Page 77 of Wench

‘Something’s wrong.’

‘Marian—’ he begins, but she’s already moving, shoving past the ferns toward the sound only she can hear.

He follows, silent and swift at her side, trusting her without question, even as confusion flickers in his eyes.

The path bends, the undergrowth tearing at her legs, and the sound cuts again, closer now, thin as glass. It almost brings Marian to her knees. Lox’s nostrils flare as the scent of smoke wafts over them. They stumble forward until the trees split open.

Fae scatter and beasts bolt as fire licks at the sky with greedy tongues. A whole swath of Sherwood burns, and the agony she heard is written in flame and flight.

Marian grips Lox’s arm, the wail ringing in her skull. ‘The sound,’ she whispers, horror cutting the last threads of desire from her body. ‘It’s the forest screaming.’

ChapterTwenty-Three

Fire crawls across the clearing without mercy, swallowing everything in its path.

Fae sprint between the flames, some half-carrying, half-dragging others, skin flushed red where it got too close. A stag with a crown of pale antlers crashes through brush with rabbits clustering in its shadow. Sprites huddle together, wailing in tinny voices that carry over the fray. A stilt-limbed creature with translucent skin floats past them, trailing a slick of copper-bright blood where something has sliced through its side.

‘Fall back to the creek!’ Lox commands, voice rising over the fray. His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow like he’s inspecting the flames.

‘What is it?’ Marian throws an arm over her nose and mouth.

‘They’ve mixed iron filings into the pitch,’ Lox snarls, ripping the hem of his shirt into strips to bind over their mouths. He hands one to Marian; she ties it off with shaking fingers. ‘It deadens my ability to tell the roots how to smother the fire.’ He slams his palm to the ground and strains until sweat beads along his temples. The ground shivers, but the fire holds its shape.

Heart slamming, Marian moves toward a fae woman hobbling toward them. She shoulders under the woman’s arm without asking and takes her weight. The woman’s skin is blistered where a lick of flame kissed. Marian smells the fae ore on it, metallic and wrong.

Lox bellows into the air with fury, never looking away from the writhing fire as he sinks both palms to the earth. The ground beyond, where the smoke hasn’t yet been smothered, answers. The moss darkens, fat with water drawn from deep within the earth. Vines wake and, further downslope, a stand of poplars tilts together as one – a green wall falling gently to smother the fire’s appetite for air.

Marian moves where he doesn’t. She pulls her sleeves down around her hands and bats the flame until it sputters and dies. Heat blisters through the cloth; she bites the inside of her cheek but she keeps going. Despite the ore bleeding through the soil, the humming in her bones appears to dull with each flame she smothers.

A pained grunt sounds in the distance. Her head snaps toward it. Lox’s whole body is bent over, arms sunk to the elbow in turned earth. The forest is straining through him, the veins in his neck corded with the effort.

The sight sparks an idea. It’s mad, desperate, but the whirr in her bones grows louder again as if telling her she’s on the right path. Her palms sting where bark scored them, but she presses them to the charred soil anyway. The grit rubs against her burns and makes her teeth clench, but she forces herself to open to it.

Show me, she thinks.If I’m the only one that can hear you, then show me how to help you.

She presses her palms into the earth and the world opens. The vision strikes her all at once, blinding and visceral.

Beneath her palms, the char blisters away and she sees the under-flesh of Sherwood’s body. The image drags her beyond the crescent of ruined forest to where fire hasn’t yet bitten and the iron hasn’t salted the ground, and she sees the veins of Sherwood pulse gold. It’s as though the earth itself has ripped open for her, marrow gleaming to say that if the Rootkeeper calls, there the forest will still answer.

Her breath tears out of her. ‘Lox!’

He doesn’t look up. His arms tremble where they’re braced in the soil. Sweat slicks his temples, his teeth bared in strain. ‘I can’t hold it?—’

‘Yes, you can, but not here.’ She staggers toward him, smoke stinging her eyes, her throat raw. ‘You have to go beyond the treeline. Past where they’ve salted it.’

Lox’s head snaps toward her, golden eyes blazing through the haze. ‘How could you possibly—’ His voice chokes off in a cough as the acrid smoke grips his lungs. He snarls against it, furious at his weakness, at the fire, at everything. ‘There’s no way to know for sure, Marian. I can’t risk it.’

‘Please,’ she begs, voice raw from the smoke and her own fear. Her eyes stream, but she doesn’t look away. ‘I need you to trust me.’

For a heartbeat, all she hears is the crackle of flame and the wailing of creatures. His gaze scours her face in search of the lie. Within the space of a blink, his shoulders lock, decision made. He wrenches his hands from the dirt and hurries toward where she points.

Together they stumble through smoke and flame until the ground beneath them breathes again. Here the moss is still damp, the roots still whispering. Lox drops to his knees and drives his palms deep, until the ground shudders. Vines thrash across blackened earth as a dozen poplars bow together, choking the flame into embers.

Marian drags her boots and blistered palms against the dirt to snuff smaller tongues of flame along the way. She drags a half-conscious sprite away from a falling branch, before tearing at her sleeves to suffocate another spark on its wing.

Each one she smothers makes the pressure between her ears ease, as though she’s staunching wounds on the forest’s body. She bats fire from moss, throws damp soil against burning roots, coughs until her chest aches.

At the slope’s edge, Lox plants his palms to the ground, arms open wide, antlers bowing as though Sherwood itself pours into his frame. Roots heave up and twist themselves into a barricade. Sap surges in the moss until it weeps wet, a green tide crawling over blackened trunks. The flames recoil, spitting sparks, as the forest presses back.