Page 24 of Into the Heartless Wood
I bow before her.
“Forgive me, my queen.”
She paces round me.
The grass bends under her feet.
“You are different from your sisters. You are more like your brothers. Reckless. Willful. Wild. You will not defy your queen without penalty, as they did not.”
She banished my brothers
from her court forever.
I fear
what she will do
to me.
Her claws pierce my back.
She rips away a piece of my skin
and I fall to the ground
in agony.
My bark is a curl of silver-white on the grass.
Sap wells from the wound.
Pain burns me.
Dew leaks from my eyes.
My mother’s voice: “It will grow back. The quicker for each soul you claim for me.”
She unfolds her hand.
An orb lies there.
Empty.
Hungry.
Cold.
I do not want it.
“The men come to lay their iron in the north. Find them. Slay them. Send their souls into the heartless tree.”
I
do
not
want
