by Amber Argyle
Larkin dropped to her knees and took her sister’s too-thin face in her hands. She really was fine. Sela smiled brilliantly back. Larkin bundled her sister into her arms and rocked her back and forth, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Sela, you know you’re not supposed to go into the For-bidden Forest! The stirring—how did you even get past it?”
Sela rested her hands on Larkin’s shoulders, her little brow furrowed in concentration. Something broke free inside Larkin—a burst of light where before there had been only darkness.
She realized her eyes were closed. When she opened them, the last vestiges of the oppressive hatred were gone. In its place, warmth and life spread through her, growing and enlarging until her limbs tingled with energy and power. She took a free breath. She felt alive, more alive than she’d ever felt before. The sensation was familiar, and yet foreign at the same time—like the stories her mother used to tell of her privileged childhood.
Larkin looked at the forest with new eyes. It no longer seemed a dark and foreboding place. Instead of sinister, the shadows seemed cool and inviting, promising protection and safety. The rotting leaves smelled spicy and fresh. Birdsong sounded in the distance. The new sensation was so strong it overwhelmed Larkin’s fear.
“All better,” Sela whispered as she patted Larkin’s cheek with a hand that smelled of crushed plants and dirt.
Larkin gaped at her sister. “What did you do?”
Sela shrugged. “The trees are our friends.” Her big green eyes full of concern, Sela thrust the flowers into her face. “Picked flowers for you.”
Remembering where they were, Larkin brushed the tears from her cheeks as her nervous gaze swept over the meadow. It now seemed a pretty place, but it was all deception. This was the Forbidden Forest. And Sela might have escaped its stirring, but she wouldn’t outrun its beast, with its terrible claws and insatiable hunger. If it found them, they were as good as dead.
She forced herself to be calm. Running for safety would do her no good if she went the wrong way. “I’m lost, Sela. I don’t know the way back.”
Sela patted Larkin’s cheek again. “Larkin, don’t cry.”
Larkin gave a wobbly smile and looked around again, trying to remember where she’d come into the meadow. Something out of place caught her attention, and her gaze snapped back.
In the shadows of a tree, a man watched them. He stood far enough away that she could cover his form with her outstretched hand. Her heart lightened with hope. Had one of the villagers come for them after all?
The man stretched back a bowstring in one fluid motion, the arrow flying directly toward them. Larkin could do little more than let out a squeak of surprise and hunch protectively over Sela, her eyes squeezing shut. Behind her came an inhuman scream of pain and a crash.
Holding her sister tight, Larkin whipped around and leaped to her feet. She staggered back from a writhing, monstrous lizard the size of a man, an arrow sticking out of its eye.
The beast had found her.
With another scream, it clawed at the arrow until it broke off. Its remaining eye fixed on her, and its tongue flicked out to taste the air. It charged, mouth full of curving teeth. Larkin jumped back. Its maw snapped shut over empty air. It gathered itself to lunge, when another arrow bloomed from its gaping mouth. The creature gave a roaring shriek.
“Run!” came a cry from behind her.
Move, she screamed at her sluggish body. Gasping a breath into her starving lungs, Larkin held her sister tight and sprinted away from the creature, toward the man running in their direction. He hauled an ax and shield from his back and charged the creature. The lizard lunged, its massive tail launching it forward. The man braced himself behind his shield, ax swinging up and under. They collided in a heap.
Clutching Sela to her, Larkin panted and waited for one or the other of them to move. If there were more beasts, she would need this man. If he didn’t rise . . . she didn’t know what she would do. Sela lay still in Larkin’s arms, her hands fisted in Larkin’s hair. Larkin rubbed her back, trying to emit comfort she herself didn’t feel.
A groan made Larkin tense—was it man or beast? The beast’s great body shifted and rose, then flopped to the side as the man pushed himself out from under it. Relief flickered in his eyes when he saw her. He pushed to stand, planted his foot on the beast’s side, and yanked his ax out, scanning the clearing.
“Did its teeth so much as scratch you or the child?” He had an oddly formal accent.
Larkin shook her head, but he wasn’t looking at her. “No,” she managed. His head was shaved, except for a long braid behind one ear. He was beautiful, his body muscled and his skin dark, though as he came closer, she noticed pock scars on his cheeks. His clothes, though finely made, were worn thin and bloody.
She didn’t recognize him, and she knew everyone in town by sight. Perhaps he was from one of the other towns or cities that made up the United Cities of Idelmarch?
“Who are you?” Larkin asked.
“My name is Denan.” He rinsed his blood-soaked ax in the stream, dried it, and reattached it and the shield to his back.
“I’m Larkin. This is my sister, Sela. Thank you for helping us.”
He strode over to where he’d dropped his bow and picked it up. “What are you doing inside the forest? Don’t you know how dangerous it is?”
She stiffened. “Sela wandered in. I came looking for her.”
He approached her, brows drawn down disapprovingly. She forced herself not to back away from him as he paused in front of her. “You should have watched her better.”
She ground her teeth and reminded herself that this man saved their lives. “Yes. I should have.”
He gave her a long, appraising look, noting the sharp bones of her wrists and the threadbare state of her skirt and her father’s too-large, tattered shirt. She was suddenly aware of how fine Denan’s clothing and boots were. And how strangely cut. He wore a pair of close-fitting leather trou-sers, a tunic that came to points in front of his thighs, and a cloak—all a mottled green that mimicked the dappled shadows. She shifted her dirty bare feet, embarrassed by her ragged hem.
He stepped past her, toward the tree where she’d first seen him. “You’ve made too much noise. It will attract more of them.”
“More beasts?” Sela whimpered. Larkin heartily agreed with her. She shifted her sister’s weight and hurried after him. Even if he was brusque, he had the weapons.
Denan rummaged through his pack and pulled out something bundled in cloth. “They’re called gilgads. They’re venomous, and their hide is like armor. You have to go for the eyes or their soft underbelly with arrows. Axes can pierce them if you put enough momentum behind it, but you have to keep clear of their teeth, which is where the shield comes in.”
Sela whimpered.
“You’re scaring her,” Larkin chided.
Denan’s expression softened. He held out a bit of hard bread to Sela. “They can’t hurt you if you know how to kill them, Sela.”
Her sister took it—Sela never turned down food—and began nibbling a corner.
“We’re lost,” Larkin said. “Can you show us the way back to Hamel?”
Denan held out another piece of the bread for Larkin. His cuff pulled back to reveal raised scars on the inside of his right wrist. Realizing she was staring, she took the bread, but hesitated to eat it, pride warring with the hollow ache of her stomach. She settled for stuffing the bread in the pouch at her waist, the one she used to hold anything edible she gathered during planting. She hoped it wouldn’t get too much dirt on it from the roots she’d dug earlier.
Ignoring the protest of her watering mouth, Larkin asked again, “Can you take us home?”
He started into the forest. “This way.”
Larkin looked back and noted the storm coming from the other side of the meadow. It had been raining when she entered the forest. “No, it has to be back that way.”
“It isn’t.” He pulled out something from inside hi
s cloak—a set of panpipes.
“You don’t understand. It was storming when we left. And the storm is that way.” She tipped her head in the direction she thought they should go.
“My people are known as the pipers. Would you like to hear me play?” Without waiting for her to answer, he rested his pipes on his bottom lip. A melody, haunting and full of longing, poured forth. A melody that reminded Larkin of a lullaby her mother had hummed long ago, back when she used to smile.
An old remembrance roused within Larkin—a memory deeper than memory. A place her soul knew, even if her body didn’t. Her injured hand buzzed, and she drifted into another time and place.
She was in an elegant boat, her hair long and wavy down her back. She wore white, a golden headdress crowning her head. Before her, an enormous tree glowed silver. A crowd dressed in finery stood by rank, waiting for her.
Denan continued to play, and she followed, stepping where he stepped, moving when he moved. He glanced back and smiled. She smiled too, eager for him to keep playing. She would follow that song wherever it willed her.
“The Song of the White Tree,” Denan said, bringing her back from wherever she’d gone.
Larkin shook herself and glanced back. She couldn’t even see the meadow anymore. Sela slept in her aching arms. How far had they come while she’d been lost to the sound? “Where is this tree?” she sighed.
“In the Alamant.” He gestured to the south.
She staggered to a stop. “But the only thing south is more of the Forbidden Forest.”
Denan reached for Sela. “Why don’t you let me carry your sister? You look tired.”
Unsure, Larkin stepped back. The haunting melody echoed through her, but as she peered into the towering trees, a sliver of fear writhed inside her. “Shouldn’t we be there by now? How long have we been walking?”
Denan stared at her like a cat watching a sparrow, waiting to see where they might land. She took another step back. “Wh-who are you? Why are your clothes and hair so strange? And that music . . .” She couldn’t remember anything from when he started playing to when he stopped. She took another step back. “What did you do to me?”
“I’m taking you somewhere safe.” He lifted the pipes to his mouth and started playing. The song reawakened a river of longing inside her, the current threatening to pull her under again. She hefted her sister higher, the edge of the wound on her palm catching on her sister’s tunic. Pain flashed up her arm. That pain brought with it a moment of clarity even as the first raindrop hit the back of her head and skidded down her neck.
For a moment, it was Larkin’s will battling against the song’s pull, and she was being swept under again. She focused on the pain in her hand. On her sisters and her mother. And Bane . . . She was supposed to meet him at the river later.
This man was as dangerous as the beast he’d slain. Only, instead of tooth and claw, Denan was using magic. She needed a weapon, a shield, or— A buzzing tingle spread from her hand, shot up her arm, and rooted through her body. The song’s hold over her shattered. She gasped and staggered back.
He stopped playing. His face shifted from shocked to grim. “Don’t run.”
Clutching her sister to her chest, Larkin whirled and sprinted for the meadow, her injured hand pounding in rhythm with her frantic heart.
Are you dying to know why people the world over are getting lost in the Forbidden Forest? Get your copy of Stolen Enchantress today!
✽✽✽
About the author
Bestselling author Amber Argyle writes fantasy and romance. Her award-winning books have been translated into numerous languages and praised by such authors as NYT bestsellers David Farland and Jennifer A. Nielsen.
Amber grew up on a cattle ranch and spent her formative years in the rodeo circuit and on the basketball court. She graduated cum laude from Utah State University with a degree in English and physical education, a husband, and a two-year-old. Since then, she and her husband have added two more children, which they are actively trying to transform from crazy small people into less-crazy larger people. She's fluent in all forms of sarcasm, loves hiking and traveling, and believes spiders should be relegated to horror novels where they belong.
To receive her starter library of four free books, simply tell her where to send it.
OTHER TITLES BY AMBER ARGYLE
Forbidden Forest Series
Lady of Shadows
Stolen Enchantress
Piper Prince
Wraith King
Curse Queen
Witch Song Series
Witch Song
Witch Born
Witch Rising
Witch Fall
Fairy Queens Series
Of Ice and Snow
Winter Queen
Of Fire and Ash
Summer Queen
Of Sand and Storm
Daughter of Winter
Winter's Heir