Choking on a scream, Valenna grabbed his harness, trying to yank him out of Hera’s mouth, but Hera ripped him from her grasp and charged across the paddock, through the fence, and down the hill toward the trees.
Chapter twenty-two
Evander
A flash of hot panic shot through Evander as Hera bore him down the hill.
“Hera, drop it!” he rasped, clawing at her mouth. Her right head gripped him like a mother wolf with its pup, the conical teeth sinking into his leather harness.
She crashed through the dracorium, smashing fences, her tail cracking stone buildings. Keepers ran shouting; dragons broke free of their enclosures, some mounting into the sky, others tearing through the grounds.
“Drop it!” Evander shouted again, but she tightened her bite, squeezing the air from his lungs.
Evander shielded his head with his arms as Hera broke through the stone wall behind the dracorium and plunged into the Whyspenware. The blurring world darkened, trees whistling past his head. His leg caught in a springy pine bough, his knee wrenched, and he was torn from her mouth. He fell, tucking into a tight ball, narrowly avoiding her trampling feet as Hera blundered over him and into the forest, snapping branches and felling saplings in her mad escape.
His ears ringing, Evander lay on a carpet of moss, waiting for his pounding head to drop him into darkness, but the noise dulled, and he managed to stumble to his knees, then his feet. He leaned against a tree as big around as a dragon’s body. It wasdark, knotted, and covered in prickles that reminded him of Valenna’s magic.
Valenna. What if she followed him, got tangled up in the terrible enchantment of this place, or was lost among the bracken and the briars? He turned around and around, expecting to glimpse her in every shadow, every blanket of mist. But he was alone, the forest quiet. Perhaps she hadn’t followed. That would be sensible. A bit too sensible, he feared.
A breeze rustled the leaves, directing the dark Whyspenware pines in an ancient dirge. A moaning magic beckoned him. Faint golden light filtered through knobbed branches; black trunks glistened, spotted with lichen and orange fungus; moss dripped through the trees’ fingers. A fine purple haze hung in the air like a shining mist. Evander couldn’t decide at first if it was real or some trick of his aching head.
Great wings beat the air overhead; Raska was watching. Waiting. Hunting.
Evander felt a barb of fear, but he brushed it aside. He needed to stay focused and find Hera before Raska found him. The pain in his head swelled. When he tried to find the path again, tiny spots of light darted in his vision. He was running out of time.
His desire to run wrestled with his anxiety over Valenna. If he could just find her, perhaps he could convince her to go back to Silvanlight and leave him to find Hera alone.
Evander snorted. Yes, that was likely. The same woman who plunged toward an angry hydra would probably turn sweetly on her heel and give him a peck on the cheek for good luck.
“VAL!” Evander shouted. His voice was absorbed by the fungus and wet bark, as though he hadn't made a sound.
A cold sweat broke out on his brow. What if she was lost, calling for him, and he couldn’t hear her? He began topush through the brush, unheeding as it snagged on his clothing, scratched his arms and face.
“VALENNA!” He’d never screamed like this in his life. His voice grated in his throat. He had to find her. Where was she? He was certain she’d followed him, so why hadn’t he found her yet? “VALENNA! WHERE ARE YOU?”
His foot crunched on something. Glancing down, he jumped back with a cry.
He’d stumbled onto a human ribcage.
Evander stared at the bones sprawled among the detritus—a complete skeleton. Then a flash of white under the ferns caught his eye, then another and another. Evander’s heart stilled as he identified shoulders, spines, jaws, and knuckles—a boneyard scattered across the forest floor. Bloodroot flowers sprouted from eye sockets, violets clustered over femurs, spiders nested in sinus cavities.
Nausea roiled in his stomach.
This place was beautiful and evil as hell. Where in the blasted kingdom was Valenna?
“Who has disturbed my rest?” sang a lilting voice. It was half breeze, half echo. Cold as a winter wind, soft as a snowfall, cruel as venom.
Evander froze, evening his breathing as he would on the battlefield.
“Well now, tell your tale,” the voice crooned.
“I’m searching for my pet,” Evander said, trying to find the speaker among the waving branches and the silvery flutter of ghost moth wings. “I’m here by mistake.”
“Mistake or misuse or malicious intent, I will have no men in my Whyspenware.”
A pair of eyes the size of carriage wheels—one green, one blue—blinked at him through the boughs, sparkling with malice. Below them, a crooked-toothed grin flashed in the dim light.
“Are you Bernice, the forest spirit?” Evander had heard of the vengeful phantom who haunted the Whyspenware, staking men through the heart when they wandered under the trees. Until now, he’d never believed the stories.
