by Libba Bray
Weapons in hand, our ragged band sets off for the narrow passage that leads to the heart of the Winterlands. I plead with Gorgon one last time.
“I wish you would join us. We could sorely use you.”
“I cannot be trusted,” she insists.
I lean closer to her than I ever have before, as if I might embrace her. One of the snakes rubs over my wrist, and I do not pull away. It flicks its tongue and moves on. “I trust you.”
“Because you do not know me.”
“Gorgon, please…”
Pain shows in her eyes and she closes them to hide it. “I cannot, Most High. I shall await your return.”
“If I return,” I say. “We are outnumbered, and my magic is unreliable.”
“If you fall, we are all lost. Destroy the tree. That is the only way.”
“Will she come with us?” Ann asks when I catch up to them.
“No,” I say.
Philon glances at the unmerciful landscape—the clouds streaked with red, the unforgiving passageway ahead. Harsh, cold winds kick gritty sand into our faces. “Pity. We could use her warrior strength now.”
We crowd into the narrow canyon. A slick, pale creature slides its slimy hand from behind a rock, and I have to place a hand over Ann’s mouth to silence the scream there.
“Just keep walking,” I whisper.
Kartik squeezes back down the ranks. “Gemma, I don’t think we should come out as we did before. We’re exposed then. There’s a small tunnel that leads to a ledge behind the cliffs. It’s narrow, not easy, but from there, we can watch them, protected.”
“Agreed,” I say. “Lead the way.”
We creep along a crumbling ledge with a severe drop into nothingness. It makes my blood pound, so I keep my eyes trained on Philon’s ax glimmering just ahead. At last, we push out of the tunnel, and Kartik is right: There is a spot behind the cliff where we might hide.
“Do you hear that?” Kartik asks.
In the distance is the sound of drums. They echo off the mountains.
“I shall see,” Kartik says. He scrambles up the craggy mountain as if born to it. He pokes his head above the cliff ’s edge, then hurries down again. “They’re gathering on the heath.”
“How many?” Philon asks.
Kartik’s face is grim. “Too many to count.”
The pounding of the drums resonates in my bones. It fills my head till I think I shall go mad. It is easier not to see their numbers, not to look on the horror of them and know. But I must know. I must know. Gripping tightly to the rock, I pull myself up and peek over the rough crags that protect us for now.
Kartik did not lie. The Winterlands army is vast and terrifying. At the fore ride the trackers in billowing black capes that flap open to reveal the souls trapped inside. Even from this distance I can see the glint of their jagged teeth. They tower over the others, nearly seven feet tall. The Poppy Warriors in their matted chain mail transform into enormous black crows and circle over the fields. They caw with a chilling persistence; more and more of them rise till one patch of the sky is a blur of black and the air crackles with their cries. I pray they will not fly in this direction and spy our hiding place. Behind them is an army of corrupted spirits—the dead walking. Their eyes are hollow and unseeing or the disquieting blue-white of Pippa’s. They follow without question. And in the center is the tree, taller, mightier than the last time I saw it. Its limbs stretch out in all directions. I swear that I can see the souls slipping under its bark like blood. And I know that in its dark heart hides Eugenia Spence.
Drummers bang out a thundering rhythm.
“How will we fight them?” Ann asks, and I feel her fear within my own heart.
“Look, down there,” Felicity says. One of the Poppy Warriors pulls Wendy along with him. She stumbles, exhausted, but she is intact. Eating those berries damned her to a life here, but it must have saved her from being a fitting sacrifice. The Poppy Warrior licks her cheek, and Wendy recoils. I hate to think of her chained to such a horrible beast.
The drums stop, and the silence is almost more terrifying.
“Wot are they about?” Fowlson asks, his knife already in his hand.
“I don’t know,” I say.
The tree speaks. Have you brought the sacrifice?
“She is here somewhere,” a tracker answers.
I have waited so long for you, the tree murmurs in that voice that first drew me in. Do you know me? Do you know what we could be together? That we could rule this world and the other? Join me….
The words wrap themselves around me.
Gemma…come to me….
It is my mother. My mother stands on that field in her blue dress, her arms waiting to hold me.
“Mother,” I whisper.
Kartik pulls my face to his. “That is not your mother, Gemma. You know that.”
“Yes. I know.” I look back, and the image flickers like a picture made of gas and flame.
“They can make us see what they want us to see, believe anything,” a Hajin woman with deep brown eyes reminds me.
“How will we fight them?” a centaur asks. “Let us have some of the priestess’s magic!”
“No,” Philon says, watching me. “If she draws upon the magic now, the tree will surely sense it, and I fear what that will mean.”
Fowlson has a hard look. “We’ve got to get to that tree, mates. Chop it down.”
“Yes, that is our purpose,” Felicity says. She’s got her sword and she means to use it.
A small argument breaks out among our contingent. No one can agree on a plan. Down on the plain, I see those hideous wraiths, the tree that carries Eugenia’s soul. But I also feel my mother, Circe, Miss McCleethy, Pippa, Amar…so many names. So much lost.
“Centuries of fighting, and for what?” I say. “Today it ends. I can’t live in fear any longer. I’ve cursed this power. I’ve both enjoyed and misused it. And I’ve hidden it away. Now I must try to wield it correctly, to marry it to a purpose and hope that that is enough.”
A centaur starts to speak, but Philon silences him with a single finger held high.
“Dr. Van Ripple told me that an illusion works because people want to believe in it. Very well, then. Let’s give them what they want,” I say.
Philon’s eyes narrow. “What is your plan?”
“They are looking for the chosen one. What if she is everywhere at once? What if I can cast my image on the ledge of this mountain and farther afield? They’ll see me at every turn. And how will they make a sacrifice of someone who does not exist?”
Philon rubs a hand thoughtfully across those thin lips. “Clever but risky, Priestess. And what if we are discovered?”
“We only need enough time to confuse them while we draw closer to the tree and take it down.”
“And what of the dagger?” Felicity asks.
“Leave that to me,” I say.
“How do we know that chopping down the tree will end this?” a centaur asks.
“We don’t,” I say. “But it’s the best we have if everyone is in agreement.”
There are nods and ayes all around.
“Mr. Fowlson, Felicity, you will lead the charge. Ann,” I say, looking at her brave face, “try to get Wendy away from that beastly Poppy Warrior.”
“And me?” Kartik asks.
Stay with me.
“Someone shall have to look out for Amar. He is very powerful,” I say sadly.
“Gemma, we’re to be fighting, side by side,” he says, and I know he’s thinking of his dream.
“It was only a dream,” I say, swallowing hard, waiting for him to say his bit like a joke we’ll carry on long after this has finished, but he only nods, and that adds to my fright.
“What if they should find you after all?” Philon asks.
I shall die here. My soul will be forever lost to the Winterlands. The realms and our world will be ruled by the Winterlands creatures. “You mustn’t try to save me. Get to the tree. Take
it down. I can’t say whether this is a good plan or not. But we must do something. And we can only accomplish it together.”
I put out my hand. It is the longest moment of my life, the waiting. Kartik places his hand on mine. Felicity and Ann follow quickly. Philon’s long fingers come down next. Bessie and Fowlson. The Hajin. The Centaurs. The forest folk. Hand over hand, we join together, every last one of us. I must concentrate hard to keep away all thoughts but my own. It would be easy for the thoughts of the Winterlands creatures to intrude, for the tree to slip inside my mind. I feel the magic flow from me into the others, one by one. And when I open my eyes, it is like standing in a carnival’s hall of mirrors. Everywhere I look, we are the same. Everyone wears my face. How will they find the chosen one if we are all chosen?
“We’ve no time to rethink it now,” I say. “We will be discovered any moment. Let’s not be taken unawares.”
The drums start again. My blood quickens in my ears. We fan out along the tops of the cliffs. Down below, the horrible trackers point and screech. They run to arms but so do we. We run toward the field. Swords are drawn. The clash of steel against steel sends a shiver up my spine. A hail of arrows flies from the centaurs on the cliffs. An arrow sings past me and finds its target in a wraith dangerously close.
“Aahhhhhhh!” A fierce war cry splits the air. I see one of us brandishing a sword as if born to wield it, and I know beneath that illusion beats the heart of my friend Felicity.
I can scarcely believe my eyes. Coming toward us at a furious pace is the gorgon, a sword in each of her four hands. She staggers as she moves, unaccustomed to the feel of her legs after so long without the use of them. But it is no matter. She cuts a magnificent, terrible figure, a green giantess striking blows left and right. The snakes atop her head writhe and hiss.
She shrieks above the din. “If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.”
In all her glory, she is a sight to behold. The snakes move in a frenzy about her head. I am both in awe of her majesty and frightened of her terrible power. Some creatures turn to stone at the look of her; others she cuts down with the strength of her sword. It is as if she no longer hears or sees us. She is lost to the battle, so much so that she raises her sword against one of us by mistake.
“Gorgon!” I shout.
She turns on me at once. And, oh, the hideous intent of those yellow eyes now that she is free. It is a horror from which I cannot look away. I am falling under the gorgon’s frightful spell. My feet have hardened to stone. I cannot move. The world spins away. The sounds of battle are gone. I hear only the gorgon’s seductive hiss. “Look at me, look at me, at me, at me, look and be amazed….”
The stone creeps through my blood. “Gorgon,” I say, my voice strangled, but I don’t know if she has heard or not.
Look at me, look at me….
Can’t breathe.
The snakes hiss wildly. Gorgon’s eyes lose their bloodlust. They widen in horror. “Do not look, Most High!” Gorgon screeches. “Close your eyes!”
With what strength I have left, I do. Immediately, the trance is broken. My limbs go limp with relief and I drop to the ground, gasping.
Gorgon helps me to my feet. “You must not look upon me now, for I am not the one you know. I am my warrior self. Guard yourself. Do you understand?”
I nod fiercely.
“I could have killed you,” she says, shaken.
“But you didn’t,” I gasp.
I hear a moan. One of us has fallen. By accident, a wraith has drawn blood. The false Gemma falls to the ground.
“Fool!” Amar shouts. “If you shed her blood here, her soul cannot be ours!”
But the body on the ground is no longer an illusion of me. The magic falters and fades. My face is replaced by the face of a Hajin woman. Her brown eyes stare up at them.
The creature howls in anger. “They deceive us! This is not the one!”
“Find the one. The true one.”
“Over here,” one of us calls.
“No, it is I. I am the chosen one!” another shouts from the battlefield.
“I’m the one you want,” comes yet another voice.
The creatures screech. “They confuse us! How can we see when they use the realms magic against us?”
A Poppy Warrior shouts, “It is that one by the rock!”
“No, it is this one near me, I tell you!”
We are everywhere, and it is too much for them. They fall into fighting each other.
I shout over their din. “Why should you fight for the tree’s glory? For the trackers’? They will let you die and take all the magic for themselves. The tree will rule you as the Order did.”
The creatures eye me narrowly, but they listen.
One of us calls, “You will still be slaves to someone else’s power. Do you honestly believe they will share it equally with you?”
Amar paces on his white steed. “Do not listen to them! They are deceivers!”
A skeletal creature with long shredded moth’s wings shakes his spear above his head. “Why should we give the power to them, when we can have it for ourselves?”
“What will you promise us?” another man asks. His skin is as gray as rain.
“Silence!” The trackers open their hideous cloaks to reveal the screaming souls within. “You see what we wish you to see.”
The Winterlands creatures cower and fall again under the spell of their leaders.
She works her enchantment against us. Find the girl, the true girl, the tree says. Do not let them deceive you. She will be the one they try to protect.
A tracker races for Gorgon. Gorgon fixes him with a stare, and the thing sinks into a trance. The sword swings high. It screams down, and the tracker falls like a sapling in a mighty storm. Whatever is left of him, some force within, spirals out of his body like a dust storm and into the Tree of All Souls. The tree accepts him with a terrible scream. With a loud crackle, the branches reach out farther and taller; the roots dig deeper into the frozen wasteland. The tree glows with new energy.
“Gorgon!” I shout over the hail of arrows and the shrieks of battle. “We must stop!”
She does not dare to look at me. “Why?”
“The more we kill, the stronger the tree becomes. It takes in the souls! We’re not defeating them; we’re strengthening them!”
I search the battlefield, and I spy Kartik running for his brother. It is Kartik free of his disguise, his dark curls framing his face like a lion’s mane. He runs with grace and strength. I look about and I see glimpses of Felicity and Philon coming through. The magic is not holding! It is only a matter of moments before our plan is uncovered and I am found, and then…
I hear Philon’s cry. The tall, elegant creature has been injured by a tracker. His ax has been thrown aside. There is no time to think. I have to get to the tree.
Pulling up my skirts, I run as hard as I can, grabbing the ax. I nearly slip on the ice and the blood, but I do not break my stride. I run straight for the tree.
She comes! the tree screeches. Its roots reach out and tangle round my ankles, bringing me down hard. The ax skitters from my hand and lands just out of reach.
“Gemma…”
I look up. Above me in the tree’s maze of branches, Circe is wrapped in a cocoon of twigs and vines and sharp nettles. Her face is gray, and her mouth is blistered and swollen. In her hands is the dagger.
“Gemma,” she calls in a strangled voice. “You must…finish it…”
The twigs tighten round her neck, cutting off her warning, but not before she drops the dagger to the ground below. I scrabble for it in the thick roots.
Gemma, would you give this all up? For what? What will you return to when you have finished me? the tree intones. A careful little life? No longer special? No longer anything at all?
“I shall be different,” I say.
That is what they all say. The tree laughs, bitterly. And then their
magic grows less and less. They grow up, away. Their dreams fade like their beauty. They change. And when they finally know that they would like this, it is too late for them. They cannot come back. Will this be your fate?
“N-no,” I say, turning away from the dagger in the vines.
“Gemma!” Kartik is calling me. But I cannot look away from the tree, can’t stop listening.
Stay with me, it says sweetly. Like this, always. Young. Beautiful. Blooming. They will worship you.
“Gemma!” Felicity’s voice.
Stay with me…
“Yes,” I say, my hand reaching toward the tree in longing, for it understands me. I press my palm to the bark, and suddenly, everything vanishes. It’s only the tree and me. I see Eugenia Spence before it, regal and sure. I look for my friends, but they’ve gone.
“Give yourself to me, Gemma, and you will never be alone again. You’ll be worshipped. Adored. Loved. But you must give yourself to me—a willing sacrifice.”
Tears slip down my face. “Yes,” I murmur.
“Gemma, don’t listen,” Circe says hoarsely, and for a moment, I don’t see Eugenia; I see only the tree, the blood pumping beneath its pale skin, the bodies of the dead hanging from it like chimes.
I gasp, and Eugenia is before me again. “Yes, this is what you want, Gemma. Try as you might, you cannot kill this part of yourself. The solitude of the self that waits just under the stairs of your soul. Always there, no matter how much you’ve tried to be rid of it. I understand. I do. Stay with me and never be lonely again.”
“Don’t listen…to that…bitch,” Circe croaks, and the vines tighten around her neck.
“No, you’re wrong,” I say to Eugenia as if coming out of a long sleep. “You couldn’t kill this part of yourself. And you couldn’t accept it, either.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she says, sounding uncertain for the first time.
“That’s why they were able to take you. They found your fear.”
“And what, pray, was it?”
“Your pride. You couldn’t believe you might have some of the same qualities as the creatures themselves.”
“I am not like them. I am their hope. I sustain them.”