I liked silence about as much as I liked being human.
At least as a fox, I had enough sense of smell to figure out exactly what lurked in the underbrush that made the wood so still, but with my nose dulled and my ears muted, I felt trapped. My eyesight at night, which I somewhat retained, couldn’t make up the difference. No wonder humans invented weapons. They certainly didn’t have the capacity to fend for themselves without any.
And now neither did I.
There was no sign of the creature that had screamed, or any sort of struggle, but I could feel it—like eyes on the back of my neck. There was something prowling in the distance, as sure as the chill that crept up my spine.
I knew very well what it felt like to be hunted. That feeling, whether fox or human, hadn’t changed.
I had to get back to Daisy. We had to leave—now.
I tore through the underbrush as quickly and quietly as I could. The shadows on the ground grew longer as the sun began to touch the horizon, filling the trees with a pinkish orange that began to bleed red, like blood. I didn’t like this at all.
“Daisy, put out that fire and . . .” I froze on the outskirts of camp. It was empty. “Daisy?”
She and the bear were gone.
13
Like a River Runs Wild
Cerys
I DID MY business by a poplar tree, and I was lacing my trousers back up when I heard it again—another scream.
Closer this time, and coming from downriver.
I didn’t care what Fox thought it was—someone was in trouble, and Papa taught me never to turn the other way. Gathering my courage, I crept toward the sound of the voice. Because the sun had almost set, the shadows were long and soft, painting the wood in an orange-and-purple shroud. I pushed my way out of the thicket and stumbled onto the shoreline again. There was no one there, only the rush of the water down the smooth stones, washing all the way down into the valley to the Village-in-the-Valley.
“Hello?” I called, but no one answered.
I could’ve sworn the scream came from this direction, but maybe I was mistaken. I kicked a branch into the river, and it was quickly swept away in the swift current.
When I was little, I used to make boats out of fallen flower petals and clipped-off twigs from Papa’s garden, wondering if the current would carry them all the way to Somersal-by-the-Sea. And Voryn waited at the beginning of this river. If it still existed.
It had to.
The river even smelled different this far into the wood. Cleaner, like a crisp spring morning. A little upstream, I watched Vala, nosing down into the river to grab a fish. Every time she came back up empty-mouthed, she dived back down with more vigor.
“Daisy?” I heard Fox call, parting a pair of thick tree limbs, and he looked annoyed when he found me. “Really, if you’re going to go wandering off like that . . .” He visibly paled, his tanned skin draining to an awful, deathly white. He swallowed thickly and said, “Daisy. Don’t move.”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t go that far—”
“I mean it,” he snapped, and the sharpness in his voice made me pause. He stared intently at something . . . just behind me. At first I thought it was Vala, but when I turned my head, I saw it out of the corner of my eye.
The thing behind me exhaled, and its hot, rancid breath heated the back of my neck.
Slowly, I turned all the way around—and wished I hadn’t.
Large yellow eyes returned my stare. It was a creature at least twelve feet tall, bent down as if to smell me. Moss grew over parts of its soft brown fur like armor, its face thin and deerlike, with large antlers arcing out of its skull. It had long, thin arms and long, thin legs.
I knew this creature—I had seen them before at the edge of the Wildwood. I had seen one the day Prince Lorne and Seren and my mother died.
It was an ancient.
Across its shoulders were small pods burrowed into its skin like tiny, misshapen holes—where the seeds of the woodcurse dispersed. They were the carriers of the woodcurse.
I had trapped most of the bone-eaters in the castle, but I dared not put on the crown again, and the crown was the only thing that could stop these monsters.
The creature lowered its yellow eyes to the crown tied to the sash on my hip. It whispered something in a language I didn’t understand. I quickly looked ahead of me again, trying to suck in breath—but I couldn’t. My lungs had stopped working. I was frozen in fear.
And what was worse, Fox—who had been standing on the river’s edge just a few moments before—was gone.
The ancient raised its gnarled hand and curled its twig-like fingers around my neck, whispering that strange language, its bone teeth clicking together.
Click. Click.
I slowly slipped my hand into my pocket for my iron knife—and quickly realized it was back at the campsite. I didn’t have it. I was defenseless.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vala come closer, her ferocious teeth bared, the fur on her spine bristling up.
The creature’s hands slowly trailed down my back, reaching for the crown. Its fingers began to pry at the knot in my sash, the whispering growing louder and louder—
Vala took a step toward us and gave a thundering roar. It was so loud it left my ears ringing. The ancient’s grip loosened, and that gave me the moment I needed.
I acted before I thought, bending down into the river and scooping up one of the sharp shale rocks at the bottom. I didn’t have time to unwind my bandage; I simply raked the rock across my palm as hard as I could where I had previously cut myself.
Pain seared up my arm, but I ignored it and shoved my hand against the ancient’s strange face. The thing gave an anguished cry as green bloomed where my blood touched it. It screeched, an ungodly sound, as it tried to reel away, but as it did, its skin sloughed off like bark into the water, and the green moss ate up its face and burrowed into its yellow eyes, daisies blooming as it did.
As it tried to flee, dark roots burst out of its chest, swirling around its thin arms and legs, digging deep into the riverbed, until it stood frozen in the river, arms now limbs, legs now trunks, a nightmarish tree covered in moss and flowers.
A rivet of blood swirled down my arm and dropped into the river. I quickly pressed my hand against my shirt to stanch the bleeding.
My knees felt like pudding, and I sank down into the shallows of the river. My heart thundered in my ears, black spots dancing in my eyes.
Vala ambled up to me and pressed her shoulder against my face. I curled my good hand into her fur and let myself cry into it. Hot tears burned in my eyes. I was scared. I hated the wood. And I didn’t want to be here at all.
I almost died. I almost died and—and—
“Is it gone?”
The voice of Fox came from behind me, and I turned.
He stepped out of the trees, picking leaves out of his hair. I wondered how far he’d fled, where he’d hidden. I wondered if he watched the whole thing, waiting to see if the ancient was going to rip me asunder. A hot anger bubbled in my stomach.
“You left me!” I cried, pulling myself to my feet. “You went and hid!”
“Of course I did!” he snapped, untangling a particularly gnarled limb from his long orange hair. “What else was I supposed to do? That was an ancient! You think that I would’ve been a match for that? I could’ve been woodcursed!” I was frozen in anger, and when he caught the look on my face, he rolled his eyes. “I’m flattered that you think so highly of me, Daisy, but trust me when I say I would’ve only made things worse. Besides, you handled yourself pretty well. I told you that you weren’t a useless gardener’s daughter.”
I rubbed the tears out of my eyes. “It isn’t about being useless, or about my magical blood. I thought we were in this together, Fox. I thought we were friends. But I guess I was mistaken.”
“No, Daisy, that’s not what—”
“Forget it,” I said, and headed back to camp, not caring if he followed.
14
Forsaken Forests
Fox
IT WASN’T WHAT she thought.
I wanted to help her—but the moment I saw that monster, something deep down beneath my rib cage, hidden and forgotten beneath my heart . . . broke open. Something I didn’t understand. I had never seen an ancient before, and the sight of it filled me with the sort of fear I couldn’t fight against. It was the kind of fear that came from looking at a nightmare you had seen in your dreams your entire life, finally made flesh and bone. That fear flooded me, and a voice as clear as day said, somewhere in the back of my head—
Run and hide.
Besides, it wasn’t like I could have helped. That thing was twelve feet tall! Even as a human I was still small compared to it.
Though Daisy was smaller. I remember when I barely came up to her knees, and now she barely came up to my shoulders.
. . . And she had faced the ancient. While I cowered.
What was wrong with me? Running and hiding always worked when I was a fox. It was how I survived. I didn’t fight. She couldn’t fault me for that.
Daisy sat quietly by the fire, knees curled up to her chest. She held the crown in her hands, and the firelight caught the leaves, spinning pinions of light across our camp. The crown was humming very softly, but I wasn’t sure if she could hear it or not. She just ran her fingers along the thorns and gold-foil leaves.
Vala slumped down on the other side of the fire, tossing a fish up and swallowing it in one gulp.
“How did it find us?” Daisy asked, startling me from my thoughts. Her voice was soft, and it sounded brittle around the edges. “The ancient, I mean. What are they?”
I glanced at Vala, who snorted a Humans do not know.
“They’re old gods,” I started, “back from when the world was not as dark, and magic lived everywhere. They used to be the sentries for the Lady of the Wilds, but when the crown was given to the first King Sunder, they grew corrupted, and now they spread the woodcurse. As for how that one found us, my guess is that it was attracted to the crown.”
Surprised, she looked down to the golden circlet. “Really?”