I would not go inside.
Mylene had barely the time to dive out of the way before I’d seized Lindy’s hand, throwing it off of me with the dullest of sparks before shoving her away, a soft pant escaping me as the smaller woman stared me down, a slight smirk traveling across her features. I felt the energy travel across my hands, condensing more than before, forming more defined bursts of energy.
“And here I was, thinking that you would not fight. That you were useless like the rest of them,” Lindy said. “Mylene,” she said, her voice urging the other young woman to run.
I couldn’t have that.
A small scream escaped the blonde as a flash of lightning struck beside her, forcing her to jump back. Oh, how I wish it had hit her.
“You are attentive,” Lindy said, the skin on her hands growing white right before my eyes. “It was fun to fight you the first time, but I had hoped that we’d do so again under different circumstances. I suppose I shall have to knock you down once more.”
“You will not be able to,” I spat, rounding on her.
“You need to snap her out of it,” Mylene began to plead in the background. “You need to get her back to reality—”
“I’ve had enough of you,” I said, jerking a hand out in her direction. She screamed as another bolt landed beside her and she only narrowly got out of the way. “When I am done with Lindy, I will kill you. That is a promise.” Never mind the fact that I’d never killed anyone. Never mind the fact that I’d never wanted to kill anyone. The rational, reasonable part of my head was gone, now all I could think about was getting into the forest and making her pay.
“Wren,” Lindy’s voice warned, and it was a stupid mistake. I narrowly dodged as she threw a punch, her fist swinging by my head. If she hadn’t spoke, I wouldn’t have realized.
“I am going to those woods.” I said. “I am going back in, you trying to stop me is just an inconvenience.” The voices were demanding it, pleading for me to go in. I couldn’t understand half of their strange words, just the need to be there, to follow their wishes.
Another punch sailed by my head, and I used the opportunity to kick out her legs, having paid enough attention in training to know that every punch left you off balance. Had they even bothered to train her? Or did they have faith in her strong temper?
She rolled as my hand swung down to meet her, narrowly missing the burst of electricity that could have fried her whole. That wasn’t good, I didn’t want to hurt her, but if I had to…
“Stay still, I’d rather knock you out than wound you,” Lindy growled.
I could practically feel the electricity in my teeth, my whole body vibrating at the statement. She’d knock me out? I’d like to see that. One touch of my hand and she would be down. I darted to reach her, getting closer but still missing her. She was quick.
But I could be quicker.
“Wren, think of Luka!” That pathetic, quivering welp. They’d really thought that she could take care of me? That Mylene was capable of handling me and the others? “Luka would be so sad if you were to leave, wouldn’t he?”
“Don’t say his name,” I said, it was easy at this point to startle her, to send the same energy back beside her once more. This time I caught her a bit, relishing in the hiss of pain she released as Lindy marveled below me. “He is not yours. Maybe not mine either, but definitely not yours,” I growled.
“You are strong,” Lindy said, looking up at me. For a moment, I thought it to be an admission of defeat.
I forgot that people like Lindy don’t lose, they just keep fighting.
Suddenly, I was on the ground, her small body crawling over me and pinning me down. Her hand raised above my head, her breath even from years and years of using her powers. “But I am stronger,” she said. “I will freeze you to the ground if I have to. You should give up while you’re ahead.”
My panting slowed as I stared at her, up at the white frost gathering in her skin. The forest. That was all I could think of, how I needed to get to the woods. She was in the way; she would always be in the way. She would stop me. I had to get her off, I had to stop her from sticking me there—If the healer came, I would never make it to the woods. And then it came to me like a jolt of electricity.
Literally.
I felt it course across me, flickering across my skin and through my clothing. Shocking the areas where Lindy made contact, where she tried to rip her hands off of me as she realized. The shame was that electricity worked fast, far faster than I could even move.
Mylene’s scream echoed off of the mountainside as Lindy fell off of me, collapsing to the side, her body giving in to the sting of current that ran across my skin. I let out a soft gasp, my body ringing with pain, but Lindy’s eyes rolled back as her head hit the ground and she fell unconscious.
I had won. The realization was overwhelming.
“No, no, no—Luka! Luka!” I heard the screams hit the air as Lindy fell and I rose, Mylene was consumed with fear. Good. She should have been.
I was always one to keep my promises.
“Luka!” Her scream was loud, scattering the birds from the trees and bouncing off every trail on the mountain. I would kill her, I should have killed her, I should have—
You should go to the forest, a voice came, to him, to the one who truly cares for you, before the others return. They would stop you, the fae boy with the scarred ears would stop you. I felt my body sway with the command. It was right, I had to go. They would hear her loud screams. They were probably already on their way back, hurrying through the trees. I could not know how long I had.
It was her lucky day.
I could hear her sob as I turned, the prayers running out from her mouth. Not to any god, of course, but to the kindness of the King and the land. If only she knew how little kindness actually existed.
“There you are,” I heard the woods seem to say when I entered them, this time audible and loud. A real, tangible thing, not just a call in my ear. “I’ve been waiting for you,” it chided, not in the voices that screamed in my head, but in that same, familiar voice that it had stolen. Luka’s.
It looked different this time, beautiful even. The fog still remained, as did the trees, but I could see subtle tracks of blue and pink running through them, creating an almost dream-like haze. I had never seen such a place, not one as subtly beautiful and alive as that.
It was blissful, so blissful that I could look away, ignoring the creatures that moved around me, marveling at me in my dirty red tunic. Strange, ancient beings, ones to which I now belonged. The creatures of the woods, the Unseelies.
Monsters and fantasies alike.
Strange white horses with ghostly hair, small red-faced men with hands turned black from overwork, pointy eared ghouls with elongated mouths—creatures I had never seen, nor cared to read about. Creatures who were likely outlined in Luka’s book, marked as dangerous to humans. Now they saw me, a simple girl, entering their space. One who they had seen paraded through by the King just weeks before.
They could only marvel, some looking the slightest bit saddened. They slowed around me, watching me with wary eyes, likely taking in the blankness of my features and knowing how hollow I felt. But none touched me, not a single one fell out of line, for I belonged to another. I understood then that I belonged to him entirely, that there was no fighting or escaping it.
An ugly, wrinkled thing with large, round eyes watched me as I passed it by, the slightest whimper escaping its lips. It almost looked to be in mourning. I was tempted to turn around then, to tell him of how happy I was, how overjoyed I felt returning to the woods. There I would meet my beloved again; there he would care for me. There was no need to cry for me, not when I would finally be happy. Not when I was finally truly loved, desired in a way that the man who had confessed his love to me that morning could never imagine; cherished in a way that only my dearest who waited in the woods could ever cherish me.
I had been so rude to make him wait.
With every step, I c
ould feel part of me leave, that person in the back of my mind who was screaming at me to escape. I knew better, I knew that that person was wrong. Why would I walk away from someone so beautiful? Why would I leave the man I loved? Why did I let them take me to begin with? I should have told him that I didn’t want to leave then, I should have fought Adam.
Overhead, I saw the trees begin to arch, the pathway through the narrow trees growing wider. The sun grew less and less visible, the canopy of the trees almost blocking it entirely. It began to look like the night sky.
“Poor girl,” I heard a croaking voice say. “She has been lost.”
“So tasty, do you truly believe that he will keep her?” Said another, high pitched Unseelie.
“A lamp, how funny. It’s of no use to her when off,” another voice chuckled. “The King’s wench.”
“Oh, they say so many things about you, my dear; they’re merely jealous” the voice spoke once more, the calm, deep hum of Luka’s voice, made all the more pleasant by belonging to the man I loved. I could almost see him in the back of my mind, his regal features and cunning smile. He was waiting. “You are so close, you are so near to me, and today I will let you stay. Today I will keep you.”
I broke into a blissful smile as I approached the circle of trees, knowing that he would be there, knowing that he was waiting.
“Today you will become another member of the forest.”
Chapter Eighteen
I saw him there, his arms outstretched, inviting me in as his face bore a kind smile. His features were angelic, practically glowing in the moonlight. Every part of my body wanted to run towards him with irrational speed, to throw myself in his arms.
But it hit me at the same time as something else, something poignant. Fear. My fear. The actual emotion buried behind the illusion.
My skin burned. For a moment, I felt such an intense pain that I could not comprehend it, like the world around me was the thing hurting me. Reality was trying to pull me under and something small, something powerful had begun to intervene.
“Why aren’t you coming?” He said, “let me hold you, my dear.” Suddenly I was not in the beautiful forest anymore, but rather the haunting woods, where parts of the trees hung low and barren. I was not looking at my lover and walking towards him, but rather, I was looking at another Unseelie, another danger.
All around me, danger. All around me, the smell of wet leaves and rotting vegetation. The trees that once held so much wonder now appeared to bear a heavy canopy of cobwebs and branches so bleached that they looked like bone.
And in a flash, it was all gone. I was back in the beautiful forest, back to staring at my lover, alone. The leaves hung low; they were now pinker in tone than they had been before. It was beautiful. Twice as beautiful as it had been before, twice as enchanting as I first remembered.
And it wasn’t real.
My mind kept flickering, unable to grasp which reality I was meant to see. Before, the illusion had not been so great, but now? Now I was wholly bewitched. But rationality was quickly coming back to me.
“Wren,” it said, and though I wanted to move, I could not. I could not walk towards him, I could not bury my head in his chest, I could not let him hold me. But I also couldn’t run.
It wasn’t fazed by that; I think it expected it. I think it knew that I was beginning to fade away in more ways than one, that the world was slowly beginning to come back to me. It came anyway, slowly sauntering towards me.
I was caught in between terror and joy. The desire to vomit and the desire to smile.
Somewhere out there, a small Haldian girl was cursing my name. A part of me wondered if she had been found yet. Maybe the hunting party was already looking for me.
All the while, there I was, this thing’s arms wrapping around me, clutching me close to its chest like it was protecting me instead of what it was really doing. It was just another fae seeking to use me, another fae seeing my weakness and turning it against me. It was just another Theo.
“I felt your heart break the other day,” it said, trying to pull me in. “It pained me.”
Did it? It sounded genuine. I jerked back to check that fact, a huge mistake. I should have known better than to look.
“He hurt you, didn’t he?” It said—no, he said—no—I was going to be sick. I felt awake again in a way, yet still so far from myself, from my body. The word beautiful hit my mind at the same time as the word frightening. “I would never hurt you.”
Somehow, I doubted that.
“Look at me,” it said.
“I’m going to be sick,” I replied. My ears were burning, I didn’t know why. I felt hot all over, itchy, like I was being dragged somewhere else, like a rope was being tugged and chafing every inch of my body.
It recoiled at the thought of me vomiting, but then, remembering itself, it reached forward, trying to brush my hair back behind my ear in a move that Luka had done so many times before. But the second its hand made contact with my skin, it flinched, tearing it away like it was burnt. It hissed glaring down at me.
I jerked back, surprised to see its face change. For a moment, it was not Luka looking back at me, but something else. Something with white, stringy hair and far too perfect skin. Something with blue, hollow eyes and a deep divet in the side of its mouth practically made for a pipe.
A single blink of my eyes, and it was gone. Luka was standing there once more, rage evident across his features. The skin he had touched throbbed.
“I…”
“Someone is looking for you,” it said harshly. “Come, we mustn’t let them take you away.”
I didn’t want to go, not at all.
“Come, girl!” It demanded, snatching up my hand with a furious grip. “Before they find you, before they take you away—”
“You’re not real,” I said, like it was a revelation and not something that I knew, that I had always known. I flinched as the burning behind my ears intensified, almost confirming the fact. My immediate reaction was to jerk back.
It hissed in irritation. “Come now, girl,” it growled.
“No,” my eyes narrowed, “I don’t think I should.” The obviousness of the statement was not lost on me.
Its nostrils flared, its face outraged. “I am doing you a kindness, young girl, now do me a favor and come with me—before they find you. You are lucky that I have been so kind. Come with me before your friends take you.”
“Oh, please,” I said, wrinkling my nose, insulted that he would call half of them my friends. Perhaps Adam, Luka, Lindy, Winry… Most, but not the King who was likely hunting for me, Mylene who was spinning a sob story, or Camden—Especially not Camden. I don’t think Camden could ever even come close to pretending to be my friend.
“Come before I will have to make you come,” he said, his face changing back to the aged one as I winced at a particularly sharp sting of pain. “We will be able to avoid them if you come with me, if you go near the roots.”
“What roots?”
“The ones of the great elder tree,” he said impatiently. “The ones just beneath your feet. It’s the only way to stop it, the only way to weaken the hold of your bond. If you don’t want to be found, and you shouldn’t, you should heed my warning. I will keep you safe.”
“Why would I not want to be found?” I said quickly, attempting to tear my hand away.
“Because it is the only way to save this forest, stupid girl,” he sneered. “Now come with me, or your life will become hellish in another way—”
I made no such moves.
The creature veered around, looming over me, attempting to force itself into my gaze. I recoiled as its face changed again, beautiful once more. My pulse slowed.
“It is a shame,” it hissed. “Because you could be such a wonderful thing, a thing that could save Whynne. But you are stubborn and rude, and now I will be forced to make you do the right thing.” It was desperate, needing for me to go willingly. “You already adore him, don’t you?” It said, indi
cating its form. “He is a creature of this forest, a gift of the woods. You should seek to save it, to save him.”
“I am not that fond of him,” I snarled. “Not enough to let you keep me here.”
It swung back, its eyes wild and its nostrils flared. “Fine then,” it said, jerking me towards it. “I shall waste my energy and enthrall you; I shall force you to bend to my will if need be.” It seized my chin, gripping it harshly as it yanked me forward, its wild eyes on mine. “You shall belong to me. If that is what it takes, so be it. I will keep you until you are old and grey. You should be happy about that, most humans are discarded after a certain age.”
I would have been glad to be discarded.
“You will live here, and you will never want or wonder. I will never push you away, I will never take another lover. I will have you at my side.”
Its lips lingered near mine, so close yet so far, taking in my expression. Fear. That was all I felt. Fear, until its eyes were on mine. Devotion after that. I would let it kiss me. I would let it have me.
“Tell me,” it said, as if testing the water, “that you love me.”
“I do,” I said, though my whole body revolted. I did not, not at my core. I thought him to be disgusting, mocking me in a way. But he was pretty, and I wanted to please him. I wanted so desperately for him to be happy so long as his eyes were on mine. “I’ve always loved you,” the words weren’t for it, I knew that. But did they feel like a lie at that moment? No.
“Then kiss me.” I would. I would let it kiss me. I wanted it to, I wanted the taste of it against my lips. “It is only proper for a union like ours.”
But before its lips could touch mine, something came barreling by, not knocking him over but me. I fell against the ground in a pile as the false Luka blinked, realizing that I’d moved. I wanted to get up then, I even tried to, because then I could go back to him—But something weighed me down. Something round and bald, wrinkly and odd.
Something that clapped its hands together, making the trees disappear in a flash.
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