Page 162 of Into the Heartless Wood
The Eater laughs at her. “You are wrong, witch. You have never been anything to me but a thorn in my heel. I have only been finding a sharp enough knife to cut you out.”
My mother stands tall and cold in the rain.
I do not know
how the Eater
does not quake before her.
Her voice is deep with danger,
with the promise of his death.
“I wished for you to come with repentance in your eyes. Even after all this time, we could have mended what was torn. We could have been so powerful, together. No one could have stood against us.”
The Eater sneers. “Do not think I come powerless to meet you.”
He calls down a piece of star. It dances in his hand. It flashes white.
He hurls it to the ground, and
it bursts in a blaze of fire,
scorching the grass at my mother’s feet.
“Do not think I fear your pathetic show of magic, fool. You say I am a thorn. So I will be a thorn.” My mother waves her hand.
The heartless lion leaps at the Eater,
knocks him to the ground.
“And do not think I have forgotten you,daughter.” My mother’s attention fixes suddenly on me.
I cower under her gaze.
“I told you. Tokillhim.” She snaps a word at the sky.
Her power sears through me, forces me to turn, to go back to Owen.
Beyond him, beyond the bodies and the burning trees, my brothers battle the wood. Everything screams.
The rain
falls
on
and
on.
My mother roars: “KILL HIM!”
I am hurled toward Owen. Branches shoot from my arms, my hands. They pierce him through. Wrap around his throat. Squeeze.
I fight her control with everything that is in me.
But I am helpless against her.
