Page 142 of Into the Heartless Wood
“Then don’t,” says Rheinallt. “Come fight with us. Help us send the witch and her wood back to Hell where she belongs.” There’s an intensity in his pale eyes that startles me.
Baines is still, solemn, his dark skin melding into the shadows. “Die with us, he means. No one can fight against the wood and live.”
I sag against the wall. “Thank you for coming to save me. But you have to go now. Before you get caught. Please.”
For a moment, I think my friends are going to drag me from the cell. But they don’t. They salute me, first Baines, then Rheinallt, right fists to left shoulders.
“Don’t die,” I tell them.
Baines grimaces, but Rheinallt smiles. “You either.”
And then they’re gone, back down the corridor, back up the stairs.
I slump to the floor. I’m a fool. But I know the king isn’t done with me yet. If I’d gone with them, he would have found us. He would have ripped their souls from their bodies, cast their husks to the ground. I couldn’t do that to them.
Somehow I’m expecting the footsteps that approach my cell barely half an hour later.
I’m not surprised to lift my head and see the king through the bars, dressed for war in old-fashioned gold plate armor that’s maybe as ancient as he is. He wrenches the cell door from its hinges, not bothering with a key. He hauls me up by one arm, pulls me into the corridor. “It’s time,” he says.
I try not to feel the awful heat of him. I try to tamp down my fear. “For what?”
“To catch a siren. To raze a wood. To kill a witch.” He grins at me, a flash of white teeth. “To unbind your soul, so I can swallow it.”
He drags me up the stairs, out into blinding starlight.
It isn’t yet dawn.
Torches burn in the darkness, spilling out beyond my sightline, an army of raging stars: Tarian’s army—ready to march.
King Elynion stands on the hill before them. His armor makes the torchlight writhe and shiver, or perhaps the fire cannot stand the heat of him, and strains to get away. He has not bound me—he doesn’t need to. He crackles with power. With stars. If he snapped his fingers, I think I might burst into flame.
Four of his own personal guards stand with us, their eyes glittering under their helmets.
“Soldiers of Tarian!” Elynion shouts down the hill to the waiting army. “This is the day of our triumph! The day we take back what is ours, the day we grind the witch into the dirt under our heels and burn her wicked trees to ashes. She will no longer shadow our land! No longer fill us with fear! She will be a blight upon Tarian no more!”
The answering shout rolls up the hill like thunder, the whole of the army speaking as one: “NO MORE!”
“Death to the witch!” cries the king. “Death to her trees!” He thrusts his sword high into the air.
The army screams back, “DEATH!”
Then Elynion sheathes his sword, grabs my arm, and drags me down the hill. A huge black horse waits for him there, with other mounts for his guards. There is no horse for me. The king and his guards swing into their saddles, and the king fixes me with his horrible eyes. “Keep up, Merrick.” He kicks his horse into motion; the guards follow suit.
“Better do as he says.”
I look back to see the guard Luned on a horse of her own, a pair of unlit torches strapped to her saddle. Commander Carys is with her, and the whole of the army marches at their heels.
Luned hefts me up behind her, and then we’re hurtling after the king, wind and darkness rushing by.
All is pain and fear, an eerie bend to the world, like I’m caught in a nightmare I can’t escape from. I don’t have my musket or my sword, not even a knife. I can’t shut out the king’s words, whispering eternally through my mind:To unbind your soul, so I can swallow it.Will I die like my mother, an empty shell? Will I turn to ash for the wind to blow away?
We’ve been riding less than an hour when the wood looms suddenly ahead of us—the wood I know is supposed to be miles and miles from here. A chill crawls down my spine.
Luned reins in her horse just behind Elynion and his guards, who have stopped on the very edge of the trees. Wind shudders through the branches, making the leaves scrape and chatter. The king swings to the ground. He glances back. His eyes meet mine. “Come,” he says.
I climb from the saddle in a daze, my feet drawing me to the king, though my mind is screaming for me to turn, to run.
He steps past the border of the trees. I follow like a dog on a lead. The guards stay behind.
