Into the Heartless Wood

by Joanna Ruth Meyer

  Now I have everything I need to catch a tree siren.

  King Elynion stands just past my peripheral, watchful, waiting.

  I heave against my bonds, jostling my broken rib; I hiss in agony.

  The tree siren’s song grows louder.

  It’s her.

  I know it’s her.

  The king will harm her and I can’t bear it.

  I thrash in the ropes, heedless of the pain, and the music twists into me, deeper and deeper until I grow still again, until I lift my eyes toward the wood and see her coming, silver and white through the trees.

  For a moment my will breaks through even the power of her song, and I shout “SEREN!” into the heedless air.

  She laughs as she lunges toward me, as her claws graze against my cheek.

  It’s only then I realize that her eyes are all wrong, that there are roses in her hair instead of violets.

  That she isn’t Seren.

  The king shouts a harsh word. There’s a crackle of electricity, a smell of stars and crushed leaves. He flings the contents of the vial onto the siren, infusing them somehow with his power. Vines wind up out of thin air, coiling around the siren’s wrists and ankles, weaving over her mouth until her song is cut suddenly and irrevocably off.

  I blink, and I see the vines are twisted with strands of iron.

  The king’s magic has paralyzed her, but her eyes are vicious, wild.

  Elynion strides into view, cutting my bonds with one efficient swipe of his knife. I fall to my knees on the forest floor, trembling all over.

  The siren wears a necklace, similar to one Seren wore sometimes: an orb of pulsing light hanging on a piece of braided grass. The king yanks it from her throat and puts it on over his own head. It clinks against his plate armor. He looks at me impassively. “Get up, Merrick.”

  I just stare at him, the blood loss making my head wheel.

  He frowns at the cut in my arm, as if forgetting he was the one who made it. He touches me with one searing finger. Heat blazes agonizingly through my skin, sealing the wound.

  “I said get up.”

  I obey. The tree siren stands there, silent and seething. But there is an awful fear in her eyes. She is so like Seren—and yet so unlike her, too. Needles of iron pierce her skin, and I read something else in her glance: pain.

  “Come,” says Elynion.

  Her body goes rigid. She steps up behind him.

  Both of us follow him from the wood, back to where his guards and Luned are waiting.

  The army is coming over the plain. They swell against the rising sun. I don’t know what the king plans on doing with the tree siren, or with me. But in this moment I fear him more than the Gwydden herself.

  I hope to God Seren is far, far away from this place.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  SEREN

  THE WOOD AROUND ME

  teems,

  breathes,

  moves.

  The trees are marching. They pluck their roots from the ground and sink them down again. They ooze across the earth. Slow. Steady. Sure.

  They are not quite alive—my mother did not give them hearts.

  But they are more than they were.

  Their anger pulses through the earth.

  It frightens me.

  This is my mother’s army,

  the one she fed with blood and souls.

  She rides in the midst of the trees, on a giant creature that is something like a tree and something like a lion, and yet is neither. No natural beast would bear her.

  So she ripped the heartless tree from the earth, and made it into a creature that would.

  It creaks as it walks, its wood-skin dark with silver veins.

  Its claws are hand-length thorns. Its fur is thousands of prickling pine needles. Its mane is bright golden leaves.

  If I had not watched my mother twist it into its monstrous form, I would not believe it.

  But she did.

  My mother’s antlers are dipped in fresh blood. Her green hair is woven with the same briars that bound me. They bloom with roses.

  She wears a gown of bones. Human bones. They rattle and clack.

  Somehow

  she is as

  beautiful

  as she is

  terrible.

  But I could not revile her more.

  She has put me in a cage made of bones, so small I must crouch and fold to fit.

  Two of her trees bear the cage between them; I am hoisted high on barky shoulders.

  With every step, I sway.

  With every root

  that plunges into the earth

  and tears free again,

  I am more afraid.

  The cage reeks of death.

  I wish

  that mine

  had already found me.

  The wood moves and grows, moves and grows.

  Six of my sisters flank my mother and the heartless lion,

  three on one side,

  three on the other.

  They wear wooden armor, strapped to arms and chest and legs with vines.

  I am horrified they stripped tree bark to clothe themselves.

  But they have never cared for the wood where we were born.

  They begin to sing,

  a war song that shrieks through the air.

  The wood roars in answer.

  The trees bearing my cage move faster, faster.

  I look for my sister with roses in her hair,

  but I do not see her.

  She is the only one missing.

  Clouds knot overhead,

  heavy with lightning,

  with rain.

  I whisper yet another plea to my brothers,

  though I know even if they were here,

  they could not stop our mother.

  She commands every tree in the forest.

  She burns with the old anger.

  At last, at last, she will have her revenge on the human king

  and she will take

  the whole world

  with him.

  I shudder in my cage.

  I hope Owen is far from here.

  I hope he will not come to face the fury of my mother’s wood.

  I want him to live.

  To forget me.

  To be happy.

  I never should have left

  violets

  on his windowsill.

  Tears

  run

  rivers

  down

  my

  face.

  They taste of salt,

  the one bit of humanity

  my monstrous body

  still clings to.

  The wood marches on and on.

  We come to a village. The trees rip the buildings apart,

  stone

  by

  stone.

  The humans run from us, screaming.

  My sisters lure them back with their song.

  I am powerless to stop them.

  They laugh as they kill, as bones break and blood drenches the ground.

  They fill their orbs with souls. The earth swallows the bodies.

  And then there is nothing of the village left

  save dust.

  My mother watches all from atop the heartless lion.

  When the slaughter is over, my sisters come and kneel before her, offering their orbs.

  My mother cracks them open one by one.

  She drinks the souls.

  Gorges herself.

  She commands my sisters: “Go. The Eater and his army ride to meet us. He dares to think he can prevail against my wood. Show him he is wrong. Kill his soldiers. Kill them all, save the Eater alone.”

  My sisters bow. Then they are gone into the trees.

  My mother laughs. She throws back her head and sings to the sky,

  and her song

  is even more beautiful

  and terrible

  than she is.

  And then

&nb
sp; she turns

  to me.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  OWEN

  WE RIDE WEST, UNDER WRITHING CLOUDS, ALL THE KING’S army at our heels.

  The siren is bound by a length of cord to the king’s saddle, and she stumbles and trips as she tries to keep her feet and not be dragged.

  I can’t look at her. I can’t keep my eyes off of her. In every line of her frame I see Seren. I’m sick and afraid.

  And then we come, once more, to the wood.

  It’s a great, dark mass, branches snarled and stirring. It stretches out of sight to the north and the south, in a place that, even yesterday perhaps, was nothing but a grassy plain.

  The king unhooks a torch from his saddle. He glances at it. It flares to life.

  Luned reaches for her torch, and behind her, officers shout for all the soldiers to do the same.

  Light flares all down the brow of the hill.

  The siren shrinks from the heat of the king’s torch, as if she fears he will burn her with it.

  Instead, he kicks his horse into a run, and they plunge into the wood, jerking her behind.

  Luned follows suit, and we lurch after the king, the Gwydden’s Wood closing around us.

  The king flings his torch into the undergrowth. Luned sets hers to the spindly branches of a dead tree.

  The vanguard reaches the border of the wood, and then there are more torches than I can count.

  A wall of heat and light flares up. With it comes the sound of high, inhuman keening.

  The trees are screaming.

  The king leads us through the forest, racing into the flames, fanning them hotter, brighter.

  The siren trips, choking after him, a helpless creature in the smoke.

  The trees leer over us, grabbing at us with hanging branches, tripping horses with rapidly growing vines, dragging soldiers to the ground and strangling them with roots.

  But they cannot fight against the flames.

  “TAKE MY SWORD!” screams Luned.

  I fumble to pull it from her saddle, but I cannot bring myself to attack the trees.

  She curses, shoving the torch into my hand and claiming the sword for herself. She hacks off tree limbs and they crash to the ground.

  The wood burns and the wood screams, and all is a rush of speed and heat.

  The trees reach for me. Branches graze my shoulders, snag in my hair.

  I fight them off and duck low, struggling to keep my seat.

  Smoke burns my eyes. Soldiers scream and the wood howls. I can’t keep my eyes off the tree siren. I can’t help but think that Seren would mourn the death of the trees, if she were here. So part of me mourns, too.

  Luned shouts as a branch grabs her, nearly shaking her from the horse. I fling her torch at the tree. It hisses and shrinks back, and Luned and I ride onward.

  I hear their music before I see them, sudden and silver in the air. Their song twists through the noise of the screeching trees, creating a mad and horrible counterpoint.

  The bound siren turns toward the music, and in her there is suddenly a hard, wild joy.

  They come through the smoke and the fire: six of them, silver and shining among the dark trees. My heart seizes and my breath chokes off.

  But none of them have violets in their hair.

  They are so like her, but they are not her. They are monstrous. She is not.

  Oh God.

  Oh God. She is not.

  The king howls in some awful, mad delight, and swings off his horse. He seizes the captured siren by the throat. “Now to earn your keep, little witch!”

  He rips the vines from her mouth with one hand, while he snaps the fingers of his other. A miniature star dances white-hot in his palm.

  The clamor of the sirens’ music shrieks around us, tangled with the wind and the howling trees.

  The captured siren grins. Opens her mouth.

  But before a single note can drop from her lips, the king shoves the star down her throat.

  He shouts a word into the air, a word that crackles with heat and magic.

  One moment the siren is screaming in agony and her sisters are shrieking their awful music.

  The next moment all is silent but for the crackling trees.

  The six sirens still stand in the midst of the wood.

  But they have stopped singing.

  They open their mouths. No sound escapes.

  I have only a moment to stare before the king is yanking me down from Luned’s horse.

  “A silence spell,” the king says, as if we’re conversing at a dinner party. “To level the playing field. Give my soldiers a fighting chance.”

  The siren with roses in her hair collapses to the ground, hands gripping her throat. Her eyes roll wild. She gasps for breath.

  “What did you do?” I choke out.

  The king shrugs. “Burned her vocal cords. Used magic to counteract the sirens’ song. Silence spell. Now to give myself a little extra boost.”

  Suddenly he’s gripping my shoulder so hard I hiss in pain, and yanking the siren’s necklace from his throat. He shoves the orb into my chest.

  A scream rips out of me. I’m back in the king’s observatory, his clawed machine sunk into me, scrabbling for my soul.

  Pain swallows me. The trees overhead thrash and howl. Dimly, I’m aware of the clash of battle, the snap of wood, of bone.

  The king curses, flings me to the ground.

  Suddenly I can breathe again.

  The orb has shattered in his hands.

  “Something stronger than wood magic has bound your soul,” he hisses. “You’re of no use to me. Either of you.” He curses again, stomps on my arm with his boot.

  I shriek as the bone snaps, as pain bursts white behind my eyes.

  I try to heave myself up with my good arm, turning my head in time to see Elynion drive his knife into the wounded siren’s heart.

  For a moment, her eyes grow wide. Then she is still. Her lips are black and charred. Smoke curls off of her.

  Elynion leaves me where I lie.

  I blink and see my mother in the mud, pressing her hand against my chest. Her words echo in my mind. One last spark of power. To guard you from her. So she can never take your soul, the way she took mine.

  It was my mother, protecting me all this time. Her love was stronger than wood magic, stronger than Elynion’s machines, even stronger than a tree siren’s orb.

  Grief weighs on me, so heavy I want to lie here forever and let it turn me, bit by bit, to dust.

  The battle rages past me. I lift my bleary eyes to see the sirens locked in combat with soldier after soldier. They no longer have their music, but they still have their strength. Their rage.

  They twist bodies and break necks. They open their mouths in soundless screams as they kill and kill and kill.

  The trees burn, but still the sirens fight. Still they lead the wood against Elynion’s army.

  And even without their music, they’re winning.

  I stare, numb, as they push the army back, past the body of their dead sister, past the flaming trees. I can’t see Elynion anymore.

  There is nothing but smoke and ash, raining down around me like snow.

  I wish the king had taken my soul. I don’t even want it anymore.

  I let my eyes drift shut.

  “Merrick. Merrick.”

  I open my eyes. Baines kneels over me, his face streaked with blood and ash. “I’ve lost Rheinallt. I’m not losing you. Come on.”

  He helps me to a sitting position, makes an awkward sling for my arm out of his jacket.

  He glances at the dead siren and shudders.

  “Rheinallt?” I whisper as he tugs me to my feet.

  There’s a riderless horse rearing and thrashing, its reins tangled in a burning tree. Baines frees the creature, calms it. Hoists me into the saddle and climbs up behind me.

  The horse lurches forward, and we ride through the burning wood, out onto the plain.

  “Rheinall
t is dead?” I say.

  Behind me, Baines shakes his head. “He deserted. Disappeared after we tried to spring you from prison.”

  “Wouldn’t have thought it of him,” I gasp.

  “Me neither.”

  Another force of trees have come down from the north. They join the tree sirens, push Elynion’s soldiers back and back. They are the ocean, the king and his army a dwindling fleet before them.

  But there are a handful more horsemen who have escaped the burning wood. We ride to join them. One by one, we salute each other.

  “To the king,” says Baines, unsheathing his sword.

  There’s a spare sword strapped to the saddle, and I draw it with my good arm.

  “To the king,” I echo.

  “To the king!” the other soldiers shout.

  We ride hard across the plain, to where the battle rages on. If there is the smallest chance that Elynion, in all his brutality, can stand against the Gwydden, can keep her wood from devouring the world, I must fight with him. When it’s over, I’ll kill him for what he did to my father.

  We hurtle toward the sirens and the wood, and I wonder where Seren is, if she remembers our nights on the hill, if she will come and help to turn the tide against her mother.

  Or if she has chosen to become, once more, a monster.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  SEREN

  MY MOTHER DISMOUNTS FROM THE HEARTLESS LION.

  The bones of her dress clack and clatter,

  a twisted music

  for a soulless queen.

  The trees carrying my cage set me on the ground. With a wave of her hand, my mother sends them on to fight with the rest. Her eyes do not leave mine. “As for you, my youngest.” She flicks her wrist and the bone cage bursts outward.

  My terror brings me to my knees.

  This is the moment

  of my death.

  When my mother has slain me,

  I will go into darkness

  if I go into anything at all.

  I

  do

  not

  have

  a

  soul.

  Beyond this world,

  there is nothing for me.

  I bow before her. My head presses into the grass. It reeks of blood and waste, the tangible scent of fear chased with the tang of the burgeoning storm.

  She commands me: “Get up.”

  I do not. How can I?

  “GET UP!”

  I lift my head, drag myself to my feet.