Page 83 of Into the Heartless Wood
Pain screams through the raw places in my back, the gouges in my face.
But it does not hurt as much
as the hatred in his eyes.
He screams: “How could you spend all those nights with me? How could you, knowing you didthatto my mother? How could you look up at the stars anddancewith me andkissme when YOU KNEW WHAT YOU HAD DONE?”
He scrabbles for something on his belt as he lunges to his feet.
A metal blade gleams in the rain.
He holds it out toward me and
the point quavers.
I say: “The heartless tree must always be bound to someone, someone to channel the power, to fashion the orbs. But humans do not endure, and every so often, my mother sends me or my sisters to take a new one, someone whose soul is strong enough to bear it. Your mother was strong. The strongest I have ever seen. That is why, when my mother sent me to find someone new, I chose her.”
“You’re a trickster. A monster. A demon from Hell. I never should have believed your lies.”
“I have never lied to you, Owen Merrick. I am my mother’s creature. Her monster. Her slave. I always have been.”
My words are
molded leaves
in my throat. They choke me.
Fresh tears pour down his face. “But that’s just it, Seren. You’re not her slave. She doesn’t control you—your will is your own. You are only a monster because you choose to be.”
His words slice through me
like an axe through wood.
“I never knew I had a choice until you.”
He says: “Then choose, but I want no part of it.”
“Owen—”
He is suddenly beside me, his blade at my throat. “I will never forgive you for what you did to my mother. If I ever see you again, I will kill you.”
He is so close
I feel
the heat of him.
And yet he is further away than he ever has been.
Grief is a river.
It
engulfs
me.
He curses and jerks away, hurling the blade at the ground.
