I paused to listen, fought the urge to keep running, endlessly running without thinking, losing myself in the forest, losing all separate awareness completely. Why should I cling to mortal weakness and fragility?
They belonged to someone I no longer was.
Yet I could not ignore the hounds.
Nor the cry that came from the far edge of the forest. “Bess!”
Thomas.
What was he doing here?
What business is it of yours now? Do not stop for the shepherd. He is the Baron de Lyne’s, not yours.
My protection could hold Thomas no longer. But I?
I had not given up my claim.
The forest shadows deepened, grew colder. The trees curled with menace, and where once the night creatures seemed adoring and precious, now they snarled at me like vicious beasts. My welcome was conditional, it appeared.
So be it. I would not be obedient to a wood.
In time, the wood shall be obedient to you.
“Bess!” Thomas called again, with greater urgency, his voice ringing out through the forest.
Bess is not my name.
Yet I knew no other.
“Bess, come back. It is not safe for you out here.”
It was safer for me in the forest than for him, with the Veil thin and the Hunt on the prowl.
“Go away, Thomas.” I forced the words out, as though I had not spoken in years. “We have parted, you and I. You said it yourself.”
But he came for me. That had to mean something.
The shepherd king worries whether I might be lost or devoured by beasts. Even while he mourns his brother and makes peace with his father, plans to marry another. I am not forgotten after all.
Not forgotten meant not forgetting. Not forgetting meant I could not leave him behind.
A horn sounded, cutting through the forest air. Hoofbeats pounded, unearthly, like thunder. The forest thrummed with vibrations, which shot into my bones. If I glanced behind me, I would see the Hunters riding their spectral horses, their hounds slavering over the scent of mortal blood.
“Wood nymph, please—” He broke off into a scream of pure terror.
What it sparked in me, I cannot explain. I was as a she-bear, defending her cubs. The Wild Hunt would not take my shepherd king. I had protected Thomas once before. I could do it again.
With deliberate speed I turned and ran away from the Veil, towards the mortal world that had shut me out. Towards the sound of Thomas’s voice.
In the distance, the hounds bayed, and I heard a howling deep and mournful as an enchanted flute. Above my head, cloudy shapes of horses and horned riders rode through the night sky. Sparks flew from their hooves; their armor was as shadow but creaked like the grinding of bones. A shock of terror rocked my mortal heart, while the fae inside me knew recognition and dread-filled stillness.
The Hunt dogged my heels, but their hunger was for Thomas.
They would not take him on my watch.
I kept running, and my feet slid upon the leafy path. The tree branches no longer caressed me, but snagged on and tore my clothing, tripping me. We were no longer partners, this forest and I. Yet I ran as a doe runs, bounding through the ferns until I came upon a clearing in the woods, where I was certain no clearing had been before.
And there lay Thomas, fallen from his steed, which was nowhere to be found.
