I was heavy, like moving through mud, or weighed by a thousand rocks. My eyes slid close, and it took me a long, slow heartbeat to pry them open again. I pulled at the final strings of my power. Faintly, I was aware that Adrik was moving, and I was not. That he sat up beside me, while I lay stiff as a board amid the roots.
“How, Ana?”
I spoke softly, slowly. “Your magic… It shapes the world. You cannot just read memories. Emotions. You can speak your own feelings… into things. Places. The pebble… still warm. Your tea…calms. Your food… so good.” I tried to cough, but my body no longer obeyed me. It belonged to the ancient oak, to the spirit of this forest. “You enchant it. Pour a little magic into it. A little warmth.”
I warmed with relief as Adrik’s eyes brightened. He understood. He knew what to do. I was free… free to go.
“I came to this tree hunted and prepared to die—”
“—and you spoke… anger… grief… into the forest.”
As spots crept into my vision, I strained to turn to him, but I could not, stiff as I was. I stared into the tangled roots. Their notches turned into eyes, their gnarls into noses, their gashes into laughing lips. How many had died here? Would I join them Beyond? Would I go Beyond at all? Or would my spirit remain forever trapped in this tree, forced to witness seasons pass and lives fade while I remained quietly grieving in this world?
“Do not… leave me here,” I whispered, lips barely moving. “Take me… back. Burn me. Make certain… my heart is still.”
Adrik kneeled beside me, cradling my face as I had cradled his, weeping for me as I had wept for him. “You willnotdie,” he snarled. “I will sooner tear this world apart. I will sooner go Beyond and tear whatever creature took you from me to shreds. You willnotdie, and if you do, I will change the laws of the world to undo it. I will fix this. I swear I will fix this, Ana.” I watched in terror as he took the bloodstained knife I’d dropped carelessly amid the roots. His face darkened with understanding. “Abargain?”
He had better not attempt anything foolish. “Anirreversible…bargain.”
He laughed sharply. “I am the prince of bargains, Ana. I will walk into this wretched spirit’s realm and see it undone. I willnotlet you die.”
“Heal… the tree.”
He did not heed me, did not hesitate another moment before he brought the knife down on his unmarred palm. He brought the blade tenderly to mine as well and he groaned a little as a drop of my blood spilled over his tongue. I was too stiff to fight him as he trickled a drop of his blood past my lips, as he clasped our hands together.
I felt it—the tug of the Beyond and the tug of life, waging a battle in the space between us. He anchored me in this realm, and I him, neither dead nor alive so long as we never let go.
Adrik looked achingly at me, then at the ancient oak. He said, in a voice like a song and a lament, “May I tell you a tale?” The wind stilled for a beat—pricked its ears. “Then let me tell you the tale of the King of the Forgotten Lands—and the Queen of the Wild.”
He did not tell us that tale. No, hesangit. He sang it to the wind and to the roots, to the shivering ferns and the trembling seeds. He sang it to the birds, and he sang it to the ancient tree. He sang it to me. I did not quite catch the words over the whisper of death in my ear, but Iknew…I knew that this was what he said:
Once, there came a warrior to these Forgotten Lands, who was battle-scarred and broken. He came with anger and with sorrow in his heart, and he settled amid your roots prepared to die. He spilled his anger and sorrow through you into these lands. This town… It has a curious habit of finding the right people at the right time. The warrior found a home here. He healed from his wounds. He no longer carries such anger and sorrow with him, but he forgot that he left it here with you. Now, let me tell you of his joy.
He spoke softly of an old alchemist, of an ancient woman who wielded the wild, of the baker who made the best bread in the land, of the woman who wielded fire and breathed life into the mundane. He spoke of a wild thing who danced beneath themoon—of the witch he’d kissed in a wildflower meadow. I knew he spoke fondly of her, for his ears wore a veil of pink.
He glowed as he spoke, like a sunrise at the height of spring. Warmth spilled from him and came curling around the roots. I felt it deep below—a sigh of ease. Deep, deep within the earth stirred a sliver of life.
Adrik’s hand tightened around mine.
“Let me go,” I whispered. “Return to your people.”
He smiled.
Warmth swept over me like sunlit waves. Sparkles danced in the dark and nestled into the corners of my vision, blurring my sight. The world swam—became brighter and softer, blurred at the edges. We stepped together beyond the veil into the realm of the spirits. Adrik helped me gently to my feet, and as I turned…
Amid the tangled roots, where I knew he and I were dying on the other side of this veil, something stirred. A sigh came from it, and the kiss of a warm breeze. I blinked. There perched, as if the roots were a throne and the ancient oak its palace, a creature.
Its face was a knotted, twisted thing adorned with a crown of white blossoms. From its grass-covered head sprouted two curled wooden antlers. Its beard was long and thick, hung with moss and summer berries. It raised its spindly arm, long as the branch of the tallest tree. A gnarled, lichen-bearded finger came for me—
I held my breath in anticipation.
I did not fear the creature, for I knew it.
I knew the odd thing made of bark and sap and leaves, as faint as a wisp to these human eyes of mine. I knew this spirit of the wild as I knew the trees and the river, for it was all of these things.
It brushed its finger, gently as a breeze, to my dying heart.
We breathe life once more, sang the wind who was no wind at all. The eldest spirit of the forest, the guardian of the wild,spoke with a lilting voice.I thank you. Dewdrops gathered at the corners of its glowing green eyes.Forgive me for the grief I caused. I hungered for life. I hungered for warmth. I felt your presence, wild witch. I hoped that you would feed me. I attempted to lure you to me. I thought that you would come, if I showed you my pain. That you would see me as you saw him—the uncursed king. That you would ease me as you eased him.
