The vines began to loosen their grip, receding from his throat, his arms. The flowers in his beard that had been withering trembled, as if caught in a gentle breeze.
I placed my hands on either side of his face and bent forward until our foreheads touched. My tears fell more steadily now, a rain of grief and hope mingling together, each drop a small surrender, each splash a tiny offering.
“That which is valued by the summoner,” I said, completing the ritual with words that came from somewhere deep inside me. “Freely given to the land.”
My tears were the physical manifestation of everything I’d been holding back, everything I’d been afraid to feel since this whole thing began. The vulnerability I’d spent years building walls against. The connection I had denied myself even as I designed spaces meant to foster it.
Beneath me, Faelan’s chest expanded in a deep, sudden breath. His eyes flew open, bright and green andalive. His gaze locked with mine, and I saw recognition there—and something else. Something like wonder.
The vines around us pulsed once more, then slowly receded from his body, unwinding from his limbs, releasing their hold on his throat and chest. As they withdrew, they took their flowers with them, the blossoms closing as they pulled away.
His hand reached up to touch my face, his thumb catching a tear that was about to fall. “You found the truth,” he said softly. “In the purity of your gift.”
Callie and Bethany stood motionless, watching in amazement as the hunting blind gradually returned to its former state—the explosion of growth ebbing, the fruits and flowers withdrawing, leaving only a faint scent of spring behind.
I sat back and searched Faelan’s face for any sign that he was still in danger. His skin was still green and his ears were pointed. But the vines had pulled away and left him looking almost human. All because I’d blubbered all over him? “What gift?”
He reached up and brushed my cheek with a touch as soft as the petal of a flower. “You gave freely what most guard most closely. The truest sacrifice is that which costs the heart, not the flesh.”
And in that moment, surrounded by the remnants of wild growth and with my friends bearing witness, I realized I’d given something I didn’t know I had—and gotten something I didn’t know I needed.
12
Faelan
A week had passed since the equinox. The mortals had lingered in the woods for a few days afterward, convinced that the forest blooming from their ritual had been some sort of miracle. But as time slips by, even miracles eventually become mundane, and once the flowers faded, one by one, they were called by their devices back to their city lives.
All but Samantha.
I felt her approaching before I saw her. It was a new sensation—this awareness of her presence that pulsed beneath my skin like a second heartbeat. Ever since she bound herself to me through the ritual, I’d been able to track her through the forest as if she left a trail of light only I could see.
She appeared at the edge of the clearing, her silhouette backlit by the late afternoon sun. Her flaxen hair was pulled back in a loose braid, with tendrils escaping to frame her face. She looked more at home in these woods than she had when she’d first arrived—her steps more confident, her gaze more observant.
“You’re early.” I stood from where I’d been preparing the space.
I felt the connection between us hum with pleasure at our proximity, but her expression was troubled. “I couldn’t wait,” she admitted. “It’s getting worse.”
She held out her hand. In the center, a small vine curled from her palm, its tender leaves unfurling in the air. It was the third such growth that week.
“I tried to tell it to back off, but….”
I took her hand, unable to stop myself from tracing the curve of her wrist, the pulse just beneath her skin. The vine was vibrant. It pulsed with life that matched the rhythm of the forest, but it came from her now.
“You’re changing,” I said, my voice low. “What you gave…it didn’t simply bind us. It made you part of this.” I pressed my thumb to the base of the vine. At my touch, it drew back into her skin with surprising grace, leaving a faint green mark in its place. A scar. A seed. A promise.
Her lips parted. “Is that normal?”
“Nothing about you is normal,” I murmured. “The forest is inside you now. It’s searching for expression.”
She didn’t flinch. “So, what happens next?”
The sight of her—barefoot, easy, eyes burning with questions—was something I’d waited centuries to see. Her presence wasn’t just powerful. It was irresistible.
Still, I turned and gestured to the clearing.
The moss had thickened into a living carpet. Stones formed a pattern I hadn’t laid so much as remembered, the shape older than language, older than memory. Overhead, the trees curved into a vaulted canopy, branches laced like fingers in prayer.
“This will go beyond anything you’ve ever known,” I told her, my voice low. “It isn’t about rules or plans or structure. It’s about surrender.”
