Page 150 of Into the Heartless Wood
For a moment, her eyes grow wide. Then she is still. Her lips are black and charred. Smoke curls off of her.
Elynion leaves me where I lie.
I blink and see my mother in the mud, pressing her hand against my chest. Her words echo in my mind.One last spark of power. To guard you from her. So she can never take your soul, the way she took mine.
It was my mother, protecting me all this time. Her love was stronger than wood magic, stronger than Elynion’s machines, even stronger than a tree siren’s orb.
Grief weighs on me, so heavy I want to lie here forever and let it turn me, bit by bit, to dust.
The battle rages past me. I lift my bleary eyes to see the sirens locked in combat with soldier after soldier. They no longer have their music, but they still have their strength. Their rage.
They twist bodies and break necks. They open their mouths in soundless screams as they kill and kill and kill.
The trees burn, but still the sirens fight. Still they lead the wood against Elynion’s army.
And even without their music, they’rewinning.
I stare, numb, as they push the army back, past the body of their dead sister, past the flaming trees. I can’t see Elynion anymore.
There is nothing but smoke and ash, raining down around me like snow.
I wish the kinghadtaken my soul. I don’t even want it anymore.
I let my eyes drift shut.
“Merrick.Merrick.”
I open my eyes. Baines kneels over me, his face streaked with blood and ash. “I’ve lost Rheinallt. I’m not losing you. Come on.”
He helps me to a sitting position, makes an awkward sling for my arm out of his jacket.
He glances at the dead siren and shudders.
“Rheinallt?” I whisper as he tugs me to my feet.
There’s a riderless horse rearing and thrashing, its reins tangled in a burning tree. Baines frees the creature, calms it. Hoists me into the saddle and climbs up behind me.
The horse lurches forward, and we ride through the burning wood, out onto the plain.
“Rheinallt is dead?” I say.
Behind me, Baines shakes his head. “He deserted. Disappeared after we tried to spring you from prison.”
“Wouldn’t have thought it of him,” I gasp.
“Me neither.”
Another force of trees have come down from the north. They join the tree sirens, push Elynion’s soldiers back and back. They are the ocean, the king and his army a dwindling fleet before them.
But there are a handful more horsemen who have escaped the burning wood. We ride to join them. One by one, we salute each other.
“To the king,” says Baines, unsheathing his sword.
There’s a spare sword strapped to the saddle, and I draw it with my good arm.
“To the king,” I echo.
“To the king!” the other soldiers shout.
