Gethin Couch shoves to the fore. “Are you going to die, then, Rhun Sayer? Or my son? How will we remake this bargain?”
“I don’t know,” Rhun says. “But we have to do it, all of us. Everyone who will benefit must agree to the price. Everyone hold the weight together.” He holds out his hands. “Come with me into the forest, all of you.”
Cries of protest and hushed fear burst out, with a few promisingyays peppered through.
Rhun nods again, meeting the eyes of all he can reach. “Be brave,” he says. “Be your best! Mom, Dad, all you Sayers I know have this running in your blood. And you, Braith Bowen, you’re strong and you want to keep your family safe. You, Beth, and all of you women who know what fire feels like. Brothers and sisters who can’t imagine any other way, let me show it to you.”
“You’re not our leader, Rhun Sayer,” calls Evan Prichard. “You’re young. A saint, to be sure, but you’re reckless. You and your friends are the ones who changed it all. It was working! Why should we want anything different?”
“It was working at the price of my life,” Rhun says.
“You knew that—you competed for the honor!”
Some are agreeing, but Rhun sees in others how much they want Rhun to dissuade Evan Prichard, how much they’d like him to be wrong. They sense it, they just can’t convince themselves.
Rhun says, “I was lied to. I thought I had a chance. Baeddan Sayer didn’t walk in to his certain death. And John Upjohn wanted desperately to live! Carey Morgan had a daughter on the way! Who’s to say they’d have won the sainthood if they’d known? Would you, Per Argall, have stood at my side and answered the question what makes you best if you’d known?”
The young man’s eyes pinch, his hands fist, but he doesn’t look away. “I don’t know, Rhun,” he admits, quiet and sorrowful.
“None of us can know,” Rhun says. “But it was our right to make a real choice. To be truly brave, to know! Without that truth, every joy we all have in this valley is built on a broken foundation! A secret that kills us.”
Nobody else is leaving; they stare at Rhun, awaiting his next breath like he is a piece of God.
Rhun feels the weight of it. He always has. So he breathes hard and says, “We all have a best self. We only have to choose to let it rule us. Your best selves know what I know: We must to do this together. Let me show you the Devil’s Forest.”
Just then a woman screams, “The devil took John!”
It’s Lace Upjohn, weeping and dragging her daughter behind her.
“What?” Rhun dives toward her, and the crowd parts.
“That devil, who was Baeddan Sayer, who you brought out of the forest, broke into my house and dragged my son away! What will you do about that, Rhun?” Her voice is tight and accusing.
Rhun accepts the blame. He clenches his jaw. “I’ll go into the forest and stop it. I’ll fight for John’s life and the lives of everybody here.”
“Maybe you should let the devil take him,” says Gethin Couch, and judging by the scatter of nods, he isn’t the only one to think it.
“How dare you!” cries Lace.
“You said goodbye to him,” Gethin snaps, leaning into her face.
“I’m not willing to let that happen, Gethin,” Rhun says.
“Some of us are. That’s the bargain, like you say, and we need it.”
Braith Bowen calls, “Could you sleep tonight, you heartless bastard?”
Evan Prichard calls back, “I sleep every night, except the Slaughter Moon, always knowing we threw a boy to die in the forest. It’s the same.”
Too many reply at once. It’s a cacophony, and Lace Upjohn wipes tears off her face, snatches a knife from Gethin Couch’s belt, and marches away, northward.
“I’m going to the Bone Tree!” Rhun yells as loudly as he can. “Go with me if you want to be the best! If you want to deserve this life we have.”
Little Bree Lewis says, “My sister would go with you. I’ll go too.”
Per and Dar Argall step out, axes in hand. “Lead on, Rhun.”
From the side, Rhun the Elder brings a bow and arrow.
