Trying to stand on human feet, the wraith grips the narrow limbs of two saplings an arm’s length away. The ground settles, but panic hangs like a mask from Helena’s face, as though the wraith knows more than us.
It tries to run, but the saplings come to life, snaking around Helena’s legs before the wraith can take her very far, bringing the girl’s body to its knees at my feet.
Gnarled roots of a dozen trees rip from the ground and flail in the air, scattering frozen dirt through the forest. Leaves fall from branches, and birds flee their nests as the roots land like twisted wooden talons, stabbing into the now-thin snow. They creep toward the wraith, almost taunting, like the demon taunted us.
I feel her then—Nephele—her magick warm and reassuring against my skin. Raina looks at me, eyes round. She feels her, too.
A soil-covered root reaches out and coils around Helena’s waist. The wraith fights the woody grip, kicking wildly, but when it can’t break free, it looks back at me with evil shining in Helena’s eyes. Suddenly, it clamps a hand around my ankle.
With extraordinary strength and an unnatural moan, the wraith yanks me from Raina’s arms, taking me with it when more roots latch onto Helena’s body and drag us deeper into the wood. The wraith screams, a wail that curdles my blood.
I flip to my front and claw at the ground, grasping for anything until I finally stop sliding, and Helena’s hands let go.
Panting, I turn over, and Raina rushes to my side. She clutches mytunic and arm, her breaths as hard and fast as my own. Ahead, in that silver-outlined dimness, the wraith kneels inside a cage made of roots and seedlings. It thrashes against a dark vine wrapped around Helena’s wrists and mouth, a vine that stifles the wraith’s cries.
But it’s no longer the wraith prostrate before us. It’s Helena. She’s close enough that I can make out the abject horror etching deep lines in her face, the panic burning bright in her eyes. The wraith has let her through once again—to torment us.
But gods, how it must torment Helena.
Raina lurches into the wood. I run after her, hooking an arm around her waist a second before she reaches Nephele’s makeshift prison. She twists and turns, jerking against me, but I hold fast. There’s nothing we can do for Helena now, not if we want to live.
“Listen to me, Raina.” I shift her around, clench her face in my hand, and catch her wild gaze with a steady stare. “This is Nephele’s doing,” I tell her. “I know you feel her. She’s doing this because Helena isn’t Helena anymore. She would’ve killed me and taken you to the prince had Nephele not intervened, and you have no idea what that would’ve meant for your future.”
Raina pushes out of my arms.“What is she then?”she signs.“She is not thatthinglurking inside her.”She steals a glance over her shoulder at her sobbing friend, sitting helplessly in her cage. When Raina looks back at me, tears stream down her dirt-streaked face. “I have lost everything.I cannot lose her, too. I will not let the Prince of the East take her from me. I refuse!”
She stalks around the wood, studying the ground, the treetops, fisting her hands in her hair. I can see her anguish, her desperation to find anything, think of anything, do anything that might help Helena.
As more tears flow, her inconsolable weeping ensnares my heart. A sense of defeat pulses from her, a sense that she’s coming to terms with her powerlessness.
I go to her and take her face in my hands, more gently now. “Stop. Look at me.” When she meets my gaze, her furor eases. Her panting remains, but her cold hands wrap around my wrists like I’m the only thing keeping her tethered to this world. I press my forehead against hers. “Just breathe.”
Her gasping slows, and the snow stops falling around us. I swear the wood is warmer, too.
I muster my calmest, softest voice. “If there were any other way to protect us, Nephele would take it. She would spare your friend this torture. You know she would. This cage has to be all she can manage. You must believe it’s for the best.”
When I pull back, I still see doubt on her face.
“That wraith won’t let Helena die,” I say. “It needs her alive if it plans to remain in this world. Nephele will also do anything she can to ease the conditions, and having a wraith inside the body makes Helena far more tolerant to extremes. We, however, do not have that advantage. We cannot stay here, and we cannot free your friend of this wraith in a way that won’t harm her.” I wipe the tear tracks from Raina’s cheeks, memorizing the feel of her skin, the curves of her face. “But wewillfind a way,” I promise her. “And wewillreturn. I swear that to you. I need you to trust me. Please.”
She stares at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. I understand that she knows little about the wisdom and talents of the witches at Winterhold, and I know that I’m the last man she ever thought she would have to depend on, but I need her to know that I can be the kind of man who’s worthy of her trust. That I already am.
After a heartbeat, she nods and slips from my grasp.
“Why is he doing this?”she asks.
I let out a long breath and drag my hand through my hair. Her question is vague, and I let it remain that way.Thiscould refer to many things, things we can’t get into right now. So I give her a vague truth. It’s all I can do.
“I don’t know. I don’t even knowhowhe’s doing it, but he is.”
He shouldn’t have this power. Wielding wraiths was an old practice of the Summerland magi. A few Eastland sorcerers managed the skill, but that was centuries ago, before Urdin sealed the Shadow World.
“I want to say goodbye,”she signs.
I can’t help but eye her warily. I’m the one who needs to trust, I suppose.
“Just be careful. That wraith isn’t commanded to harm you, butkeep your distance regardless.” I flex my hand, the skin still tingling from touching Raina so intimately. “I’ll gather the horses.”
Minutes later, I return with Mannus, the mare, our broken lamp, and my sword, too worried to do anything but make haste. Raina sits on her knees in the snow next to the rootbound cage.
