by Hall, Linsey
Silence fell, but for the briefest second. The banshee’s howl ripped again through the trees. But instead of a banshee swooping out of the west, a horde of short, grotesquely muscled men poured from behind the oaks on all sides. They had long arms and wild red hair. Ana fired in tandem with Cam, slaying two of them. But two more poured out from behind the oaks in their place.
“They’re Pechs,” Cadan yelled. “They’ll crush you if they get their arms around you.”
Fireballs flew through the air, thrown by Esha and her sister, while bursts of colored magic shot from the witches’ hands, throwing the Caoineag off-track. Swinging swords took heads while Ana and Cam fired arrows through hearts.
But the Caoineag never stopped wailing and the Pechs never stopped coming, as if there was an endless supply of them.
“We need to keep moving. We’re close to the center,” Ana yelled. She could feel it, a tug like that which she’d experienced in Otherworld when she felt compelled to seek out her family. If they could just keep moving through the Pechs, fighting them off as they traveled. “I think—”
A root reached up and tripped her again, catching her ankle so that she fell hard onto her hands and knees.
She cursed and pushed herself to her feet. The trees tripped only her, the roots snapping out of the dirt to reach for her legs. She kept a wary eye on them as their group made slow progress to the center of the forest, toward whatever was pulling at her. Were there fewer Pechs? Or perhaps it was her mind, tired and terrified and hoping for an end.
And then she saw it. A great oak, split down the middle by lightning. One side dead, the other alive. That was what had been calling to her. That tree, specifically.
“Here!” she yelled, and the group ceased their slow forward movement, still fighting the Pechs. Though she wanted to go to the tree, to explore it, she and the other warriors would have to up their game now that the witches would be casting a spell to destroy the forest instead of defending against the Pechs.
The witches formed a small cluster in the middle of the group, joined hands, and faced outward toward the forest. As they chanted their spell, Ana and the rest began to shoot and stab and throw fire at the Pechs, barely holding them off. The Caoineag continued to wail, louder as the branches of the oaks began to tremble.
A symptom of the spell? Ana had no idea, and was too overcome by Pechs to dwell. She’d shot so many already, and they still came in such great numbers that there would be no end to them. Not until the spell was broken.
“It’s not working!” cried one of the witches. “The spell won’t hold!”
Shit. They had no backup if the spell didn’t work. Cam had been right; the forest was far too vast and the defenses too strong for them to cut the trees down by hand. Magic was the only way, but it wasn’t working.
Ana had no idea what to do, and the Pechs were driving her farther from the group. She’d been cut off when four had charged her. There was a hole in their defenses now, and she was surrounded on all sides by advancing Pechs. They stalked toward her, arms outstretched and ready to crush her.
One was only feet away, reaching out with its long arms, when a hard arm jerked her about the middle and lifted her into the air. High, higher. She realized that it wasn’t an arm at all, but the limb of the great half-dead oak tree. She thrashed and kicked, desperate to break its grip.
When it tucked her against its trunk as if it were holding a doll, the eeriest sense of euphoria and calm overcame her. It filled her every vein and every cell, a warmth and knowledge of incomparable strength.
I am this tree or this tree is me. She gasped and seized as memories filled her mind. Memories of the night with Cam in this forest, memories of a life before the one she knew. As a Dryad. Part of her soul was trapped in this tree. It was protecting her from the Pechs who clamored below. And it was probably the reason she had a second chance at a physical body. She was still attached to the earth through this tree.
“Free us,” it whispered in her mind. It filled her with a rage and desire to chop down every tree. For she wasn’t just fighting on behalf of Cam and the gods, but for her brothers and sisters whose souls were trapped in these oaks. The spell must work.
She whipped her head around to find the witches, but their faces were just as desperate and strained as before. The spell still wasn’t working. Cold terror spread across her skin.
What she caught sight of next made her stomach drop to the roots of the tree. Druantia was striding through the forest, visible only to Ana from her vantage point in the oak. An unholy light surrounded her as her features twisted with rage.
“Cam!” Ana screamed, pointing toward Druantia.
But he couldn’t hear her. No one could hear her over the din of the Caoineag that still swooped around the trees, reaching for her friends with outstretched claws.
Cam continued to hold off the Pechs, desperately trying to buy time for the witches. His back was to Druantia. She would sneak up on him. Ana clawed at the tree limb and screamed his name. No matter how wonderful it felt to be so close to the other half of her soul, she had to get to Cam.
But the tree wouldn’t budge, as if it knew something great and terrible were about to occur, and her cries were lost in the din. She strained to see Druantia. The priestess neared the group, only a dozen feet from Cam, and raised her hands as if to perform a spell. Just as she opened her mouth, Logan swept out from a tree behind her and snatched her up by the waist.
Ana struggled harder to escape the oak, kicking and punching and screaming, but never taking her eyes off Logan and Druantia.
Logan carried Druantia’s thrashing form toward Cam and yelled, “Hey, Camulos. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I think you want this one.”
Cam turned and cursed. Druantia shrieked and waved her arms. Tree limbs followed her motion, whipping out to knock Cam off his feet. Another swooped and yanked Logan off his. Druantia surged free and waved her arms, sending the oak limbs into a whipping frenzy that targeted Ana’s friends.
“Is that the witch who enchanted this forest?” Cora yelled as she ducked beneath a branch.
“Yes!” shouted Cam as he rose to his feet and sighted an arrow at Druantia. He shot, but she didn’t fall, just laughed maniacally with the arrow protruding from her chest.
“You can’t kill me,” she screamed, a wild, feral look in her eyes. “These trees feed me from the power and emotion trapped inside them. Your power!”
Cora stopped chanting to yell, “Make her bleed! Into the ground! Her blood is needed to seal our spell.”
Of course. Blood sacrifice had been needed to create these trees. It was required to end them as well. Druantia screeched and waved her arms once again, directing a hail of flailing tree limbs that struck Cadan and Esha off their feet, as well as several Pechs. It was chaos below, yet Ana was trapped up here.
“Please,” she whispered to the tree. “Please release me. I’ll free you. I’ll free you all.”
She felt the tree’s resistance and begged again. It shuddered and dropped her, and she had a feeling that it was the strength of her desire to be freed that had done the trick, not her plea. With hard ground finally beneath her feet, she yanked out three arrows and cut down the three Pechs closing in on her. She ran toward Cam, who fought off whipping tree limbs as he tried to get another clean shot on Druantia.
“Cam!” Ana screamed at him. “Use your sword. I’ll cover you.”
He had to be the one to take Druantia’s blood, and an arrow would never be enough. Cam plucked the short sword from the scabbard at his waist. Ana ran up behind him, shooting at the tree limbs to make them snap back temporarily. Cam advanced on Druantia, who still waved her arms frantically to direct the trees. But with Ana as cover, the tree limbs couldn’t land a decent hit.
When Cam neared Druantia, a tree limb swiped him across the back, opening a great wound that poured blood. Druantia laughed and sent another limb at him. He dodged, but not before it sliced his arm.
Finally, he reached her. Cam kicked Druantia to the ground and stabbed her through the chest so that the sword pinned her to the ground, her blood soaking into the dirt. She shrieked and writhed, but wouldn’t die.
But the tree limbs stopped fighting, and Ana felt their relief like a physical thing. The witches chanted louder, faster, as Druantia’s blood soaked into the earth. The Pechs stopped fighting, but the tree trunks didn’t snap as they were supposed to.
Free us. Ana heard it again and turned toward her tree. The magic just needed a boost.
She ran toward her tree, pulling her borrowed short sword from the scabbard at her hip. She took a great swing at the trunk as if the sword were an ax. It sank an inch into the wood, and Druantia howled louder. But a reverberation flowed through the forest, stretching outward toward all the trees.
The Caoineag finally stopped screeching, and with the silence, the witches’ chants carried through the forest. Suddenly, the sound of cracking wood punctuated the chants. The trees began to topple.
Ana darted toward the witches and Cam to get out of the way of falling trees, hoping that they wouldn’t topple toward the witches creating the magic. It worked. The warriors stood in a cluster as the great oaks crashed to the ground around them.
Ana looked down at Druantia. She lay still now, with hatred gleaming in her eyes. When she caught sight of Ana looking at her, she gritted her teeth and swung her arm in an arc. So quick that she barely saw it coming, the branch of an oak swung toward her, whipping around until it pierced her through the chest.
Incredible pain tore through her as the limb yanked free of her flesh, leaving a great gaping hole. Through the pain, Ana swore she could feel the oak’s regret. But all she could see was the glee on Druantia’s face.
Ana fell to her knees, then toppled backward, lying so that in some cruel twist of fate, she could watch Druantia’s face as her blood seeped into the earth in an ugly parallel of what had happened here so many years ago.
The distant sound of Cam’s roar of pain echoed through her as he fell to his knees beside her.
Mortal. She truly was mortal enough to die. Trees crashed around her, the ground trembling with the impact.
She felt Cam’s shaking hand on her cheek, tilting her face toward him. “Ana, Ana, Ana.”
She tried to talk, but could only cough.
“Damn it, Ana, I love you.” Pain laced every syllable.
He loved her?
“You’re so close to having a life on earth. Fight this,” he said, grief for her loss clear on his face.
Fight it? There was no way to fight a giant hole in her chest. She would die.
Though her vision was going black, she caught sight of her tree looming behind Cam. So close to the rest of her soul and to Cam, yet so far away.
Her tree stood strong, as if waiting for its compatriots. Finally, as Ana’s vision became nothing but a blur, the trunk began to crack and lean. The oak crashed to the ground, and as it did, a whoosh of something glorious filled Ana’s being. It filled in the hole created by Druantia’s last strike until the pain was but a memory. It continued to flow through her, filling holes she hadn’t known existed.
Her soul. Half of it had been trapped in that tree, and she’d never had any idea she’d been missing it. But everything was so much brighter now, so much fuller. And she was healing. As a Mythean would. No longer mortal.
She gasped, the first decent breath she’d taken since her wound, and opened her eyes to see Druantia’s withered form. She was halfway to mummification. Within seconds, she was nothing but dust, as if she’d aged 2,600 years in a minute. Behind her, Ana could see the wisps of souls flying from the downed trees, up into the air and away toward freedom and peace.
“Cam.” The words were rough in her throat.
“Ana, you’re healing.” His voice was awed.
She turned her head to look at Cam. His cheeks were wet.
She reached a shaking arm up to touch his face. She could see him now. Could really, truly see him. In the light of understanding and their past. All the hesitation that she’d felt over her feelings hadn’t been about him. They’d been about her. About her being unable to feel so much because she lacked half her soul. But, oh, how that had changed.
With the last oak fallen, the witches ceased chanting and silence fell upon the forest.
“Cam, I—”
His voice rode over hers, thick with concern. “We need to get you back to the university.”
“We all need to get back,” Cora said. “The worst is over, but the forest must settle. It’s dangerous here.”
Cam nodded and swept her up. Ana realized that the time for speaking her heart had passed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Cam laid Ana upon the bed in the infirmary at the university, worry wrapped around his heart like barbed wire.
“I’m fine.” She coughed, a bit of blood marring her lips.
“You’re not.” He pushed gently on her shoulders when she tried to sit.
Behind him, Esha demanded that a nurse help her sister, while Cora helped a wounded Vivienne to the bed in front of her. Bright light shone through the windows, illuminating the long room studded with narrow beds placed at regular intervals. Healers rushed to the beds, inspecting Vivienne’s crushed torso, a testament to the strength of the Pechs.
Cam felt a pair of hands brush at the wound in his back. Another healer. He reached around, pushing them away. “Help Ana first.”
“Really, I’m fine,” Ana said. “I think the other Dryad souls helped me heal. I’m a bit tender is all. See to Cam’s back. And Aurora’s arm.”
“We’ll be able to save it,” the healer said from two beds down. He was a huge man, burly with great ham-like hands. Yet he was delicate and gentle when he touched Aurora. “It’s not entirely severed.”
“She’ll be all right, won’t she?” Worry was thick in Esha’s tone as she hovered at her sister’s bedside. The Chairman yowled his support.
“Shu-up,” Aurora slurred. “F-fine.”
“You’re not fucking fine and you know it,” Esha shot back.
“She’ll be fine,” the healer said.
The rest of their party sat on or leaned against hospital beds that were lined up along the wall of the white-on-white room. A third healer tended to the deep gash on Cadan’s chest while Diana looked on worriedly. Fiona held an icepack to her bruised face. Aerten stood off to the side, shell shocked, and Cam wondered vaguely if she felt as overwhelmed as he did. Loki hadn’t returned with them, but Cam wasn’t surprised. He must have followed Druantia to the clearing, though why he’d helped them was still a mystery.
Cam wanted like hell to get Ana alone, but he needed her checked by a healer first. A second later, a small, gray-haired woman bustled over from where she’d been tending Cadan to check on Ana. She looked like she should be baking cookies for her grandchildren, but in Cam’s estimation, age meant experience, and the more of it, the better.
“I really am fine,” Ana said as the woman inspected her abdomen. The skin was unblemished and smooth.
“Aye, you are. Right as rain.” The healer looked up at Cam. “You can let her up now, son. And you can let me tend to that arm and back.”
Cam scowled, then realized that his blood was dripping to the floor and he was feeling vaguely lightheaded.
“Just a few butterfly bandages. I’ll heal up soon.” Sooner, now that he was a god again.
“All you need is a bit of a spell, and you’ll be all right,” the healer said from behind him.
A vague warmth spread across his back where she touched him. He realized he wasn’t in the jungle anymore, treating himself haphazardly with whatever he had on hand. The university had a top-notch healing staff.
“Good as new.” The grandmotherly healer came around to his front. “Most of you can go. Aurora and Vivienne will need to stay. It’ll be a while before they’re healed.”
“But they’ll be fine, right?” Ana asked
as she sat up.
She was the most beautiful, most precious thing that Cam had ever seen, and his heart expanded just to look at her.
“Aye, they’ll all be fine. It’ll just take some time to heal those bones and reattach that arm.”
“Thank you, everyone,” Cam said, gratitude thick in his throat.
“Well, then. I suppose I can ask if it worked?” Warren asked.
“Yes.” Cam’s voice was a little strained. Ana reached for his hand, and he squeezed hers.
Aerten rubbed her temple, then shook her head. “Yes. I… yes. It worked. I need to go. To see someone. I—I’ll see you all later. And—thank you.”
With a last blind glance around the room, Aerten disappeared. Otherworld would be in a frenzy right now, but Cam didn’t care. The rest of the group was filtering out of the room, limping or walking tall. But all would be healed soon, thank fate.
“Let’s get out of here.” He helped Ana stand.
“Definitely.” She nodded and grinned.
He wrapped an arm around her and aetherwalked them to the Amazon. Damn, it was good to be able to do that again.
The sun was setting over the canopy when they arrived on the deck of the Clara G., and long shadows were being cast across the dark river. The boat was still tied off to the dock space he’d rented before they’d left. There were vessels on all sides of them, but none were inhabited at the moment. The familiar howling and rustling of the jungle animals was a welcome taste of home, and something in Cam’s chest loosened. Being home, with Ana, who he’d never expected to see again, much less fall in love with, felt perfect.
Ana looked around at the boat and the jungle. “We’re back on your boat?”
“It’s not the finest accommodations, but it’s home.” He grinned.
“Good point. I like your home. And it’s not like I have one of my own now that I’m no longer a god. I’m starting from square one.”
He pulled her to him and hugged her close, reveling in the feel of her whole and healthy. “You have one now.”