Mairwen has no word for the feeling swelling inside her; it is light and gentle, but promising more, like dawn or rising bread. She wants it, to live in its spaces, despite knowing it’s not real, or not enough to last. But Arthur is dying. Her mother is dying. This creature—god, father, everything he is—cannot have them.
“You took my magic away,” she finally says. “It was changing me, but you sucked it all back in when you came here.”
“I’d have died if I did not come and see the heart of the forest reborn. The bargain keeps me free, and it is entirely broken. You broke it.”
“I would have seen you better if you’d shown yourself when I had thorns in my bones and flowers in my blood.”
Vaughn smiles. “You can have it again. Eat a flower from his heart and take the power back, Daughter.”
She looks at Arthur, at the tiny purple flowers blooming from his chest, the lines of blood dripping down the sides of the altar stone. At Baeddan, who trembles, whose skin is sinking against his skull. He is dying too.
“I know you, Mairwen. I know you want this,” the god says eagerly, holding out a hand to her. “You are everything I hoped. Brave and bold and powerful, my daughter.”
She glances down at the flowers curling around his toes. A thin path of them trails behind him, climbing the roots of the Bone Tree, painting its white bark green and violet.
Vaughn says, “You are bound to this place because my blood makes you part of it, Mairwen. Grace blood and the blood of the forest itself! Ah.” He laughs. “We can have all of this, all the power. You and me, a family.”
The hand he holds to her urges her to clasp it, with gnarled wood fingers, and a spark of wild joy. “Daughter,” he says. She wants him to be earnest. To want her for herself and the possibility in his words, not for power.
Mairwen slides her fingers along his, her thumbs spreading across his palm. She stares at the lines forming in this bark-skin and brings his hand to her face. She presses her cheek into it, turns and kisses the ball of his thumb. It smells like musty roots.
“You and me, Mairwen,” the god tempts. “No one in Three Graces will stand against us if we are united.”
“No,” she murmurs quietly. Her family is Rhun and Arthur and Haf, her mother, yes, and even this devil tempting her. Her toes are cool against the forest floor; she feels vital energy strung through the earth of roots.
“No!” Vaughn is genuinely surprised.
“Mairwen already has a family,” Rhun Sayer calls from the edge of the grove.
•••
RHUN’S SHOULDERS RISE AND FALLhard as he pauses at the edge of the Bone Tree’s grove to collect himself. He heard enough of Mair’s and the devil’s conversation to know this is the old god, and the old god is both Vaughn and Mair’s real father. Her father who is offering her all the power of the forest she’s ever longed for.
Somehow, Rhun is not surprised.No, he thinks as he watches Mairwen touch her father’s hand and consider, heissurprised; it’s just that he isn’t worried. He’ll deal with these revelations, but there’s no sliver of doubt in his heart what Mairwen will do. He’s very likely more sure of her than she is of herself in this moment.
“Mairwen already has a family,” he says confidently, emerging fully into the grove.
Mairwen spins to him, and Baeddan growls, stumbling to his feet.
The devil—the god—grins. “Rhun, welcome, and welcome all who’ve come in your wake. Bree, Per, Rhun the Elder! Nona, I’m not surprised. Braith and even you, Cat Dee! You must be determined, to have made it here on those tired old legs. Welcome to the heart of my forest. Ah, is that you, Lace?”
Sy Vaughn is recognizable by everyone, despite the thorns and flowers twisting into a crown among his curls, despite the sharp teeth and black eyes. His bearing is as noble as they’ve always been used to, and his voice only slightly more gravelly.
They all remember him now: There was no previous Lord Vaughn, but only this one, young and handsome, for two hundred years.
“Rhun,” Mairwen says, but Lace Upjohn pushes into the grove and limps to the body of her son.
“Oh, John, no,” she whispers, hands shaking. “You did this, Mairwen Grace.”
Mair steps away from her, stricken.
Cat Dee says, “No. It was him. That creature.”
The townsfolk who followed Rhun hesitantly join them under the spreading white branches of the Bone Tree.
It’s Vaughn who goes to Lace and crouches. “I am so very sorry, Lace. We’ll celebrate that he had three extra years to live, to be with you.”
She looks up at him with teary eyes, her son’s cold hand in both of hers. “What are you?”
