The forest had grown still. I’d long left the murmur of the river behind me, and the chirp of the birds had faded into stiff silence. There was no sound save shrill laughter and squelching steps in the mud.
I ran faster and faster and faster, but my legs refused to give chase and soon I could not move them at all, stuck in the mud. There was not a breeze. Just thick, dense air that had not stirred in an age, and the stench of something rotten.
The trees were strange, rising like bearded fingers from murky waters, gnarled and ghastly. I grasped a twisted root to wrench my foot from knee-deep mud. There was still laughter—my own, I realized. Laughter and though I was stuck in sludge, though I was not moving at all…
The sound of squelching steps.
The stench of rot, so thick I choked.
I yanked at my leg, bare save for torn scraps of sun-gold silk.
The steps ceased. I looked up.
“Hello, little bird,” said Malek.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hello, little bird.
Ishrieked, icy mud turning my limbs useless, roots ensnaring my wrists.
I should have known.
I should have known by the terror that had seized me when I first saw him in that torchlit castle corridor, and I should have known by his obsession with the teahouse, and I should have known by the strangely stiff responses whenever the townsfolk spoke of him. Most of all, I should have known from that horrible stench of rot that had haunted me—huntedme—since I was little more than a babe.
“Evana!”
I shrieked again, thrashing against the black-clawed grip. He would not take me alive. I would not allow it. He pulled me closer, closer, until his breath swept over me as it had that night, that horrible night a decade ago—
It was not the stench of rot that brushed my face. It was a scent as wild as the snow and the forest and all the things I held dear.
“Evana,” Adrik whispered.
I was on the floor, caged in his arms, thrashing against his chest. He searched me, wide-eyed and frantic, but I looked past him. I had to make certain… No mud, no bearded trees, no air that had not stirred in an age. Just a crisp breeze, brightening skies, and a hall still humming with echoes of revelry.
“Where is Zora?” I leaped to my feet, standing over him as I asked again, voice shrill with fear, “Where is Zora?”
“I do not know.”
I could not bear his questioning stare. I stumbled into the hall, past Lorell and Sai who were the last couple to remain dancing. I fell to my knees in the leaf-cushioned alcove. There were only two empty glasses of wine and Almira.
I shook her awake. “Zora. Where is she?”
“Right here,” mumbled Almira, patting her own leg. “Home was too far.” Her gaze cleared a little, catching on my feet. She tutted. “Shame about the dress.”
I did not have to look to know what she meant—I knew the skirt would be torn in places from thorns, its hem stiff with mud. I slipped as I chased through the stone-tiled courtyard, crashing with a shriek shoulder-first into the fountain.
“Evana!”
Adrik did not touch me, as if scared I might snap at him again or shatter between his hands, but he knelt beside me as I choked on too many words and too little breath. “Zora,” I wheezed, collarbone aflame where it had met the fountain’s rim. “We must go. We must find her.”
He took my wrists, to calm me perhaps, but it served only to turn me into a feral thing. I writhed in his grip, hissing like a wounded animal. He held fast.
“What did you see?” There was now an urgency to his tone that eased me. “Look at me, Ana. What did you see?”
“I saw her. Zora in the swamp with—” I caught the name between my teeth, pinching my lips tightly to contain it. I dared not speak it. To let its vile taste wash over my tongue. “Zora in the swamp with nowhere to go. We must find her.”
“Imust find her,” he said firmly. “I will not risk your life—”
