by Amber Argyle
“So when this boy who was now a man woke to the father’s deepest grief, he knew what had happened. And he vowed he’d do anything to bring her back or die trying.”
A girl from Landra, her father a merchant. Magalia. It must be. The boy Magalia had loved, twisted into this hateful, duplicitous man. Larkin would never tell him the truth. He didn’t deserve to know.
“You went into the forest after her,” Larkin breathed.
Garrot met her gaze. “I found her. And the pipers with her. They killed my brother and left me for dead.”
She hated this man. She would always hate this man. But she pitied him too.
Garrot lifted a necklace out of his shirt and stroked the tooth. “This is all I have left of my brother. I keep it as a reminder of what I lost and the vow I made—to stop the pipers. So that no man would ever have to endure what I have.”
“You’re trying to save my sister the way that little girl saved you.” She shook her head. “Nesha isn’t her, Garrot. Nor is she your mother.”
His mouth tightened. “Will you help me defeat the pipers, Larkin?”
“The pipers aren’t our enemy, Garrot. The wraiths are.”
“You’re not entirely to blame for what has happened to you. The pipers’ enchantment never really leaves a girl once taken.”
“A lie.” The forest take him.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a slim, worn book. The gold foil letters had long since worn down to the corners of the embossing. Eiryss’s journal—it must be. Tam was supposed to fetch it. Now Garrot had it.
Tam hadn’t escaped as she’d hoped. The druids had him. “What did you do to Tam?”
“Tell me, what do you want with this?” Garrot asked.
Larkin folded her arms to keep from reaching for it. Garrot obviously knew it was important, but not why. She couldn’t see the harm in telling him. “I will tell you, if you tell me what happened to my family and my friend.”
“Your family has been released into the Forbidden Forest. As for you piper friend, he is alive—for now.”
It took everything Larkin had not to gasp in relief. Alorica would never forgive Larkin if she didn’t bring the girl’s husband home alive. “You harm him at the risk of the Piper Prince’s wrath.”
“Tell me.” He held the journal up.
The druids must want the curse broken as much as the pipers did. If they understood that, perhaps they would help her. “We think Queen Eiryss might have left clues to breaking the curse inside.”
“In lullabies?”
“The curse doesn’t allow for outright truths.”
Eyebrow raised, Garrot flipped through the pages. Some of them crumbled in his fingers, brittle paper spinning like falling leaves into the pit. “What good does a book do for a girl who can’t read?”
She refused to be humiliated about that. “Others can read it for me.”
Garrot leaned back in his chair. “Shall I tell you the short version? There are lullabies and a few ramblings from our first queen. The important bit is this: the wraiths didn’t start the curse.”
He seemed to be waiting for her shock. Larkin had seen the day the curse had taken shape. Whether or not Eiryss had begun the curse, she’d done everything in her power to stop it.
Garrot perched a pair of spectacles on his nose, flipped through the book, and read, “‘In the five years since we fled the forest, no woman of the Alamant has borne a daughter nor successfully taken a thorn. The men’s magic is greatly reduced.
“‘And we of Valynthia—the magic is lost to us. To me. Already, the people forget from whence we came—our past lost to the shadow. Even for me, it becomes … difficult to write these words. As if my own hand will not obey me. Light, it’s my fault. If only I had realized the cost of the dark magic we wielded …
“‘But it cannot be undone—not by a man or woman living. So we must endure. Illin has ratified a treaty in which we will offer up our daughters so the Alamant may continue to protect us.
“‘As for me … the shadows lie in wait. The trap has been set. Soon, I will fall into it, and my people will be ignorant to the danger that hunts them. So I took what was left of the council and charged them with acting as liaisons between the pipers and my people—to protect our people as best they can.’”
Garrot looked down at her. “The council eventually became the druids, so you have Eiryss to thank for that too.”
“So the druids didn’t start off an evil organization bent on suppressing and controlling their people?”
“‘Even with what we have done,’” Garrot read on as if she hadn’t interrupted him, “‘we will never defeat the wraiths. All our valiant efforts, all our sacrifices won’t matter. The magic will fail. In trying to protect our people, I have cursed us to ruin.’”
He looked up at her, waiting.
“You misunderstand her.”
“It’s simple, Larkin. Your own ancestor used dark magic to win the war between Valynthia and the Alamant. That dark magic created the curse. She tried to reverse it and only managed an ineffective countercurse—one that banished us from our rightful inheritance, from our magic—then she created a treaty that left us beholden to our conquerors.”
“Conquerors? The pipers only take what they must to fight the curse.”
“Is that what has happened over the last few days? To the seven hundred-odd women the pipers have kidnapped?”
“You broke the treaty.”
Garrot shut the book with a snap. “Over the years, the curse seems to have morphed, to have pushed back the countercurse that keeps it in check. All because the pipers refused to end it.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “The pipers have lost so much more to this curse than you. How can you believe they would choose this?”
He leaned forward, his elbows braced against his knees. “No, Larkin. They could have ended the curse before it ever began, but they refused.”
“The wraiths kill pipers and turn them into mulgars. The pipers would do anything they could to stop that.”
“Even give up their precious White Tree?”
She stilled. Their sacred tree, opalescent and lined in gold. The source of their magic.
He nodded. “You see it now, don’t you? The pipers would have to use up every scrap of their magic, all of it. It would kill the tree, but it could be done. But the pipers refuse to do it.”
The White Tree was all magic and power and beauty. Destroy it? The last of its kind. No. The pipers wouldn’t do it. Neither would she. “And if you’re wrong, killing the White Tree will destroy any hope we have of survival.”
He rose to his feet. “I’ll take that risk.”
“You don’t understand. You can’t—not unless you see it for yourself. There is something majestic and holy about the White Tree.”
“I will do what I must to put an end to this, Larkin, even if I must profane something holy.”
“There is another way,” she said. “Join with the pipers. Our curse has already crumbled—I’ve seen it myself. All that remains is to defeat the wraiths and barrenness.”
Garrot tossed the book at her. She caught it. “Here. Keep it. It’s yours anyway, I suppose. And there are other copies. I’ll leave the lantern for you. See for yourself if the Curse Queen left us any hints to breaking the curse. As for me, I mean to do it.” He picked up his chair and turned to go.
She laid her hand on the cover and looked back up at him. “And what do you mean to do with me?”
He looked back at her. “I will do what I must to break this curse. Always remember that, Larkin.”
Why did his words feel like a threat?
Larkin woke with a scream echoing in her ears. She bolted up from the hard rocks, her magic buzzing beneath her skin as she called up her sword. The light illuminated a small circle in the darkness. She clutched her sword and panted.
“Just a dream.” Her voice sounded strange after so many days of silence. She’d lost count of how many. Inste
ad, she judged the passing of time by the fading of her bruises. The black bruising from her ankle had shifted to her toes, which had turned a sickly green.
She dared not close her eyes for fear she might see their faces again—the faces of the families of the men she’d killed. The remorse that had been so absent when she’s sliced through them had seeped in slowly as she wallowed in the pit. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw a child crying for her father. A mother for a son. A wife for her husband.
She dragged her nails through her greasy scalp. She itched. Everywhere. The reek of her unwashed body made her own stomach turn. She was weary, body and soul. She longed for sunlight and water and, most of all, the comfort of Denan’s arms around her.
How much sleep had she managed? Surely no more than three hours. Even if she tried, she wouldn’t go back to sleep—not with the taste of the nightmare still fresh on her tongue.
She dragged herself to the book—Eiryss’s book. For however long she’d been down here, it had been her only companion. She squinted at the words in the half light. Careful of the brittle pages, she sounded out the letters, painfully blending the individual sounds like Denan had taught her.
After Eiryss’s initial entry came stories of her life with her young daughter, fights with the council, and the building of their new kingdom. Interspersed throughout were the lullabies. They were similar enough to the ones she knew, so after the first two or three words, she could usually guess what came next, though sometimes whole lines were different.
For instance, in the book, one poem read:
Snatching his daughters from their dreams,
Never a chance to voice their screams,
Back to the forest, he doth go.
Find the light and fight shadow.
In the version Larkin had been taught, “his daughters” had been replaced with “virgins,” and the last line had been replaced with “to nibble and dribble their bones just so.” The lullaby as she knew it was about the beast. This was clearly about Ramass. But who were his daughters, and why was he snatching them?
There was another lullaby Larkin had never heard before.
Bound by shadow dark as night,
A curse queen, four ravens white,
Failed to drive the shadow into light,
Heal the darkness, cure the blight.
Wielder of light? Eiryss had mentioned light before. Larkin eased back a few pages. The queen had almost used it as an expletive. And why did Larkin get the feeling the wraiths thought that Larkin was the nestling they’d been searching for? They clearly thought she’d broken the curse. But that was Sela. What exactly did they want her little sister for?
There was one last poem, just two lines.
Light through dark and shadow pass,
Then tighten and trap the poison fast.
The sound of footsteps announced the guard’s arrival. His hair and thick mustache were always slicked down tight in contrast to his bushy sideburns, so she’d taken to calling him Sideburns.
“Please, do you know anything about my family or the man who was with me?”
Instead of answering, he tossed her a bag of food and a cask of water.
She sighed. “Can I have some water for washing?” This, too, she always asked.
To her astonishment, he returned shortly with a bucket of water, which he lowered to her along with soap, a simple, full skirt, and a shirt before locking the door behind him. She washed twice and used the remaining water to launder her awful dress in case she was desperate for clean clothes later. She reveled in the feeling of clean hair and the smell of her skin.
Sideburns came back before long with half a dozen other men. Between them was Tam, bound and gagged, but looking healthy.
“Tam,” she gasped. She’d begun to doubt she would ever see him again. “Are you all right?”
He winked.
She breathed out in relief. “Maybe Alorica won’t kill me.”
He grinned through his gag.
“You will submit to being bound,” Sideburns said, his first words to her. “Any wounds you give us will be meted out to your guard. Understood?”
She nodded.
“Take him back to his cell,” Sideburns said.
They took Tam away again, and men lowered a ladder. After she’d climbed to the high platform, she allowed them to bind her hands and climbed the long set of stairs. She was relieved to leave the damp, dark cave with its resounding silence behind. The light from the windows made her blink, eyes stinging.
She was taken to the throne room. The gallery was packed with druids, as was the main floor. Judging by the tooling on their belts, they were all Black Druids—either their ranks had swelled or every Black Druid in existence was present.
Fenwick sat on the dais with his council on either side. All of them watched her in utter silence. Would they hang her, as they had Bane? She wished for one friendly gaze in the room—just one person who didn’t want her dead.
Instead, she caught sight of Garrot in the front row. He looked at her eagerly, as if he’d been waiting for her appearance. Uncontrollable, her sigils gleamed hot beneath her skin, the angry buzzing setting her teeth on edge. If not for the threat to Tam’s life, they would have formed in her hands, and she would have used them.
Sideburns nudged Larkin, his hand on his sword. She’d stopped at the doorway without realizing it. She swallowed hard. Whatever came, lingering or fighting wouldn’t change it. She forced herself to take one step and then another. Heads swiveled, watching her. She passed Garrot on her left and resisted the urge to spit on him.
Sideburns escorted her all the way to the foot of the dais and then took a step back.
Fenwick stared down at her. “Larkin of Hamel, you, as well as your guard, have been ransomed by the Piper Prince. You will be escorted into the forest and released.”
All the breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Released. To Denan. Color came back into her world. She wanted to drop to her knees and weep, to cry out in relief. Instead, she forced herself to remain calm.
Denan had come for her, just as he promised.
Fenwick waved his hand toward his guards. “Take her to the appointed place in the forest.”
Sideburns stepped up beside her and took her arm.
“I must protest this,” Garrot said softly from behind her.
A shiver of horror cut through her relief.
Fenwick turned to one of his councilors, either not hearing or ignoring Garrot. “Now, about that dispensation.”
“I must protest this,” Garrot shouted.
Dread curdled in Larkin’s stomach until she thought she might be sick.
Fenwick rose to his feet. “You have forgotten your place, Garrot. We all saw how easily they sacked Cordova, how easily he could sack us all if he truly wanted.”
Denan had sacked Cordova?
“We cannot defeat their magic,” Fenwick continued. “Nor should we try—not with the wraiths bent on destroying us both.” Echoing silence answered him. Fenwick gestured vaguely to Larkin. “The Piper Prince has agreed to return Cordova in exchange for his wife and an increase in the tithe. We will be grateful that’s all he demanded. The army will be disbursed, and things will go back to how they were.”
“I told you,” Garrot said into the echoing silence. “I told you he would try to save her—his own granddaughter, the traitor of Hamel.”
“I am not a traitor,” Larkin said.
“That has nothing—” Fenwick began.
“It has everything to do with it.” Garrot eyed the druids in the gallery. “Brothers, can you not see that for the last three centuries, we have been sacrificing our daughters in the fight against the wraiths when all along, we should have been fighting the pipers?”
“What folly is this?” Fenwick cried. “The wraiths crave the death of all humanity.”
“They do not,” Garrot said darkly. “They only want to end the curse. As do we all.”
Fenwick’s eyes widened. “You
’ve spoken with them?”
Garrot’s silence was answer enough.
“You’ve allied yourself with them?” Fenwick gestured to a pair of guards standing on either side of the dais. “Garrot of Landra, you have grown mad in your grief and your thirst for revenge. I hereby strip you of your rank. You are banned from ever setting foot in the druid palace again.”
Iniya’s palace, Larkin thought bitterly.
Fenwick waved. “Throw him out.”
Their hands on their weapons, the guards advanced on Garrot. He wore no weapons and made no move to defend himself. Until they were half a dozen steps away. Then he gave a shout. Over a dozen men around him slid into defensive stances, swords and shields suddenly appearing in their hands. In Garrot’s hands.
Larkin gaped at Garrot’s blade and the shadows swirling off it. A wraith blade. It had appeared in his hand as if by magic. But not the magic of the pipers. This was the magic of the Black Tree.
The guards stumbled back in shock. The councilors bolted to their feet. Fenwick shouted for more guards. They hustled from the four corners of the room to form a wall between Garrot and Fenwick.
“What madness is this?” Fenwick asked.
“Surrender, and you will live,” Garrot said.
Fenwick sized up Garrot’s men with their magic blades—blades that would easily cut through the weapons of his guards. “Only a fool aligns himself with the wraiths and think they would not turn on him.”
“Surrender or die!” Garrot cried.
Fenwick’s gaze swept across those in the gallery, the main room, and finally his councilors. He took his blade from his belt. “Black Druids of Idelmarch, stand with me. Cut out this rot before it spreads. Kill them!”
His councilors and guards pulled their own swords and cheered with him. With a shout, Fenwick charged, his council rushing with him.
A hand snaked around Larkin’s waist. Sideburns hauled her away from the battle. No. She must stay with Fenwick. He meant to return her to Denan. She fought and kicked. He only wrapped her up tighter as he dragged her away from the churning, fighting mess interspersed with sprays of red. So much blood that the floor ran slick with it, fighters slipping and falling in the sloppy mess.
