By the time it was over, all of them were dead.
Then dawned the inescapable truth. Humanity was pain. Humanity was depravity. Humanity was the true monster. The Black Tree had seen it all in the memories of the dead. Memories that had poisoned his mind until he realized there was only one thing that would save mankind.
Death.
The Black Tree would end humanity. And Larkin would help him.
She spread her arms, welcoming the soul of the Black Tree, reveling in the pain. She recognized the sharp shadows of the dead that had torn down her throat—the bride, the infant, and the grandmother. Now, they caressed her, cloaked her skin, hardened into breastplates, greaves, shin guards. Her sword formed in her hand. She became one with the Black Tree.
She knew what she had to do.
Larkin crossed to the glittering font. One thorn flashed bloodred. She broke it off with a snap and pushed it into her right forearm. It throbbed in time to the beat of her heart.
A vision flashed across her mind of a tender sapling pushing through the ashes of a burnt forest. Before she could guess what it meant, the shadows turned her inside out and jerked her back.
No. Not back.
In.
She had the sensation of being torn apart and traveling at great speed through the roots of the Mulgar Forest until she reached the Forbidden Forest. Then the shadows took her deeper—deep beneath the rich loam and network of interconnecting roots—before shoving her upward.
The shadows lashed her back together slowly. Woven throughout her soul were barbed thorns, shadows that connected her to the Black Tree and the other wraiths. Those same shadows also allowed her to see clearly in even the darkest nooks.
She was in the White Tree’s forest, not far from the border that separated the two forests. Men had trod the ground here. Recently. She could smell them.
Those men had gone south.
Cloaked in the shadows of the dead, Larkin followed the scent. Her fellow wraiths—separate and yet not—were to the right and left, moving as silently as she. And then the trail was gone. Keeping herself hidden, her gaze searched the canopy above—trees loyal to the White Tree.
They were up there somewhere. Hidden. The forest protected the men. Hiding them from her.
An echo of loss and longing tore through the Black Tree. He showed her what he wished her to do. Larkin slashed one of the trees and her arm, pressing the wounds together.
As the sap mingled with her corrupted blood, the Black Tree sent visions into Larkin’s mind, and from her into the Forbidden Forest. She saw the way things used to be. When the Silver Tree and White Tree had been connected by a vast network of intertwined roots, memories and music flowing freely back and forth. One tree added to the melody before sending it along to the next, until the whole forest sang with the sweetest music.
The White and Silver Trees were two separate minds bound as one.
Mates.
The last of their kind.
And then the Silver Tree had turned black. Blood had soaked the roots. Instead of memories, the shadows had spread through the forest. To save herself, the White Tree had severed their twining roots and killed the connection.
But still the Black Tree remained loyal. The White Tree was not his enemy. Even when she protected those he’d sworn to destroy. Even when her forest fought back against his presence.
The vision shifted to the White Tree as her light had died, a pulse of overwhelming grief flaring with it. Grief and longing to gain back a piece of what was lost. For the two forests to become one once more.
As they were meant to be.
Another vision niggled inside her, this time from the Forbidden Forest. A vision of mulgars setting the trees on fire. The music was a long, discordant note. Larkin remembered that night. The night the wraiths used fire in an attempt to destroy Gendrin’s army. That was the night Talox had been turned.
The Forbidden Forest was furious about the murder of their fellows.
The Black Tree tried to force his consciousness into the Forbidden Forest, but the trees blocked him.
“Show me my prey!” the Black Tree screamed from Larkin’s lips.
Bright white light and a cacophonous shriek screamed in Larkin’s head. Light that stabbed into her center and flailed the thorns back. It tore into her very soul as the Forbidden Forest drove her mind back and severed the connection.
A horrible screeching filled her ears—the sound of her own ragged screams. She staggered back, her body echoing with terrible pain.
The Black Tree had his answer. Even with the White Tree dead, her forest would fight him. Protect mankind in their canopy.
She growled in frustration.
And then, through the shadows that connected her with the other wraiths, a call came. The humans had been found. She surged forward, her passage not even stirring the foliage. She met up with three other wraiths. Moving as one entity, they climbed an embankment, where Ramass waited for them.
She peered through thick brush to a shallow bend of river. Two men stood in water up to their waists.
Denan and Tam.
The White Tree was dead. There would never be another king. Never another human with Denan’s daunting magic. Kill the king, and all the Alamant would weaken.
Forever.
“Beware the trees,” Ramass rasped, soft enough not to be heard over the rushing river.
Larkin looked up and caught sight of movement. Archers in the boughs.
“I know you’re there,” Denan called. “I can smell you.”
The smell of the dead.
“Draw them from the water,” Ramass said to Larkin. “The rest of us will flank them.”
She left cover and flowed down the embankment to the edge of the water. She shifted her voice to panicked, desperate. “Denan. Light, Denan. You must help me. I’m trapped.” He watched her, his dark eyes reflecting the moonlight glancing off the water.
“Why did you do it, Larkin?” His voice wavered. “You knew I would rather be dead than see you like this.”
Something deep within Larkin trembled. A thought came unbidden. You let him in; you can force him out. What did that mean?
The shadows of the dead dug their thorns in deeper, angry at the intrusive thought. They swirled around her, their fear and pain and fury biting deep. She needed Denan to understand how unredeemable mankind was. How broken and cruel and petty.
She eased forward another step and reached for him. “I know how to break the curse. Come with me, and we’ll break it together.” By killing every human in existence.
Denan stepped closer. So close. Almost within striking distance. She thrilled at the thought of turning him. Of depriving mankind of one of their strongest weapons.
“Denan,” Tam said behind him.
“I have to know, Tam,” Denan said.
He paused just out of her reach. His clothes clung to his taut body—so beautiful. He shivered, gooseflesh rising across his skin. “Why didn’t you kill the wraiths, Larkin?”
“There are four of them and only one of me. I need your help.”
He took his last step. She stretched out. He took her hand. Through the shadows, she could feel the warmth of his flesh. She gripped hard, jerking him forward.
No. This is wrong. But the blade had already formed in her hand.
Force him out. The thought echoed. She grasped for something, anything. Too late. She thrust. The Black Tree screamed with joy, but she felt only bitter cold.
Instead of hunching over, instead of blood, a faint light rippled over Denan’s skin like water struck by a pebble. He looked sad. “I had to know.”
He was armored. A magic that hadn’t existed since the old days. Until now.
“Sela,” Larkin hissed.
Denan’s sacred sword sailed through the air, cutting through the shadows to bite into her flesh. She hunched over at the searing heat. The shadows screamed. Sacred arrows flashed in the night, her fellow wraiths moving to avoid them.
&n
bsp; She was trapped, pinned by the sword and Denan’s hand. An arrow shattered her shoulder blade. Searing agony burned through her.
Denan pulled her close. “If any part of you is left, know that I will always come for you. I will not let you stay this way.”
He wrenched his sword free. She tried to block. Would have. But a part of her was screaming, fighting. His sword cut through her again. Then she was falling. Back through shadow. Back through the murderous memories.
Hagath
The Black Tree tortured Larkin for what seemed like days. Showed her depravity after depravity. The shadows left her slowly, from a scene so soaked in the blood of murdered Valynthians, she could taste it. She dropped to her knees, dry heaving. The wounds in her side and neck felt like fire scouring her from the inside out.
Just when she thought the pain would consume her, it began to fade. The blood gushing between her fingers slowed. Her vision gradually returned. She knelt at the edge of the docklike roots of the Black Tree. Just beyond reach, water lapped gently.
The last of the shadow’s thorns seeped from Larkin’s skin, soaking into the tree. She crawled forward, washing blood from her shaking hands and arms. One look at her soaked, shredded clothes, and she gave up, falling onto her back. Above, branches glittered like frost in the moonlight. Beyond them, the stars faded. Dawn was coming.
The memories of the bride, infant, and grandmother tormented her. So much death. And before that—she’d tried to kill her own husband. And come nightfall, she would try again. She would kill all her friends if given the chance.
If they weren’t dead already.
All she’d sacrificed to save them, to save him—the fighting, the council, the murders. Maisy. Light. Larkin had been so convinced that Maisy and Sela had been trying to tell her something. That by coming here, Larkin could actually destroy the wraiths with her light.
She was a fool.
I executed her. Her hands clenched into fists as she fought the memory. The guilt. Worse was what she’d done to Denan. The agony he must have faced when he’d realized what she’d done, that she’d willingly become a wraith. He’d felt betrayed. Rightfully so. Because she had betrayed him. She had chosen to wound him as deeply as a person could.
From deep within, the ice buckled. All the emotions she’d spent weeks drowning suddenly broke the surface, clawing their way into being.
A broken sob tore from her body, followed fast by another. And another. Until she was crying so hard that she could barely breathe, tears and snot making a mess of her face. She cried until she was exhausted, her stomach muscles sore and her eyes puffy. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop.
The horizon had brightened to marigold when, not ten steps to her right, shadow vines clawed their way into being. What new torture was this? She jumped up, staggered dizzily, and backed away. Her sword formed in her hand.
A wraith was returning.
Wraiths. The monsters of her nightmares. Larkin’s fear was so real she could taste it. But it wasn’t a rational fear. The wraiths weren’t a danger to her. Not anymore. And even if they were, Ramass had already shown her they couldn’t be killed.
I can’t be killed.
The real danger was the Black Tree—the very thing she stood upon.
The shadows dragged a figure from nothing and deposited Hagath onto the roots. Letting her magic fade, Larkin rushed to her side. The woman was naked save a jewel-encrusted flute hanging from a chain around her neck. Blood seeped from numerous puncture wounds in her body—wounds that slowly healed from the inside out. Hagath gasped and sat up. She coughed up copious amounts of blood and then lay back, her face pale and sweaty. She was covered in sigils, though the blood obscured them.
Hagath blinked, her hands reaching blindly for Larkin. “Are the others back yet?”
“No.”
Just as she said it, more swirling shadows came into being, revealing a naked man wrapped in thorns. They released him suddenly. He dropped to his knees and slumped over. He had a blade sigil on one hand and a shield sigil on the other. He was lean and muscular, his hair the palest gold. His face was too pretty to belong to a man.
Hagath turned, unseeing, toward the sound, her body tense. “Is he clean or filthy?”
Larkin looked him over, blushing at all that exposed skin. “Besides the blood?” Hagath nodded. “Clean.”
Hagath sagged in obvious relief. “That’s Rature, my husband. We call him Ture.”
Two of the wraiths were married. They had nicknames for each other. That was so . . . human. Larkin supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Ramass and Hagath had both seemed normal enough.
Larkin wiped the tears and snot off her face with her bloody tunic and hoped the dimness hid her blotchy skin and swollen eyes. “The other one, Vicil?”
“Help me sit up,” Hagath said as she took Larkin’s hand and pulled herself upright with a grimace. “Vicil doesn’t have anyone to keep him sane.” She opened her mouth to say more but then seemed to think better of it. “He’s dangerous. Stay away from him.”
So even in this forsaken place, Larkin was in danger of being attacked day and night. Lovely.
The color was coming back to Hagath’s face. She looked over at her husband, who was beginning to stir, and then up at the sky. She crossed to Rature—Ture—and helped him sit up. He grunted, one hand wrapped around his middle.
They didn’t even seem to notice their nakedness. Growing more uncomfortable by the minute, Larkin kept her eyes averted.
“The others?” Ture asked with the same accent as the other two.
“Larkin is here,” Hagath said.
Mouth tight, he nodded.
The other wraiths were still out there, trying to turn her friends into monsters. Perhaps they already had. As she would have done. Suddenly cold, she wrapped her arms tight around herself, wincing as the movement shifted her clammy clothes.
“Denan? Tam?” she asked in a small voice.
“They’re shielded,” Hagath answered.
“There’s nothing that can break the shield?” Larkin asked.
“Not since the curse fell.”
Larkin sagged in relief. Denan and her friends were all right. That relief was quickly followed by dread. The White Tree was dead. Whatever Sela’s magic had been, it was forever diminished. Larkin was surprised she’d even managed to armor Denan and Tam.
Ture slipped into the water. Minnow that flashed like silver coins swarmed him, feasting on the blood. Using the moss, he scrubbed the blood from his skin.
“Why can we touch the water now but not last night?” Larkin asked.
“The water doesn’t repel us.” Hagath placed emphasis on the last. “It repels the shadows of the dead that possess us. It’s part of the countercurse, you see. The shadows can’t cross water or bear sunlight. Nor can they enter the Forbidden Forest without a host.”
Hagath bent to pull her own tufts of moss free. She had to have been nearly three hundred years old, but her body was lithe, her skin tight, and her breasts firm. She was beautiful—the kind of woman men ogled and women hated.
Cheeks hot, Larkin averted her gaze. Her blood-soaked garments stuck to her skin, making her itch. She desperately needed a bath, but not with a man present.
“We’re making Larkin uncomfortable,” Hagath said.
Ture clenched his jaw. “She’ll get used to it.”
The man hadn’t looked at her once since she’d arrived, and whenever she spoke, he clenched his teeth. “Why are you angry with me?” Larkin asked.
His face flushed red. “Perhaps because your coming here has doomed all of humanity.”
Larkin flinched as if he’d hit her.
Hagath shot him a look sharp enough to pierce iron. “Eiryss always said one of her heirs would have the ability to break the curse.”
“If not for Eiryss, the world wouldn’t have suffered for centuries.” He tossed the moss and stormed out of the water and onto a grassy pathway leading away from the tree and
deeper into the fen.
It was hard to glare at someone while blushing at their perfect backside.
“He was forced to kill a pair of druids last night,” Hagath said sadly. “Otherwise he’d be a little better mannered.”
Light, these people have suffered more than anyone, she thought. And then she realized what Hagath had said. There were druids with Denan last night? But then, she supposed they’d fought at the wall too.
“Is Ture right? Have I doomed us all?” She hung her head in shame.
“No,” Hagath said firmly. “Eiryss had an amulet from the White Tree. It gave her visions sometimes. She said someday there would be a girl who the curse couldn’t touch. That girl would free us.”
Hope lightened Larkin’s heart. Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing. “How?”
“She kept that knowledge a secret,” Hagath admitted.
That hope guttered out like a spent candle. “I could never find her grave or her amulet.”
Hagath looked at Larkin strangely and then quickly away. “Ramass made me promise to let him take care of that part.”
Before Larkin could ask what that meant, Hagath gestured to Larkin’s bloody armor and ruined clothes. “You learn to strip before the shadows take you. That or all your clothing ends up ruined. We’ve all seen each other naked enough that we don’t really notice anymore.”
Larkin supposed that made sense, though she wasn’t sure she would ever share the sentiment.
Motioning for Larkin to follow, Hagath walked to the opposite side of the roots and lifted her flute to her lips. The blood-soaked sigils all over her darkened as she played a brisk tune full of abrupt starts and stops. She wove a complex pattern of geometric shapes—a pattern Larkin had seen a dozen times in her dreams.
Hagath’s song changed, the weave warping and stretching until it covered them both in a smoky half circle. “There, now we have privacy.”
“Men’s magic,” Larkin breathed. But then, why had she been able to use it before? Sela had said she couldn’t. Had her sister been lying?
“It’s the reverse for a Valynthian, as our tree is male. I have barrier magic. The men have warrior magic.”
Wraith King Page 32
