Page 100 of Echo North
The South Wind shifts his spear.“You knew very well. You have known always what you do, every second you have been on this world. There is no innocence in your heart. And so there shall be no mercy for you.”
She weeps bitterly on the forest floor, and somehow in spite of everything she’s done to hurt Hal, to hurtme, I feel a twist of pity.
The West Wind spreads his wings, and takes the spinning wheel from his back.“And so we take your power from you, and so your throne is broken.”
“No. Please.Please.”
It’s the last word she ever utters.
A chaos of wind and fire whirl round her, and the East Wind and the South Wind uncurl her magic with their spear and their sword. The West Wind catches it on his spinning wheel, and winds it into shifting, shadowy silver. I think of the threads in the bauble room, the twisted echo of the binding magic.
Her screams pierce through me and I can’t bear it. Hal wraps himself around me, presses my head against his chest. But I can still hear her screaming.
And then suddenly, she stops.
I lift my head.
The Wolf Queen’s hall has vanished, along with the sea of people on their dead thrones. We stand in a quiet patch of forest overshadowed with stars.
In the Wolf Queen’s place crouches a small silver wolf. She has the blank eyes of a beast; no comprehension burns behind them. She bares her teeth, frightened, and snarls at us. The Winds watch, silent and grim, as the creature who was once the Wolf Queen dashes off into the wood, the flag of her tail vanishing quickly amongst the trees. I pity her, but at the same time I know the Winds’ mercy. She will not remember what she was. She will never know all she lost. Her evil will not haunt her in the dark of every night.
The Winds each turn to me, and bow, the West Wind last of all. I remember how it felt to ride on his back with his golden wings beating strong underneath me, returning me to the beginning of my life, giving me another chance.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
The West Wind smiles.
And then he looks past me to where Mokosh still sits on her throne, weeping, as though unaware of everything that has happened. The West Wind goes to her, wraps her in his strong arms.
“Where will you take her?” I ask.
“Somewhere safe. Somewhere she can find healing, apart from her mother’s cruelty.”
My heart twists. “Take care of her.”
“I will take the very best care, dear one.”
And then he spreads his wings, and he and his brothers are gone.
It’s only then, as Hal and I turn to stare at each other, soft and weary and blinking away ash that is no longer falling, that I let go of his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
IT FEELS LIKE THE WORLD GETSa little smaller when I let Hal go. He looks away from me and a soft wind stirs through the dappled leaves scattered on the forest floor.
I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do. The truth of what Hal told me sinks in, and the Wolf Queen’s words eat into my mind.He never wanted you. He never loved you. He was just trying to save his own worthless skin.
I am hollowed out. I have saved him, but now what?
Hal speaks first, though he’s careful not to look at me: “Do you know the way down the mountain?”
“Yes.”
The gold circlet has vanished from his head; he’s wearing only a ragged shirt and dirty trousers, and I see again the threads of silver glinting in his hair.
I’d thought the journey and the rescuing would be the hard part, but it’s not. It’s this. I don’t know the man standing just paces away from me, looking old and young at once. We went through hell twice together, but now there is nothing to say. The Wolf Queen had a hold of him, was manipulating him for so long—is there anything of himself actually left?
“We had better go,” says Hal. “The Wolf Queen’s magic may yet linger.”
