by Julie Kagawa
“The earth is tainted,” the Mother Tree went on. “You do not understand. I feel it, in the ground under your feet. I stretch my roots out, and...”
Suddenly, she shuddered, and the earth shuddered with her. Leaves spiraled to the ground, and flocks of birds took to the air, as the ground literally rumbled and shook, causing us all to brace ourselves. The face in the tree contorted, warping into an expression of rage and agony, before it went slack.
“Um, okay,” I said as the tremors finally stopped. “That was weird. Did the old shrub just throw a temper tantrum and go home? What the hell is going on here?”
The Mother Tree still stood there with her eyes shut, unmoving. We all shared a glance, and Meghan stepped forward when the trunk stirred, shedding leaves, and the eyes opened.
Oh crap. A fist made of ice dropped into the pit of my stomach and stayed there, freezing me in place. I stared at the Mother Tree, or rather, at the face in the trunk of the Mother Tree. Because the gaze pinning me in place was not the angry, unreasonable forest guardian we had been speaking with until now.
It was him. Or it. Whatever it was. The presence I’d felt before, staring at me from the eyes of the monster in Phaed, trying to figure me out. Curious and intrigued, but somehow...sleepy, as if it wasn’t quite awake yet. I felt it again, that same cold curiosity, mingled with the edge of frustration. Frustration that it wasn’t quite conscious, as if its thoughts weren’t entirely clear yet.
It lasted only a moment. One split-second glance. Then, the Mother Tree blinked, and the other presence was gone.
I shivered, all the way down to my toes. Around me, I could see the others were feeling the same; grim and shaken by what they’d seen, even if they couldn’t quite understand it.
“What was that?” Coaleater muttered behind me.
The Mother Tree shuddered again. Opening her eyes, her face twisted, warping even further into a mask of horror and rage. I felt a ripple go through the earth at my feet, as if the roots of the great tree were writhing around, trying to escape a predator.
“Aaaaauuugh,” the ancient tree groaned. “Too deep. Too deep, I can feel it. Roots cold, burning. Something...beneath the earth. Can’t pull back.”
Meghan looked at the ground, her expression pale with understanding. “Something beneath,” she whispered. Stretching a hand over the earth, she closed her eyes, and glamour began swirling around her. I felt the pulse of Summer magic, felt it following the roots of the great tree down into the darkness. I saw her frown, a furrow creasing her brow, as she sent the magic deeper, deeper...
Suddenly she gasped, and her eyes flew open as she recoiled, nearly falling backward. Ash lunged forward and caught her, holding her steady as she regained her balance. Above us, the Mother Tree wailed, an unearthly cry of rage and despair, sending ripples through the entire forest.
Heart pounding, I looked at Meghan, who clutched Ash tightly, her face white. She was shaking, breathing hard, as if we had just fled the Briars with that pissed-off dragon behind us.
“Meghan.” Ash’s voice was low, concerned. He didn’t move, just continued to hold her, but his entire posture was tight. “What happened?”
“There is something down there,” Meghan whispered. “I don’t know what it is, but I could sense its presence. I’ve never felt anything so...”
“Angry?” I supplied in a soft voice. “Hateful? Like it wants to burn down the world and every living thing in it?”
She nodded, pale and shaken, then glanced up at the Mother Tree and took a quiet breath. “Whatever it is,” she whispered in a steely voice, “I can’t let this continue. Her roots are too close.” She raised her head and drew away from Ash, standing tall on her own. “I’m going to try to pull her out.”
The Mother Tree wailed again, her voice scraping like bark against my ears, and turned a furious gaze on us. “Insects,” she almost snarled. “Parasites. You will not touch me with your rotten flesh digits, your tainted glamour.” Her trunk shook, and her voice seemed to echo through the forest, reverberating through the trees. “Leave my grove,” she ordered. “I give you this one chance to depart peacefully, flesh pods. Leave my forest, or we will crush your bones, rend your disgusting flesh, and let the earth drink your poisoned blood.”
Meghan ignored her. Stepping forward, she stretched out her hand again, and glamour began rising once more. I felt the pull of magic, as she seemed to call on the forest itself to aid her, and the Summer glamour was quick to respond, flowing into the Iron Queen and filling her with power.
The Mother Tree hissed, her voice turning ugly and guttural. “I gave you the chance to leave, insects!” she snarled. “But you never listen, you continue to consume and slaughter and destroy. Very well, we will not stand for it a moment longer. The forest will tear your blight from the earth, and your bones will be food for the saplings for years to come.”
A rumble went through the earth. Overhead and all around us, the Mother Tree’s huge branches rattled, hissing with the sound of a million shaking leaves. And then I noticed all the plants—grass, brambles, bushes, toadstools—were shaking and writhing madly, causing a chill to slide up my back.
“Uh, princess? I think we’re about to be assaulted by the entire freaking forest. Perhaps a tactical retreat is in order?”
“No.” Meghan’s voice was strained but unyielding. The Iron Queen hadn’t moved, though a furrow creased her brow as she struggled to draw glamour against the very forest fighting against her. “This has to be done. Try to keep everything back. I just need a few seconds—”
With a crack and a piercing groan, a huge branch swung toward Meghan, moving with unnatural speed. Instantly, Ash snatched the queen around the waist and yanked her back, and the branch barely missed them both as it swept by. Meghan winced, losing hold of her glamour for a moment, but she didn’t even open her eyes. Ash drew his sword and stepped in front of her, placing himself between the Iron Queen and the giant trunk of the Mother Tree.
“Protect the queen,” he snapped at the rest of us, as with eerie hisses, creaks, groans, and scrapes, the forest floor rose up and started reaching for us. Grass covered my boots, vines tried slithering around my ankles, brambles clawed at me with spiky talons. I cut myself free of vegetation and had to duck as a branch swooped by with the groan of splitting wood.
“Dammit, ice-boy!” I sprang toward Meghan and Ash, trying to get to Meghan’s other side, but the surging roots and vines clawed at my feet, slowing me down. “Do you know how hard it’s going to be to fight the entire forest?”
A trio of spinning light crescents flew by my ear, slicing into a tangle of bramble rearing up to impale me, and cutting the shrub into pieces. I glanced back to see Nyx cut a sapling in two as Coaleater reared up and stomped a log into charred, smoking pieces, then blasted a coiling vine into a withered husk. Nyx sprang onto Coaleater’s back, then leaped gracefully off the Iron faery, soared over my head, and landed next to Meghan, cutting through a root reaching up to grab her. Together, the four of us surrounded the Iron Queen, a living barrier between her and the madness swirling around us.
“Insects!” the Mother Tree cried, making my ears ring. “Blight bringers! Destroyers! Crush them! Impale their diseased flesh! Grind their bones to dust! Rise up, my children, and swallow them whole.”
Around us, beyond our protective ring, the forest was crawling toward us like a steady, unstoppable tide. A sea of brambles, thorns, vines, and roots, seeking to bury us beneath a flood of angry plants.
Nyx hurled light blades into the approaching wall, and Coaleater blasted nearby offending plants with flame, but the sea of vegetation continued to creep closer, a constant hiss in our ears.
“Puck!” Slashing through a swiping branch, Ash turned to glare at me. “Slow it down, Goodfellow,” he ordered, jerking his head toward the wall of plants. “Meghan has to concentrate. She can’t do anything right now, but yo
u can. Put that Summer magic to work before it’s too late.”
“Don’t ask for much, do you, ice-boy?” I snapped, but dropped to a knee in the writhing grass and pressed a palm into the ground. Sending my own glamour into the forest around me, I could feel the anger pulsing beneath my skin, the rage and loathing for all of us fleshy creatures who continuously destroyed the forest. The Mother Tree’s despair pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating.
Gritting my teeth, I extended my will into the thrashing forest, into the roots and branches spread through the dirt. Sweat beaded on my forehead, running into my eyes as I fought the ancient and supremely powerful will of the Mother Tree and tried to hold back the entire forest.
The crawling plants slowed, and a headache began pounding behind my eyes with the effort. I clenched my jaw and kept pouring will and glamour into the forest around me, silently begging the Iron Queen to hurry up. I could feel her glamour suddenly, the alien sensation of Iron mixed with Summer magic, descending into the earth, into the roots of the Mother Tree herself.
A bramble curled around my arm, digging spiny thorns into my flesh as it tried yanking me away. I winced, but there was the flash of a blade that severed the branch, and Nyx stepped in front of me with her light blades out. From the corner of my eyes, I saw the forest reaching for us, twiggy hands, coiling vines, thorny claws just a few breaths away. Despite my attempts to slow it down, another few heartbeats and we’d be buried.
Another thorny vine coiled around my arm, leaving threads of blood against my skin. A root slithered into my pant leg, and something sharp and twiggy touched my neck. At that moment, I felt the strange, steely glamour of the Iron Queen yank on the roots of the Mother Tree, pulling them up, up, and out, spreading them to different corners of the forest.
The Mother Tree screamed, and the forest went wild. The wall of vegetation recoiled, writhing and thrashing, roots and branches flailing about like the ends of whips. Gradually, however, they stilled, sinking back and returning to normal.
Panting, I slumped, letting my glamour drop as around us, the vicious sounds of branches, grass, and leaves faded away, and all was quiet once more.
Lowering her arms, Meghan swayed on her feet, then collapsed into Ash’s arms.
The Ice Prince scooped her up, holding her close, as overhead, the Mother Tree gave a final wail and collapsed into herself. Her eyes shut, and her lined, wrinkled face disappeared, seeming to melt into the bark of the trunk, until a huge but nonsentient-looking tree sat in the center of the now silent grove.
“I did...as much as I could,” Meghan whispered between breaths. “I pulled up the roots...sent them in different directions. They won’t stay that way for long but...at least for now...they’re out of that thing’s influence. This is a temporary fix at best. I wish I could have done more.”
“It is all you could have done, Iron Queen,” said Grimalkin’s voice, as the cat looked up from where he sat on a root. He curled his whiskers, gazing up at the Mother Tree’s empty trunk. “This is the root of the treant’s corruption. Had you not acted, they and all the other sentient plants would continue to attack the fey and perhaps all living creatures in the Briars. But you are correct. Though the treants’ hostility will fade and they will eventually revert to their former selves, it is likely not permanent. Unless you sever the corruption at the source.”
“You did everything you could,” Ash told Meghan gently. “Rest now. We’re getting out of here. Goodfellow...” He shot a glance at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or annoyed that I was still there. “Can you stand?”
I forced a tired smirk. “Sure, everyone, go check on the Iron Queen. Pay no attention to the guy that actually slowed down the entire forest.” I pushed myself upright, and Nyx stepped forward, letting me lean on her for support. I would’ve told her not to worry, but my legs were shaking, my arms felt like they were made of noodles, and I was feeling unreasonably cranky at the moment. “Don’t pretend that you care, ice-boy,” I told him. “Let’s get out of here. Right now, I don’t feel like fighting anything meaner than a butterfly.”
Meghan sighed. Leaning her head on Ash’s shoulder, she gazed up tiredly at the Mother Tree, her features pinched with concern. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I hope we’ve at least brought you some measure of peace.”
There was no reply from the Mother Tree. The trunk remained blank, empty of face or expression.
Grimalkin hopped down from the root, waved his tail once, and padded out of the clearing without making any comments. With Ash still carrying Meghan, we followed, and the grove of the Mother Tree faded behind us.
18
CURSES AND ROSES
That night, we made camp in the center of a small ruin, surrounded by crumbling walls and gargoyles being choked by thick black bramble. A shattered fountain that might’ve been a mermaid once but was now nothing but a tail and a pair of arms stood desolately in the center of the room.
Nyx leaned against the lip of the fountain with her legs crossed and her blades in hand, staring at the tunnel we had come in, making certain no nasty bug or giant centipede slithered into the room with us. Coaleater, too, had taken up guard duty, planting his large body in the doorway, so that if said giant centipede tried squeezing in, they’d get an angry Iron horse to the face.
(One might think all these centipede precautions were going a bit overboard, except we’d all seen the big ugly bastard as we slipped back into the Briars tunnels, a fifteen-foot monster making its merry way through the thorns, bright yellow antennas waving. And since I liked bugs as much as I liked a rousing kick to the gonads, I thought being overprepared was better than waking up with a centipede trying to eat my eyeball.)
I glanced at the lovebirds, who had claimed one of the far corners. The Iron Queen sat with her back against the stone wall, with Ash crouched in front of her, his silver gaze intense. Meghan still looked pale and exhausted, which was prompting Ash to be even more protective and overbearing than normal. He looked like he wanted to scoop her up and take her back to the Iron Realm, which Meghan would never allow and would likely kick his ass for attempting, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to.
“I’m fine, Ash,” she told the hovering Ice Prince, for the second or third time, I was guessing. “I told you, I’m just tired.” Raising a hand before her, she gave a rueful smile. “Probably shouldn’t have expended all my glamour at once, but it had to be done. Just give me an hour or two of sleep, and I’ll be ready to go.” Ash started to say something, and she glared at him. “Unless I don’t get any rest from the constant hovering of an overprotective Winter faery who is worried that I’m not getting enough rest.”
Ash slumped in defeat. “Fine,” I heard him say. “As you wish, my queen. But if you pass out or fall asleep during the fight with the big monster, I get to be ‘unbearably overprotective’ for the next month.”
Meghan yawned. “And that is different from everyday life, how?” she murmured, leaning back and closing her eyes.
Ash snorted, placed a kiss atop her head and rose, black coat and protective glamour aura falling around him. He caught me watching them, and one brow lifted before he turned and started making his way in my direction.
I stiffened, angry memories stirring to life once more, even as I tried shoving them down. “Ice-boy,” I greeted, smiling coldly as he came up. “That’s quite the talent you’ve got. Even after all this time, you can still make me want to stab my eyeballs out.”
He didn’t say anything at first, just leaned back against the lip of the fountain next to me, crossing his arms. For a moment, we didn’t speak, gazing silently over the ruined courtyard, an icy barrier radiating between us.
“How long?” Ash wondered at last. Puzzled, I glanced at him, frowning, and his jaw tightened. “How long have you felt this way, Puck?”
“Always, ice-boy,” I answered softly. “From the moment I saw you and
Meghan dancing at Elysium. Oh, I got over it, but it’s always been there. You know better than anyone that I’ve always been kind of a sore loser.”
Ash briefly closed his eyes. “I don’t want this, Goodfellow,” he murmured. “I thought we were done with this feud. I don’t want to have to fight you again.”
“Well, that’s too bad, ice-boy. ’Cause we don’t always get what we want.” I sneered at him, making his eyes narrow. “I didn’t want to have to fight you for countless years over an oath. I didn’t want to watch Meghan fall in love with you, when I was at her side the entire time. I didn’t want to get smacked down by a big ugly bastard who brought all these lovely memories right back to the surface again. But I did, and now we all have to live with it, whether we want to or not.”
I crossed my arms, imitating his pose, and gave him a challenging smirk. “Just be glad my good old-fashioned talent for revenge has a bigger priority right now than you. Once this is over, get ready to meet the real Robin Goodfellow. And like your brothers, you’ll find out he was an even bigger bastard than anyone realized.”
“Puck.” Ash pushed himself off the lip of the fountain, not looking at me any longer. A flash of pain crossed his face before he could hide it. “I can’t fault you for wanting revenge, not after my oath with Ariella, but...” He paused, as if struggling with himself, then said, very quietly, “Rowan and Sage are gone. You...are the only brother I have left.”
He turned and walked away before I could reply, striding back toward the now sleeping Meghan, leaving me staring after him.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Nyx at the mouth of the bramble tunnel, her golden eyes shining in the gloom as she watched us. And I knew that she had heard every word I’d said.
Dammit. I slumped against the stones, putting a hand over my eyes, and teetered between planning the most cruel, horrible prank in the history of the Nevernever and hoping no one saw the water trickling slowly between my fingers.