I wished I had not.
A pallid glow lingered at the far, far end of the road. A churning cloud of mist and snow, stark-white against the darkening skies, as tall as the trees and then some. It loomedthere and whenever I blinked, as if to make a cruel game of it, it crept closer.
In its depths stirred a darkness. A misshapen shadow broke free of the mist. It was no hound, though it stumbled forth on the same gnarled, bone-thin limbs. It was an elk with a sweeping crown of antlers, draped with thick strings of lichen and moss. Its head swung from side to side, twisted and stiff as if carved from roots. Its coat wore cracks, revealing—
I retched at the glimpse of flesh and bone, and of white-capped mushrooms sprouting from the wounds.
Let me see you, sang the wind.Let me taste you. Let me show you what he did to us.
The elk lifted its head. It stared at me as if it knew me, with eyes as white as bone.
It came for me with a cackle.
It did not get far. The fox leaped from the forest and collided with a crack. Flung to its side, the elk barked as it writhed in the snow, chuckling and shrieking. I retreated into the shadows of the ruin, huddling tightly into a corner. The chuckle rose to a shrill laugh, carried forth by the wind. It ceased with a sputter.
I remembered only then that I’d been running from a different horror. I knew from the quick breaths drawn through sharp teeth that it was too late. A hum went through the bitter air. A murmur of something that tasted of salt and the tides. The breaths came slower and much softer.
“Evana.”
SIXTEEN
Nothing but death awaits in the forest.
Irefused, for a heartbeat, to look.
Nothing about the low, gentle voice boded well for me.
“Evana,” Adrik said again, desperately, and I became weak.
I glanced up into moss-green eyes, and I wished to vanish. I had no use for that soft, haunted look he wore. His compassion only sharpened my shame. I found my fingers tangled with his, keeping me from clawing without thought at the knotted scar. He held me tenderly, though I did not deserve it.
“Evana, are you harmed?”
“It was you.” I shivered violently. “The fox. It was you.”
“I am half of a faerie, remember?”
All these quiet evening hours and restless nights, the foul blood of hounds spilled in the snow, the half-dead woman, the strange wolf. He had been there. He had been there, and he’d never said a thing. I slackened in his grasp, struck by a desperate, urgent thought.
“Fulfill my favour. Rid me of this vileness. Rid me of this wild magic. My mother… She asked the spirits for it. Shecursedme with it. Please. Ask them now to free me from it.”
I loathed the flicker in his eyes—the understanding. “Thatis why—” He interrupted himself with a shake of his head. “I cannot grant you this favor.”
“Please.” I lurched at him, wild with hope. It was slipping from my grasp, that hope, scattering like snow in the wind. “You hear them as she did. Please, Adrik. They might listen to you. They might yet free me from this burden.”
“I cannot.” A shadow fell over him. “The terms of our bargain. Your favor cannot harm the town or its people. What you ask of me will bring us to ruin.”
I clasped his cloak, desperate to make him see sense. “No, Adrik,Iwill bring this town to ruin. This is no normal winter. I am killing the forest, the town, the harvest. You will die because of me, because of this vile magic. You said once that you must ensure that these people do not pay a terrible price for sheltering me.” I drew a sharp, burning breath. “Zora has paid the price.”
His palm came to cup my jaw, his heat stinging my icy skin. “Zora is fine. She’d burned the vines into a crisp by the time I arrived.” I did not know what I’d expected of him—anger perhaps, or more of the same loathing that had blossomed late last night. I had not expected such grief. “You did not curse us. We have suffered this winter for five years.”
Had I not felt the truth of it in the hiss of the wind? In the gaping wound buried beneath ice. In the anguish that sprawled from the darkest corners of the soil into the spindliest roots. The grass shivered with it and the trees wept.
“Five years,” I breathed. “How?”
“A curse. We do not know much, save this: That a group of faeries and mages attacked the town on midsummer eve, that it began to snow that night, and that the forest has not been thesame since. It is vengeful, and it tears people from our midst who venture too far inside. The wind brings these horrible half-dead beasts into town whenever the flares weaken.” His gaze pierced me as he said, “I told you nothing but death awaits out here.”
“How have you survived for so long?”
