Briar hesitated. Stepping closer to the tree felt dangerous. He approached the severed branch and, after a pause, lifted it, examining the lichen. There was enough to make a hundred elixirs.
“Um. Thank you.” He felt he had to offer something back. But searching his pockets, he had nothing. Only his charcoal for flesh tithes.
As if reading his thoughts, the tree hissed in anticipatory revelry. It liked the idea.
Fear wound around Briar’s throat. It seemed foolish to offer the tree something of himself, equally so to give it nothing. He couldn’t ask Vatii for a feather—it felt treacherous to offer up his familiar. Much as they bickered, she’d come to him, chosen him.
Taking the charcoal from his pocket, Briar pulled up his sleeve and prepared to draw a rune. As he did, something intangible climbed up through the earth, through his feet, thickening his blood, loosening his muscles. The tree piloted his body as if possessed. The first scratch of dark ash across hisskin was rough and shaky. His heart pounded. Why were all his childhood warnings about accepting candy from strangers, not bargains with trees?
The tree’s intent fled his body, leaving behind a spiral mark with rays around it and a series of arrows beneath. He didn’t recognize it. Swallowing hard, he approached the tree. The rotting smell made bile rise in his throat, but he pressed a hand to the gnarled bark. His flesh burned where it was marked. He bit down on his lip and watched the magic leak out of him in veins of bright light that bruised violet. The tree, no, the whole forest breathed a sigh. The magic fizzled out, leaving the symbol as a permanent addition to the rest on his arm.
He pulled his sleeve down. Tried not to shiver. It seemed disrespectful. This was a dangerous dance, and now he wanted to go home. “Thank you,” he said again.
A susurration of sound went through the leaves. The tree tugged at Briar’s heart like a question.
When will you return?
He shuddered. Had this bargain opened him up to communication with the forest? “I don’t know?”
Ours.
“What’s yours?”
You, soon. Your mother.
A bolt of real fear went through him then. His veins were vines, and they curled around something poisonous and sharp lodged in his chest. He understood with petrifying certainty what it was.
“You? You cursed us?”
Curse. Yes.
“Why?” Briar’s voice rose. “We’ve never evenbeenhere. We never didanythingto you!”
The wind hissed ferociously, and the voice chorused in his head.Thieves.Killers! It was owed.
“But we never—”
He didn’t finish. The whole forest quaked, a shriek of wind in the boughs, and he realized suddenly that he was surrounded by things that had killed his mother, that would kill him, too.
The forest screamed,There is noyou!
Vatii said, “Justgo, Briar!”
He ran. Out of the clearing and into the woods, searching for the landmarks to lead him home.
But they weren’t there.
Not the fallen trees, the rock with the flowers, or the crimson bush. Everything had shifted, as if the trees had gotten up and walked off. He knew himself to be emotional, hyperbolic, given to flights of fancy, but he also knew the forest was warping his sense of direction. He could feel branch-like fingers in his hair, in his head.
He went faster, nearly tripping over roots and sinking pits of moss.
Come back.
Please let us go, he thought. I gave you what you wanted.
In answer, the woods said,More.
The forest floor was treacherous. He slipped on stones, caught himself on trees, then shrank away from them. The canopy above merged and closed, blocking out the sunlight. In desperation, Briar pulled out a lock of his own hair and scrunched it in his fist until the golden strands burned away and formed a floating torch above his palm. It only lit so far, though, and he couldn’t tell which direction led out and which farther in.
