by Amber Argyle
He relaxed a fraction. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She ground her teeth. “You paralyzed me and tried to kidnap me!”
“It was for your own good. If you’d stayed with me, it wouldn’t have been so painful.” He dragged her forward. “Be quiet. All your screaming yesterday attracted more gilgads, and they’re nearly impossible to detect in the dark.”
In the silence that followed, Larkin scrambled for some way out of this. What had stopped his magic from working on her before? Even as she thought it, her palm tingled. She concentrated on it and tried to make it do something. Nothing happened. She glanced over her shoulder at the home she would never see again if she didn’t find a way to free herself.
All at once, her power surged. Light flashed, and Denan went flying. Larkin didn’t question what had happened. She merely turned and ran.
“Larkin!” Denan growled. “You’re only making things worse for yourself!”
She didn’t look back. The branches whipped her face and tore at her hair. She bounded past the Curse Tree, leaped into the pasture, and took a single step toward town before something tangled around her legs.
She fell hard and looked back. Denan was running for her. Instinctively, she lifted her hand. Light flashed again, and he slammed into some kind of barrier. Keeping her hand up, she scrambled back and tugged at the ropes wound around her ankles. Denan pressed his palm against something like curving glass, the edges of which gleamed a faint amber.
He stared at her. “It cannot be.”
She pushed to her feet and backed away.
“No, Larkin!” He pounded against the solid air she’d somehow put between them. “You don’t understand what you are! There hasn’t been another like you born in a century!”
She shook her head. “Leave me alone, Denan.”
He lifted his hands helplessly. “I will come for you, Larkin. We have the same heartsong.” She didn’t know what that meant—didn’t want to know.
Standing, he pulled something from around his neck. He broke a branch from the Curse Tree. “In the morning, come back for this amulet. I’ll leave it hidden in the grass beneath this branch.”
“I won’t.”
He growled in frustration. “The amulet offers you protection.”
“Protection,” she scoffed. “The only thing I need protection from is you.”
“The Black Druids are coming.”
A shiver of dread ran down the length of her body. The Black Druids answered to no one, except perhaps the Forbidden Forest. She turned and strode away, her head spinning with what she had done.
“The boy, the one with the dark hair,” Denan called after her. “Do you love him?”
She whirled to face him. “Leave Bane alone!”
He lifted his head, as if she’d confirmed his question. “He’s not for you, Larkin.”
“And I suppose you are?”
“Yes,” he said, yet he didn’t seem happy about it.
“I’ll die first.” She turned and ran.
Larkin gasped awake and shot upright. Pain blasted through her, as though her muscles had been encased in glass that shattered into shards, stabbing her a thousand times over. Her vision swam, and she fought to stay alert.
“Larkin?”
Larkin’s vision slowly cleared. The familiar stone walls of her hut were illuminated by the soft glow of their cooking fire. Nesha knelt before her, concern in her vivid violet eyes, her dark auburn hair swept back in a braid. Everything appeared so normal that for a moment Larkin wondered if her foray into the Forbidden Forest was some horrible nightmare.
Breathing hard, Larkin jerked the bandage off her hand, revealing the dark sliver embedded in her palm. Terrified, she probed for the buzzing. There was only pain. Wincing, she shifted out of her blankets. Her gaze traveled slowly, reluctantly, down the length of her body. Her rough-spun skirt, once a dull blue, had faded and stained to the color of a smoky sky. It grew darker and more ragged around the hem, which brushed her ankles, where dried mud caked to her skin.
Not a dream, then. His music called to me, and I went. But she’d fought him off with a power she didn’t understand.
“But”—Nesha stared at Larkin’s feet—“we bathed you. Why are your feet dirty?”
Larkin couldn’t tell Nesha the truth; it was too raw and humiliating. “Where are Mama and Sela?”
“They went into town.”
It hurt that her mother wasn’t worried enough to be here when Larkin woke up. “Papa?”
“He said he was asked to patrol the forest’s edge.”
Which meant he was at the tavern drinking himself simple. Larkin reached for Nesha. “Help me up. I have to speak with the lord.”
“The lord? Larkin, you’ve been asleep almost a full day. You need to eat something and recover.”
Larkin sagged back. A full day?
Nesha filled a bowl with liquid from the cookpot. She brought it to Larkin, along with a cup of water. Suddenly ravenous, Larkin downed the water and the thin soup—fresh greens and some grains.
“Where did you get the grains?”
“It’s our seed wheat,” Nesha said, eyes downcast.
“We need that for the planting!”
Nesha shrugged. “Papa found Mama’s coins. It was the wheat seed or nothing.”
Things hadn’t always been this desperate, but a few years ago, wheat rot had taken more than half the town’s crop. And last winter had been a bad one, sickness running rampant. Larkin scraped the remaining grains into her mouth.
“Larkin, what happened in the forest?” Nesha said. “Did you see the beast? Does it have a horrible black mouth that stinks of rot?”
Curved teeth lunging for her. Larkin winced, trying to get the image out of her head. “Who told you that?”
“Maisy,” Nesha said softly.
“Crazy Maisy.” Larkin snorted. “She watched Sela go into the forest and did nothing to stop her.” Unlike Nesha, Larkin had never liked Maisy, even before she’d gone mad. Larkin had been relieved when the girl had gone to serve the druids in Landra three years ago. Maisy had returned last fall—or at least her body had. She’d left her mind behind.
Her father, Druid Rimoth, claimed she’d been blessed with the sight from the forest. Since her return, Crazy Maisy had predicted which girls would go missing next, so no one dared interfere as she wandered the fields, muttering darkly or singing and dancing.
“She went for her father,” Nesha said.
“For all the good it did.” Gritting her teeth, Larkin hauled herself up, braced her hip against the wall, and tugged on her wool cloak and clogs. “Sela went into the forest. I went after her. I did see a beast. It nearly killed Sela and me.”
Larkin stepped into the twilight and the rain, heading toward the bridge leading to the town. The breeze came down from the forest and tugged at Larkin’s cloak. She stared at the dark smudge of trees, unable to look away.
Nesha followed, her limp more pronounced in her hurry. “How did you escape?”
Larkin slowed her steps so Nesha could keep up. “There was a man,” she admitted. “He saved us.”
“A man!” Nesha exclaimed. “But no one can survive the forest.”
This one can.
“So he saved you?” Nesha clapped her hands in excitement. “But where is he? Why didn’t he bring you back?”
“Because after he saved us, he tried to lure us in deeper. I had to fend him off.”
Nesha stumbled to a halt. “Why would he do that?”
Larkin went over her interactions with Denan. Something had happened. Power had rushed through her. The tingle as she’d made it . . . What exactly had she done? She rubbed her palm uncertainly, trying to force the sliver out. A fierce ache spread up her arm. His words echoed through her: I will come for you.
Denan wanted her.
“He won’t have me,” she muttered under her breath.
“What?” Nesha asked.
“Nothing.” No
point in frightening Nesha with talk of kidnappers as well as beasts. She squinted at a glint of orange that flickered beyond the lord’s mansion. Fire. “Have they set fire to the forest again?” Gathering her skirt, she hurried ahead.
When Larkin was ten, the villagers had set the forest on fire. In a rage over his missing daughter, Lord Daydon had ordered the men to torch the forest, down to the last tree. The flames had risen high enough to burn the sky.
But the fires had snuffed out, as if they’d come up against an unassailable barrier. That night, the five men who had thrown the torches were found dead without a mark on them, and over two dozen girls went missing—half a generation gone overnight. Over the years, the trees had regrown preternaturally fast over the corpses of the fallen trees until they were gnarled, creaking behemoths again.
It had been the first time Larkin really understood the beast wasn’t a nightmare, but a creature of flesh and blood who could take her or her sisters at any time, and no one could stop him.
And now they were lighting fires again.
“It’s just a bonfire,” Nesha called after her.
Larkin’s attention slid toward the Forbidden Forest behind the bonfire. Despite her fear and aversion, it called to her, beckoning her like the sun beckoned seedlings from the ground.
“The beast take you,” she said quietly. “I will never answer that call ever again.”
Nesha shifted uncomfortably beside her. “Larkin?”
The wind picked up, bringing with it the smell of ashes. “What are they doing?”
“Making a sacrifice to appease the forest.”
A light rain pattered against Larkin’s back. She and Nesha tromped across the bridge and down the embankment. Bane’s manor house lorded over the rise before them. His home was built of the same rocks as Larkin’s, but that was where the similarities ended. Two stories high, it had a thatched roof and windows for every room. The back faced the river, his family’s pastures full of woolly cattle spreading out to the northeast.
Larkin skirted the hill and took the meandering path between the hill and the eerily empty town. The houses to her right were smaller, shabbier versions of Bane’s. Beyond the town, the bonfire blazed in the druid’s hay field, as close to the forest as the druid dared go.
Judging by the crowd’s size around the fire, Larkin guessed about a third of the town were there, around five hundred people. Less than usual, as so many were sick. Still, representatives from most families huddled against the wind. They formed a long line to toss in small bundles of dried lavender smeared with menstrual blood to appease the forest’s anger.
Over bowed heads and hands, the townspeople recited prayers, asking their ancestors for protection. Some of them slipped Rimoth coins and received his blessing in return. Others sang to the beat of the drums. The rain picked up. Those who’d finished started to leave.
Larkin and Nesha were halfway across the field when Nesha said, “You should put up your hood.”
“It’s not raining that hard.”
But as they approached the townspeople, some made wide berths around Larkin, their gazes averted. Others stared, their faces set in grim lines. One old woman spat at Larkin’s feet and made a sign to ward off the beast.
Larkin’s steps slowed. “Nesha, why is everyone acting as though I have the plague?”
“You may as well have.”
Larkin cringed as Alorica, a girl her own age, stalked toward them with the grace of a cat. The firelight cast her pretty face, dark skin, and tightly curled hair in shadow.
Nesha took hold of Larkin’s arm and tugged her forward. “Come on.”
Alorica sighed and fussed with the hood of her rich burgundy cloak trimmed with blue thistle embroidery. She was always drawing attention to her fine clothes and jewelry. “Eloquent as always, cripple.” She scrutinized Larkin. “Crazy Maisy is telling everyone that the forest stole your soul, that it forced its magic into you. She says eventually you’ll side with the trees and bring about our destruction.”
“What?” Larkin choked out. How could Maisy have possibly known about the magic?
“Come on, Larkin,” Nesha said.
Alorica gave a nasty grin. “Bride of the beast, Crazy Maisy called you.”
“Like your sister was the bride of the beast when the forest took her?” Larkin shot back.
Hatred flashed over Alorica’s face. “Keep Atara out of it, you worthless slut.”
Larkin stepped forward, hands balled into fists. Nesha pulled harder on her arm. Larkin planted her feet and whirled on her sister. “She deserves it.”
“People are watching you,” Nesha hissed. “Hitting her will make the rumors worse.”
Alorica trilled a laugh. “When you two have the time, you should really stop at the tavern. See what your father is up to.” Alorica waved her fingers as she strutted away.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the rumors?” Larkin growled.
“What good would it have done? Now hide your hair.” Nesha jerked Larkin’s hood up, tucking wayward locks out of sight.
Larkin’s eyes narrowed. If Nesha had heard the rumors, then so had their parents. “Mama came to the sacrifice, didn’t she?” It was required for one of them to make an appearance.
Giving up on Larkin’s hair, Nesha scanned the crowd. “Yes. And she brought Sela.”
“What Maisy has been saying, you have to know I would never—”
“I know, but . . . the town is so afraid. Girls go missing, but not like this, not in the middle of the day. It’s got them thinking . . . worrying that it might be like last time. Or worse.”
Larkin’s insides tightened. Without any more prompting from Nesha, Larkin tied her hair back with a bit of string from her pocket and straightened her hood.
The drummers started, the rhythm pounding against her skin like a frantic heartbeat. She kept her head down as she cautiously approached the press of bodies. The faces around her were bathed in crimson light. A goat fought the tether that kept it next to the fire.
She caught sight of Lord Daydon’s ankle-length purple coat. He stood with his back to her, apart from the crowd under a lone tree that separated his property from the druid’s.
Larkin breathed a sigh of relief at finding him so quickly. She tugged on Nesha’s arm, and the two of them made their way over to him. Someone beyond the lord spoke to him, gesturing angrily. She recognized Rimoth’s voice a second later. A shiver of revulsion worked up and down her spine. She slipped to the side, keeping the tree between herself and the men so they wouldn’t see her. Nesha followed reluctantly behind.
Larkin positioned herself behind the tree and peeked around so she could see Daydon’s back and Rimoth’s profile.
Rimoth spoke in his falsely mild way. “If you’re not going to listen to my counsel—”
“A crucible hasn’t been performed in over fifty years!” Daydon broke into a fit of coughing.
Larkin’s breath caught in her throat. A crucible? For her? Rimoth wanted to chain her up inside the forest to prove the forest didn’t want her. Waiting for the beasts or Denan or . . . Larkin shook her head. Bane wouldn’t let them.
“Circumstances demand it,” Rimoth said.
“This is different!” Daydon spat phlegm onto the ground. “She wasn’t called into the forest. She went on her own.”
“She’s not your daughter, Daydon. I know your son—”
“I said no.”
Rimoth stepped closer. “And what will you do when we awake one morning and an entire generation of girls is gone? The townspeople will be screaming for your blood!”
Nesha pulled Larkin back. “You need to get out of here,” she said under her breath. “Hide by the river. I’ll come for you if it’s safe.”
Larkin shook her head. If she was going to be trussed up like a sack of meat and thrown to the beast, she wanted to hear it from Daydon’s lips. But the lord shook his head.
“There will be no crucible.” He grabbed the back of Rimoth’s r
obes and hauled him toward the fire. “You will make the sacrifice, and we will be done with this!”
Daydon released him as they approached the fire, and Rimoth straightened his robes indignantly. The druid strode toward the bleating goat, a gleaming knife in his hands. The drums and murmurs of the crowd stilled as Rimoth straddled the animal, wrenched its head back, and slashed the knife across its throat. Blood sprayed into the fire as the animal kicked and thrashed. Larkin’s hand went to her own throat, and she swallowed hard. Nesha buried her forehead between Larkin’s shoulder blades.
“We offer sacrifice!” Rimoth’s eyes had taken on a maniacal gleam. “Blood that the beast might drink, meat that the beast might eat and be satiated. That he not hunger for the bones of our daughters. We honor the forest, knowing our own worthlessness, our own impotence, before its mighty vastness.”
He looped a cord around the goat’s still twitching leg, took a dozen steps to the forest, and tied the goat by a hoof from a low branch of a massive tree, where it swung in ever-shrinking arcs. He returned to the fire and washed the blood from his hands in a basin of water held by Maisy, who stared unflinchingly at Daydon.
When Rimoth was done, he flicked his hands toward the approaching lord. “My part is done. Whatever happens next be on your head, Daydon.”
Rimoth stormed past the lord toward the tree Larkin hid behind. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. She kept her head down, hoping he wouldn’t see her face. But his steps slowed, and he came to a stop beside her. “The forest gets what the forest wants, little girl. Your resistance will bring a curse on the entire town.”
Larkin glared up at him, but he was already leering at Nesha, who was by far the most beautiful girl in the town—probably in the entire United Cities of Idelmarch. If not for her clubfoot, she would have been the most sought-after girl in the town. But cripples were not allowed to marry, lest their deformity contaminate their children.
Larkin stepped in front of her sister to block Rimoth’s view. Rimoth gave her a slimy smile and slithered through the crowd. Larkin turned back to the fire to find Crazy Maisy standing at the crowd’s edge, staring at her.