fall, dead or unconscious, before he looks back to Emma – his ponytail long gone, hair falling in his eyes in sweaty strands, blood staining his uniform.

"Papa!" she screams again, even as Killian comes to grab her by the waist so she doesn't throw herself at her father. "Papa, no! Let me go! He needs me, he needs–"

Killian doesn't let her go, not even when she claws at his arms, his shoulders, kicking his shins in hope the pain she inflicts on him will make him loosen his hold around her body. But he barely moves, and instead jerks the wardrobe's door open while she sobs against his chest.

"I can save him. Just a little magic and–"

"You have to go," Killian tells her as he all but shoves her inside the wardrobe.

It's almost too small for her body now, and she has to kneel inside, both so she doesn't bump her head and because it allows her to grab Killian's shoulders more easily.

"I can't do this. I'm not ready."

He cups her face between his hands, presses his lips to her forehead in a kiss. His eyes are frightened when he looks at her, rimmed around the edges with tears he refuses to shed in front of her, but there is pride in his blue pupils too, confidence, love. Her nails dig into the fabric at his shoulders under the strength of such a gaze, her body swaying on the spot.

"You will save us all, Emma. It was written, and there is no one else I trust with such a task."

"I can't – I don't–" She looks above his shoulder, panicking once more when her eyes only meet darkness. "I need–" Her sentence ends in a cough as purple smoke enters the room, her eyes widening some more.

"Roland," he reminds her, fighting a cough of his own. "But you need to go now before it is too late, love."

"I – I can't–"

She coughs once more, fingers failing to grip Killian's jacket when he leans away from her. She wants to keep him close, refuses to let the curse take him – but it's too late, the curse already there, and she coughs against it as she looks up to Killian, forces herself to remember every detail of his face. The scar of his cheek, the blue of his eyes, the hair falling on his forehead, precious memories she brands into her mind as he closes the door of the wardrobe on her.

A bolt of lightening cracks into the distance, smoke fills her lungs.

After that, there is only darkness.