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Horrified, I felt frantically along the side of my boot and choked on a breath when I touched thin, sinewy tree roots slithering inside. I tried to grab them, to stop them, but they just slipped between my fingers, unaffected. Falling onto my backside, I desperately tried to yank my foot free until I realised in a sickening rush that the roots weren’t just wriggling their way into my boot. I could feel them worming their way between the twisted branches of my wooden leg.
The sensation made my gorge rise. I was panting for breath, still trying to crawl away even though I could now feel that my branch leg was completely stuck. The tree roots were weaving their way inside it, tangling everything together, anchoring me to the forest itself. Sweat poured from me as I wondered how far they would go. If they were going to burrow their way into my muscle, into my veins.
It’s going to consume me. The thought was wild, unhinged, but it popped into my panicked brain and refused to leave. These woods were formed from the blood of battle. Perhaps the forest had grown too dehydrated, Ash’s power slurping up every drop of moisture and leaving the ancient trees here thirsty for something richer than water, something they hadn’t tasted since their birth.
I shouted in horrified shock when a pair of orange eyes blinked into existence just inches from my face. The same orange eyes as before, but they were growing, becoming larger and more bulbous. And then a wide, yellow-toothed smile appeared below them, floating there in the pitch black.
“You’re going the wrong way.”
“What do you want?” I barked in panic, then cried out when I instinctively tried to jerk back from that disembodied face and pain shot through the join on my upper thigh. “My leg—”
“You weren’t listening to me.” The eyes and grinning mouth retreated a little ways, moving too fluidly in the air, as if they were hovering unaided.
It was horrifying, but looked strangely familiar. And that whispery, raspy voice was familiar too. It was almost like I could hear the echo of it calling me…
“Death King, you are so close.”
“I don’t want to be the king of anything.” My voice was too loud in the eerie silence of the forest, choked and breathless with panic. “Just let me go. I need to—”
“What you want doesn’t matter.” The face loomed closer again, and something soft and cold feathered over my cheek, making me flinch violently. “You can’t turn back now. Everything will die if you turn back now. Will you really let your hunter king live with the guilt of this?”
That made me go still. “Wh-what?”
“The balance is all wrong.” Those orange eyes hardened, not a hint of mirth in them, but that mouth kept up its horrifying grin. “It’s all wrong. If you don’t take your place opposite the oak king, he will kill everything. The Carlin is already weak. Her time is over. She can’t fight him off anymore, and if you don’t take her place, he will have to witness himself destroying everything around him. He won’t be able to stop it. Only you can stop it. Are you going to make him live with that guilt? That knowledge? Don’t you want to spare him that pain?”
My mouth trembled. That’s not fair.
“So if you go back to seelie now, Death King…” The face loomed uncomfortably close again, still grinning, its orange eyes hard and bright. “You will be going the wrong way.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lonan
The Woods of Orna were as sly as the Folk that lived within them.
The journey on horseback to the Midsith twice a year usually took several hours, but never more than six. The troop Belial had led to kidnap Ash from the mortal world had been gone for a full day, yet I had still managed to reach him before they did, despite leaving after and returning to the palace in time for them to get back.
Sometimes it seemed like the forest was working against you, others it was like it was trying to help. I couldn’t decide which was the case after spending two days travelling before I reached the unseelie border.
From the treeline, I stared at the cottage sitting all alone on the edge of unseelie land. I couldn’t bring myself to move, to cross over, but inside I was… muted. I didn’t feel much of anything as I looked at the place that held some of my happiest memories, and that more than anything else should have horrified me.
Ash’s herb garden was a wild, tangled thicket. The chicken coop was rotting. Through the tiny kitchen window, the interior of the cottage looked dark and lifeless.
No part of Ash was here anymore. He was entirely different now from the young mortal man who had lived here. I was different too, but I couldn’t even say how. I could barely articulate, even to myself, who or what I had been before. But I knew I was different.
Everything was silent around me save for the rustling of the trees. Far in the distance, I could see the unseelie palace winking in the afternoon sun, gleaming like melting ice on its hill.
It called to me. Not because of who was in it, but because it already felt like mine.
I was being torn in half. The pull of unseelie called me forward, getting stronger with every step I had taken through the forest. But the draw to return to Ash was still there, and it hadn’t faded. I already missed him terribly. I wanted to go back and apologise for my cruel words, for leaving without saying goodbye, for everything.
But I knew I couldn’t. Not yet.
Something in the air made me stiffen in a rush. My ears pricked, listening intently to the forest behind me. Before I even fully registered the sound of a twig snapping, I was whipping a sword off my back and whirling around.
A young fae was already frozen in place, staring at me in disbelief. She was unseelie, I realised instantly, and looked vaguely familiar, but I knew none of my mother’s subjects outside of the ones I’d murdered on her behalf.
Long, dark red hair had been woven into a messy plait, and her solid green eyes were wide with shock, but much to my surprise, I saw very little fear in them. She was gripping a basket laden with foraged fruits, and there was a bone-handled dagger strapped to her belt, but she didn’t attempt to grab it.
