Page 119 of Into the Heartless Wood
I shake my head. “My true name is Seren. That’s the name you must give them. Can you do it?”
She nods, studying me with dark eyes as she scoops Awela into her arms. I wrap a blanket around the little girl.
“How am I to escape the palace without being seen?”
“I will clear a path for you,” I promise.
She grasps my arm. “Thank you.”
The thought of Owen discovering his sister is gone wrenches at me. “Take care of her. Please.”
“I will, child.” She slips out the door with Awela, and I sink to my knees and feel for all the souls in the palace. Quietly, I tug them away from the nurse and Awela. She walks unhindered through the servants’ gate, and out over the plain.
I take a breath. I have done all I can for Awela and her nurse. I only hope they make it safely to my brothers.
Now to send Owen away. It is what I should have done when I first arrived. I did not want Owen to go. I wanted him near me. I still do. But my monstrous form pushes against my human skin. Leaves drip from my hair. Seedlings sprout beneath my feet.
I cannot hide my true self from him much longer.
Chapter Forty-Five
OWEN
THE PRISON GUARD PEERS AT ME THROUGH THE IRON GATE.
“You’re late,” he says. “Thought you weren’t coming tonight.”
I try to swallow my guilt. I’d heard the music spilling out of the palace and gone to Bedwyn first. “I’m here now.”
His face is grim in the torchlight. “Your father isn’t doing well.”
Terror grips me. “What do you mean?”
He avoids my gaze. All the nights we’ve bantered through the gate, he’s never told me his name. “I mean he won’t last till morning.”
I grip the bars. Something sour twists in my gut. I know what the guard is saying without actually saying it: That bastard of a king has been torturing him, and my father can’t take any more. I swallow past the acrid taste of bile. “Let me see him.”
“The king would have my head.”
“Please.”
He shifts his weight with a jingle of armor. The planes of his face are hard in the torchlight. “Come back in an hour,” he says in an undertone. “I’m alone on duty then. I’ll take you to him.”
I know what he’s risking: a flogging, dismissal from the army, maybe execution. It humbles me. “Thank you.”
He gives me a brisk nod, then says in a louder, overexaggerated voice: “I tell you every night, Merrick, you’re not getting through the gate no matter how much you beg!”
I touch my hand to my heart, a gesture of respect, and turn away without another word.
For a while I huddle against the side of the hill, shaking uncontrollably. I’m out of time, and there’s no one to blame but myself.
Even if I could break my father out of prison, it’s too late now. I don’t know the extent of his … injuries. I don’t know if a physician could help him. The king has been torturing my fatherto deathall this time I’ve been playing at being a soldier and flirting with a pretty kitchen maid.
Now there’s not a single thing I can do about it.
I’ll go and see my father. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Icanhelp him. Maybe the guard will let us go free, find us a physician. Then Father, Awela, and I can leave this place.
Tonight.
