Chapter 13 Mav #2
Five minutes.
Maybe ten.
Time didn’t move right here. The trail could’ve stretched for hours, minutes, or centuries. I couldn’t tell anymore.
The clearing curved back—
And there it was.
The tree.
Same twisted trunk.
Same drooling split.
And my dagger—buried to the hilt.
“Well,” I said, hauling on the reins and stopping my horse, “would you look at that.”
The others followed my gaze.
Quinn’s horse came up beside mine, her eyes wide now. “How is that possible?”
Branrir’s mouth hung open, as if someone had rewritten the laws of the natural world and neglected to inform him. Thistle went still, her expression puzzled.
I dismounted again and walked up to the tree. Laid my hand against the bark beside the blade. It was warm.
“We’re not getting anywhere.” I yanked the dagger from the tree and returned it to my belt. “We’re either going in circles—”
“Or trapped,” Thistle said, swinging down from her horse to inspect the tree.
A chill tumbled down my spine. Thistle wasn’t one to exaggerate. Vesper and I? Undoubtedly. But when Thistle said things like “trapped,” I knew it was serious.
Thistle knelt beside the tree. She pressed her hand to its trunk and closed her eyes. Static filled the air with the subtle transference of magic.
“Something’s anchored here,” she murmured. “Old Hedgework layered with something stronger beneath. That’s why the loop’s holding.”
“Loop?” I echoed, shifting closer.
She rose slowly, brushing dirt from her hands. “Truth loop.”
“Saints be,” Branrir’s head snapped up. “You’re certain?” he asked as he dismounted.
“As sure as the moss in my boots.”
Branrir sighed, already pacing. “I’ve read about these. Nasty little snares, but easily overcome.”
“Would someone please explain it to the commoners among us?” I asked.
Branrir stopped, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his large nose. “Truth loops trap travelers in a closed path—usually a stretch of forest or road. You move, but you go nowhere. Until you break the loop.”
“And how do we do that?” Quinn asked, voice steady but measured.
He pointed to the tree. “You tell a truth. Not any passing thing—a confession. Something you’ve never spoken aloud.”
Thistle added softly, “And you have to mean it. Speak with intent. While touching the anchor.”
A scoff snuck out of my throat. “That’s it? Bare our darkest secrets…to a tree?”
Branrir gave me a thin smile. “They’re usually cast to catch liars. Faithless lovers, cheating merchants. But yes, that’s the idea.”
“Will it work if I think it really loud?” Nausea roiled in my gut.
“No,” Thistle said. “It must be spoken.”
“Can’t you undo it? It’s your same gift type.”
A glare shot my way as Thistle rested her hands on her full hips. “If I could, I would’ve done it already. Loops have signatures to the caster; they’re the only ones who can undo it.”
I stared at the gnarled trunk, sensing the strange pull of the spell. It was one thing to have to share a room with a woman I’d just met, but I had very little interest in confessing anything to Quinn or to any other member of our party.
Quinn folded her arms, gaze fixed on the tree. “And when it works?”
Thistle tapped on the bark. “It should glow. Once everyone confesses, the loop dissolves.”
“Of course it would,” Vesper added, now having joined us by the tree. “Do I have to participate in this nonsense, seeing as how I’m not human?”
“It’s best if everyone participates,” Branrir suggested. “In case the loop requires it.”
I scanned the others. Branrir already looked as if he were unearthing a corpse from memory. Thistle was unreadable, one hand fussing with her sleeve as Vesper batted a dangling thread. Quinn’s expression held firm, but her fingers twitched faintly at her side.
We were trapped. And the only way out?
Bleed truth.
Out loud.
In front of each other.
Saints above and below.
Branrir cleared his throat. “I’ll go first,” he said, a weariness settling on his shoulders.
He stepped forward, palm pressing against the bark, and drew a long breath. “I knew the map was wrong.”
No one spoke.
“I knew it,” he repeated, rougher now. “I hadn’t checked the harbor.
I used half-scrawled accounts, secondhand sketches.
I turned it in anyway. I wanted the promotion.
I told myself it’d be fine.” His voice thinned.
“Then the ship crashed. And all those people died. I’ve never forgiven myself. And I never will.”
The bark beneath his palm lit with a muted green. The glow bled around his fingers before sinking deep into the tree. Quinn covered her mouth with her hand, silver lining her eyes.
Thistle’s hand lifted and fell uselessly at her side. “Branrir, I had no—”
“Let’s not dwell. We need to get out of this loop.”
One down.
Thistle went next, shoulders drawn taut beneath her shawl. She touched the tree.
“I heal with Hedgework,” she said. “And sometimes people come to me with hurts I can’t mend.
Not of flesh—loneliness. Grief. Heartbreak.
” Her glance flicked toward me. “So…sometimes I give them hot water and herbs that won’t do a thing.
I let them believe it’ll help. Because sometimes belief and a kind word are the only remedies I can offer. ”
“Yes,” she added after a pause. “I’ve done it for you, Mav. More than once.”
I stared at her, throat tight.
The tree glowed again, brighter this time, and she withdrew slowly, fingers trembling as she let her hand fall away.
Vesper rolled his eyes and sauntered up, placing a front paw on the bark. “I have fathered no less than a dozen litters of kittens.”
The glow shone brighter with his confession. Thistle looked positively scandalized.
“We will be discussing this when we get home,” she said, shaking a finger at the feline.
All eyes fell to me.
Wonderful.
I stepped forward, jaw set, careful not to look at Quinn.
The bark was rough and damp beneath my palm, the grain catching against my skin.
“I broke my oath,” I said flatly. “Didn’t hesitate.
Wasn’t tricked or forced. I chose it.” The words ground out like stone dragged across steel.
“I disobeyed a direct order. And I don’t regret my choice. ”
My mouth twisted into something too bitter to be called a smile. The glow beneath my hand burned warm, seeping into my skin. When I pulled away, the light held fast.
Only one left.
Quinn didn’t move at first. Her fingers were clasped, knuckles pale. She looked small then—small and uncertain. Then, with a breath trembling at the edges, she moved forward and rested her hand on the tree.
“I…” she paused, posture tensing as she started again.
“This is the third awakening I have lived through,” she said.
“I have watched the world change. Watched everyone I loved die. Everything leaves, piece by piece. Every century, I lose more.” Her voice cracked.
“And sometimes, on those last nights before I am pulled under again, I think perhaps…perhaps it would hurt less to end it all—to choose something for my own life, even if that choice was to end it.”
Sorrow ripped a hole through me.
She ducked her head, as if she couldn’t bear to face the words. The bark beneath her hand lit with a pale, gentle glow.
The pressure around us broke, the wet setting of a bone. The forest exhaled until the air moved freely again, rustling the leaves overhead. We were free, but it didn’t feel like freedom. The loop left us with a raw, open wound.
Quinn turned from the tree with deliberate composure, her face smooth as glass.
She brushed her cheek in silence, failing to hide the tears I’d already seen.
No one else spoke. Even Branrir, usually too full of words, was speechless as we all mounted our horses and resumed our path through Elderhollow’s gloom.
Quinn glanced back, checking to make sure I still followed. I gave a single nod and nudged my horse forward to fall in behind her.
I couldn’t stop looking at her. While I never thought being under a spell for centuries was joyful in any measure, I hadn’t considered it might hurt enough for her to contemplate ending a life that hadn’t truly begun.
And the worst part? I believed her. Not because she looked fragile—she didn’t.
Quinn struck me as the sort of woman who kept rising no matter how hard the world tried to break her.
But there was something about the way she carried herself afterward.
A quiet folding inward too close to the shape of surrender.
And I…I didn’t know what to do.
I wasn’t built for comfort. I was built for fighting. For breaking things in need of breaking. For following orders—right up until I decided they weren’t worth obeying.
Watching her tuck such pain back inside her, having to hold it alone, drove an icicle through my chest. The thought of her waking again and again to silence and loss clawed at me.
I wanted to unmake every person who’d ever left her feeling unworthy or unwanted. Starting with that bastard prince, bones or no bones by now.
Because if anyone dared to harm her again?
There would be no mercy. Not after how merciless life had been to her.
My hand drifted to the hilt at my belt in a silent vow. I would send anyone who hurt her to the seven hells.
For all her grace and immortal poise…she carried more loneliness than any soul should have to bear.
I had to get her out of this. We had to break this spell.
Two weeks wasn’t enough, but it was all I had.
By every Saint that ever kept vigil over the broken, I wasn’t wasting a single breath of it.