Page 128 of Into the Heartless Wood
same
as I ever was.
Owen has pushed himself up on one elbow on the table. He stares at me.
“I am sorry.” I have wanted to tell him this every day since his mother ripped out her heart. “Forgive me, if you can.”
But I do not say the words that burn deep inside of me.
I cannot speak to him of love.
Because I am
a monster
and he
is not.
“Seren.” His voice is a whisper. A plea. “I—”
There’s a raging whirl of wind,
the scent of trees.
Branches reach
from nowhere,
writhing and twisting and studded with thorns.
They grow up around me. They block Owen from sight. They pin my arms to my sides.
Vines crawl down my throat and cinch tight around my ears. There’s a rushing darkness.
A roaring sense of cold and rot.
Then the vines retreat and the branches fall away.
I lie on the grass
under a sky strewn with stars.
I stare up
into the wrathful eyes
of
my
mother.
Chapter Fifty-One
OWEN
LEAVES IN HER HAIR. SAPLINGS AT HER FEET. THE SCENT OF VIOLETS. It can’t be.
