“Take one step closer and I’ll gut you like a fish,” she snarled. The glow from the torches glinted off her enchanted steel.
The Vile sneered, her lips pulling back from sharp teeth. “Your magic steel can’t bite me, shiftling.”
There came a grotesque cracking sound, like bones snapping and joints dislocating, as the Vile opened her mouth, revealing layers upon layers of those needlelike teeth and bloodstained, rust-colored gums. Her dark maw widened like a cavern, as if to swallow Sable whole.
“Wait.” Emeline’s voice rang through the clearing. The Vile turned her head, staring. “I’m the one you want. Let them go, and I’ll be your prisoner.”
Sable shot her a startled look. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Holding Sable’s gaze, she whispered, “Trust me.” She’d distracted the Vile once before with her singing, and now that she knew who her father was, how there was a chance she’d inherited some of the Song Mage’s magic, she was certain she could do it again. It would at least buy Emeline enough time to run—after Sable and Hawthorne were safely away.
But first and foremost: she wanted to find out what the Vile did to her mother. She needed to know if Rose Lark was alive.
The Vile’s pale blue eyes bore into Emeline.
“If you can get him out of that cage before I eat your friend, they can both go free.” The creature’s attention shifted to Sable and she grinned hideously, taking a clawed step towards the girl. “Don’t worry about me,” Sable said as she lifted her blades, knuckles bunching around the handles. “Find a way to get him out of there.”
Emeline nodded, turning to the elm cage.
I’m the Song Mage’s daughter,Emeline told herself. Her singing summoned the woods. It put a dragon to sleep and stripped back Hawthorne’s defenses. It had even held off the Vile, temporarily, down in that cellar.
What else could it do?
She pressed her hand to one of the trunks. A gentle thrum pushed against her palm. Like the faint and sluggish pulse of a dying heart, beating below the bark.
Maybe these blighted trees hadn’t quite given up yet. Maybe there was something alive in them still.
Behind her, the air hissed with the swing of a blade. Emeline looked to find the Vile mere steps from Sable—teeth bared, ready to strike.
Her heart sped up.
Focus.
Emeline wrapped her hands around two elm trunks, thinkingof the day she’d seen inside Hawthorne’s mind. She’dwantedto defy him. Wanted to break down the walls he erected to keep her out.
She remembered singing Claw to sleep. She’d been thinking of Pa as she sang it. Pa, singing lullabies.
Maybe intention mattered. Maybe, when her voice did strange things, it did them in tandem with what she wanted.
Emeline.The voices of the trees whispered like ghosts.Sing us a true song.
A true song.
But what did that mean?
When Sable’s steel whistled through the air again, Emeline stopped thinking and reached for the song she’d written to the tune of “Rose’s Waltz.” The lyrics were her own. Did that make it true? She hummed the first verse, wading slowly into it, thinking about what she wanted: Hawthorne, free.
The pulse beneath her palms quickened.
She sang louder, letting the song grow, and as it did, the pulse locked away in sap grew with her, drumming loudly beneath her hands, matching the beat of her song. As if it were harmonizing.
It was like singing with Hawthorne—that tuning-fork feeling glowed within her. She could feel their feelings, spilling into her. Flooding her senses. Like they were one, her and these trees.
Unexpected sorrow and longing infected her. Weariness sank down to her roots. The forest was sick and tired and cursed—but holding on. Determined to keep fighting.
Suddenly, it wasn’t just Emeline’s song flooding out, but something else. A thick and shimmering power gushed out of her, like blood from a wound. Around her, the clearing changed. Pale, dead leaves cascaded to the forest floor like snow. The trunks of the trees changed from powdery white to deep brownsand dappled greens, color spreading like a blush from their roots to their branches. New leaves began to bud and unfurl, teeming with life.
Looking back to Hawthorne’s unconscious form, Emeline sang louder.
