A few on the outskirts have collapsed roofs, but the large healing hut in the center of the village looks safe enough, and the small garden, fenced off with reeds and woven vines, still flourishes even without care. The forest honors our work, the centuries passing the rest of the kingdom by but never touching this clearing, because the trees will never forget their Favored Children.
Walking out of the forest this time will hurt even more than the last.
I walk back to Northern Star to collect the leather satchels and harvesting supplies I brought with me, then I go back to the garden and begin my work, my sight blurred by the tears I fight to keep from flowing freely down my cheeks. I’m all too aware of my surveillance and the way Prince Soren’s eyes never leave me, as cold now as the moment he first saw me and realized I was a witch.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO
Soren
The witch works in silence as she harvests the small garden, but the forest is anything but silent around us. It's livelier here than the Goblin Lands have ever been. Lush and untouched, as though the war never came here, everything around us looks like a haven. That illusion is lifted only by the fire-damaged huts and the arrows that litter the ground, fletched with the same wax-tipped raven feathers we pulled from Roan’s chest. A picture begins to form before my eyes, unsettling in its truths.
Tyton works his way around the fae flowers, but he doesn't pick any as he drops to his knees and presses his hands amongst the blooms, his eyes glowing as he mumbles nonsense under his breath. There’s a manic energy within him, a crazed purpose pushing him onwards, and I watch him as closely as I do the witch.
When our horses first arrived in the clearing, those flowers sparked an ember of joy and hope within my chest, despite myself. It wasn't until I heard Tyton’s words that I understood their creation, the outlines slowly taking shape until I could see the massacre that took place. The fallen members of the witch's coven, her family, nothing left of them but a field of the most sacred flowers.
Thisis the horror that drove her to the Seer and out of the Southern Lands.
The force of her terror that morning had woken me and fueled my own fears for her safety, and though she wouldn’t tell me what had frightened her so severely, the waves of grief had been a crushing echo of my own. I knew she had lost someone close to her, I knew that it put her own life in peril thanks to the fear that lingered and the small snippets of information I could ease out of her, but I didn’t suspect something like this.
My suspicions of her true motives grow heavier within me, a weight I struggle to hold onto with the blooms of the dead surrounding us, but the survival of my kingdom and my people rely on my clear head. I cannot afford to accept this witch as my mate and put her on the throne beside me without thought of the consequences simply because of her past and the truth of the forest before me.
Reed stays with the horses at the edge of the huts, his eyes shrewd and careful as he watches the trees around us, but there's nothing else in the forest nearby. No danger lies within our hearing, just the peaceful sounds of a lively forest existing happily around the perfectly preserved clearing.
When the witch begins to hum under her breath, a content sound of busy work, I step back over to Tyton to distract myself. “Are you still in there, Cousin, or has the forest taken hold of your mind?”
He blinks up at me as though he forgot my existence and frowns as his hands push deeper into the earth, a long stream of madness falling from his lips.
“She was only eight. Eight summers in the forest, hearing its song in her heart. She hadn't yet learned how to light a fire with her magic, but she was close, and Mother was proud. She shared a bed with her sister each night, she read them both stories to chase away the bad dreams. She was scared of wraiths. They'd seen one while they were swimming in the river, she was sure of it, even when her brother said she was lying. The wraith has come to get them, should she have told her father, is that why the Favored Children are lost—“
The words stop short, the haze leaving him all at once, but his eyes glow brighter than ever. Maybe bringing him here wasn't the best idea—maybe I should’ve listened to Tauron’s warnings about the madness within his brother.
I glance over and find the witch has stopped her work to look at us, her mouth pulled in tight at the corners as she holds in a grimace. Her eyes flick down to avoid mine only to land on the fae flowers, tears welling there before she looks away again quickly. Her movements are jerky as she gets back to her harvesting, her shoulders tight, and she lets out a long, shaking breath.
The dead walk amongst the trees of the Ravenswyrd, of that I’m sure.
Tense moments pass as I watch the tree line, but when the witch finally stands, looking satisfied with her bounty, Tyton and I meet her at the garden gate to collect the satchels and get them secured on our horses. She hands them over without a word and then stoops to a small pot by the gate to grab a handful of the smooth stones there, white and clinking a little as she slips them into her pocket.
I think nothing of it, walking to the horses and watching as the witch fusses with the satchels, careful to make sure that her precious supplies aren't crushed or damaged. When I make a move to mount Nightspark, she stops me. She takes a moment to collect herself, straightening and clearing away the grief that grips her, and when she finally meets my eyes, the tears are gone from her unerring silver gaze.
“Your fate is to marry me and mine is the same,” she says, her voice sorrowful.
I scowl at her, ignoring the incredulous look on Reed’s face. No matter how persistent the gossip at Yregar is, he still somehow missed that small detail of the atrocity I’m trapped in.
The witch takes another deep breath. “My fate specifies that I need to marry you in your tradition and mine. Before you assume I’m doing something sinister, there's something I need to retrieve from my parents’ house. My customs demand this, and I can't marry you without it.”
There’s absolutely no way I’ll be sitting through a witch ritual during our marriage. I don't even know what their practices look like or what the expectations of my participation would be, but I do know that I want no part in it.
She takes one look at my face and clicks her tongue at me, shaking her head as though I'm disappointing her. “You can make this choice now, Prince Soren, but you won't get your throne without it. I’m happy to come back here when you realize your mistake.”
I never want to step foot amongst these trees again, and at even the possibility, I’m quick to make up my mind. There’s no harm in following the witch now, no way she can overpower me or outsmart me, and so seeing more of the place she once called home can only help me discover more of her motives and the past that had shaped her.
Turning with a nod at Tyton, I flick a dismissive hand at her. “Lead the way.”
She grimaces but gets moving, snapping at me over her shoulder, “I’d rather you not step foot in my mother's house with that attitude.”
I follow her to the largest of the huts, close by the garden and the communal space. Fae flowers surround the footings and the steps leading up to the roughly hewn door, and she murmurs a small prayer before pushing it open.
There are no lights within the hut, and the sunlight that crawls through the small window barely lights the room. It takes a moment before my eyes adjust, but when they do, I find it’s not just a hut, but ahome. Sitting untouched for two hundred years, but ready as though waiting for the family to return.
