32
Those who break a vow to Noctua
forfeit life and spirit to her.
—E XCHARIAS, S YLVAN POET
C ASSIA WATCHED S ELKOLLA, A SENSE OF CALM FLOWING into her. For so long, she’d been terrified of making the wrong choices, not living up to expectations, earning disapproval. This choice was so much more dangerous—it might end her life. And yet, she didn’t regret it. Everything had led her here: her failure to be what her father wanted, the ring bonding with her, her time with Zeru. Zeru who believed she was worthy if she was herself.
Her inner voice told her that life was nothing without freedom. Without choices. The scuccas needed freedom to have a chance to truly grow. Perhaps they would become like the moss folk that had once roamed the earth. Maybe they would end up being a scourge that the Sylvans would have to deal with. But she had given them the chance to choose, for good or ill. As lightning crackled and grew in the Seer’s palms, Cassia was scared, but she didn’t doubt herself. She met the eyes that shone like drops of heated metal. Her calm defiance only seemed to enrage the Seer further.
“I made no vow not to harm you,” Selkolla rasped, her face twisted with hatred, her voice unrecognizable in its harshness. “You dare to sever the bond with my spirits? Then follow them, Silvanus’s daughter. Follow them into the Netherwhere!”
As lightning crackled, ready to strike, the hum of the forest moved through Cassia. If she was fortunate when she died, her spirit would reside in the forest itself, inhabiting one of the trees until one day when it was felled, and her spirit would go to the Netherwhere. Maybe she would finally find her own tree.
But the forest wasn’t ready to accept her spirit yet. It felt her need, and she felt its response. Roots creaked to life, reaching down from the ceiling and moving toward Selkolla. The Seer gasped as one wrapped around her arm, yanking it back. The sparks in her hand shot toward the wall, dispersing harmlessly on the soil. Selkolla spoke words in an ancient tongue, issuing her own commands, trying to control the forest.
Pain exploded in Cassia’s temples, the force of her will pitted against Selkolla’s. Cassia attuned to Thirstwood, leaning into her own connection to the trees.
The Seer was ancient. Powerful. She might have been speaking to the trees, stealing their life force for her scuccas, since the forest was nothing but seeds in soil. What chance did a young Sylvan have against her?
But Cassia refused to die without a fight. Her sisters might not know what happened to her, but if ever the story was somehow told… she wanted it to be that she fought until the end. That she’d tried to protect Scarhamm and the land folk.
Expanding her awareness, she focused her will, speaking to the trees. Grab her! Hold her! The roots came down from the ceiling once again, swirling like tentacles, converging on Selkolla, wrapping around her in a wooden fist.
The Seer chanted rapid words in a ringing voice, this time calling her scuccas. Some of the creatures fled. Others rushed toward Cassia, baring their thorny teeth.
The moss folk who were huddled around Selkolla opened their eyes wide. They spoke to her urgently in their strange tongue that sounded like the whisper of a breeze among leaves. Cassia understood their meaning well enough. They were asking her to stop, to let the Sylvan go. To free the spirits. To start anew with them.
Aren’t we enough? they asked. We are enough. Peace, Mother.
“Listen to them,” Cassia said, raising her voice over the scuttle of creatures who approached on all sides. “These moss folk spirits are too peaceful to fight. And half of your scuccas have left you already. More will leave when they see you don’t have the power you used to wield. You can’t win by force. Not now.”
“Curse you to the deepest pit of the abysmal depths,” Selkolla swore, spittle leaving her mouth in a spray of rage. Lightning crackled around her. “I will kill you if it takes everything to do it.”
“Do you even care about them?” Cassia challenged, furious at the way the Seer was throwing away her dearly bought second chance. She’d claimed to love her moss folk, and some of these spirits were real moss folk—ones she must have known in the past. But she hardly seemed grateful. Cassia’s chest tightened painfully. She had never been enough for her father, either. “That is what you said you wanted. A second chance with your children! Is it them you love? Or is it power?”
“Be silent,” Selkolla hissed, the lightning growing around her as if she were a storm cloud about to light the darkness on fire. “My future was clear. Safety in power. These moss children are few in number. Not enough to restore what was lost. Not nearly enough! You broke your side of the bargain. You cheated me.”
Cassia laughed. Though Selkolla had all the power in this moment, she was desperately grasping at straws. “Noctua herself knows I didn’t. I gave everything I had. When I might have died of it, you told me to stop. Because you want to save my Deathringer power for your other plans. But I will never use that power to kill again.” She took a shuddering breath. “The forest sides with me. The moss folk are begging you to stop. Choose them, Selkolla. Choose peace. And begin again.”
“The forest does not side with you!” Selkolla’s face was lit yellow-white with the crackle of energy around her. “Your father subjugated it long ago by trickery. One day, I’ll take that from him, too. After I kill every one of his daughters.”
Cassia’s voice turned brittle as ice. “Threatening my sisters is a mistake. Unlike you, I’d do anything to protect the people I love.”
The Seer’s face twisted with loathing. “Kill the Sylvan king’s daughter!”
Cassia watched as the army converged on her. She was out of energy, out of life force. Out of ideas.
She looked down and saw that Zeru was still asleep. But the cage was gone. It must have been destroyed with her blast. She crouched next to him, determined to protect him if there was even a tiny hope.
The scuccas closed in, crashing against her, their thorns slicing into her skin, into her wings as they covered Zeru. She couldn’t see anything but dirt and the whipping of vines, and a hundred thornlike fingers.
“Protect us!” she called to the trees.
The roots twitched to life and began sliding between Cassia and the scuccas, pushing them back. More roots followed, weaving together as the creatures writhed against them. The scuccas thrust their branches into cracks and contorted their bodies to squeeze through. Cassia drew her dagger and stabbed at their hands, but there were too many, slashing and clawing at her.
“Break through!” Selkolla commanded in a terrible shrieking voice. “Kill her!”
The creatures bit and clawed at the wood, hacking it into chunks that they threw or spit onto the ground. They were a sea of vines and leaves and moss. The air was thick and choking with the scent of rotting leaves.
But the lattice of roots proved too thick for the creatures. Through a small crack, Cassia watched Selkolla’s cheeks stain red with fury.
“Stand back, my children,” the Seer commanded, her voice so low, so dark, it was barely audible. “I will do this myself.”
The scuccas fled as lightning flared brighter than the sun.
As the blast hit, everything went white. At that moment, Cassia felt strong arms around her. Leathery wings enveloped her. Soft lips met her cheek. A strange pulsing energy covered her, not unlike the waterfall feeling of stepping through the portal into Welkincaster. As the lightning grazed her, it burned her arms, her forehead. She smelled her own hair burning. And the burning of wood.
But she was alive.
When she opened her eyes, the tree roots were blackened and shredded. Zeru was wrapped around her. Slowly, slowly, his weight eased onto hers. She caught him, tried to hold him up. Called his name. But he was too heavy. She found herself on the ground with him, cradled in his arms.
“What did you do?” she asked, though it didn’t sound like her voice, high and thin as it was.
“Protected you,” Zeru whispered, his eyes half opening to stare into hers. “My job as guardian. Amulet. I can create protection. For you.”
Comprehension came slowly. He had never told her the amulet had a protective side, like the ring. Gutel must have told him. But he’d used it… for her? Her heart wanted to shrivel, wanted to cease beating. If he had saved her at his own expense…
“What about you?” she cried, gripping his shoulder. Shaking. “Did it protect you?”
His eyes fluttered closed, the sable fans resting against his cheeks.
Time stopped. Cassia’s breath locked in her chest. His breaths no longer brushed her cheek. “Zeru!”
Her eyes, looking around wildly, met glowing gray. Selkolla was leaning over her, grasping one of the blackened roots, her eyes lit with hatred.
“You broke your vow.” Cassia spoke the words, knew their truth, and watched as understanding dawned on Selkolla’s face. “You broke your vow not to harm him. I kept my part of the bargain. You didn’t. Noctua knows it.”
“No.” The Seer stepped back. Blinked. Shook her head.
“Yes.” Cassia spat the word, clutching Zeru to her chest. “You broke a vow to an Ancient.”
The trees sent a torrent of meaning cascading into Cassia’s mind. Selkolla had taken too much of their life force for her scuccas. She took and never gave back, drained but never replenished. What the trees wanted now was the life force she’d stolen, which flowed in her blood and in her creatures. Only her Sylvan heritage had protected her from the vengeful forest.
Cassia clenched her hands, speaking to the trees as her father did. Attuning to them, she put all her energy into her connection to the forest. The moment she sensed she had their full attention, she spoke. “This Seer is no longer protected by the Sylvans. Take what is due to you. Take back what’s yours.”
Cassia felt a shift as the forest listened to her. But another power also hummed in the air, something older, vaster, and wilder than Cassia or even the forest. She had the idea that a greater entity was there with her. The Seer fell to the ground, her shields gone, as if Noctua herself had removed the last barrier that protected her. It was said that if you broke a vow to Noctua, the vengeance would be swift. It was terrifying to see the truth of it.
The root tips whipped out like arrows aimed at Selkolla. Cassia covered her ears against the screams. Branches snapped and soil fell in chunks. Dirt and rocks cascaded down, filling the air with dust.
When the screaming stopped, Cassia opened her eyes. The Seer’s robes were shredded to rags, blood making the dirt shine. As she watched, the blood disappeared, pulled into the ground. Satiated, the roots retracted back into the ceiling. Cassia took a shuddering breath.
Then she flung herself over Zeru, her ring hand on his chest. “Live!” she cried, putting the palm of her ring hand over his heart. She poured every bit of life and growth and healing into him, all the energy she could gather inside of herself. What little she had left. Her chest ached, her eyes filled with tears, and for a second, she wondered—if she gave him all the life force she had, would it be enough to save him? “Live, Dracu,” she begged. “Please. Please, Zeru.”
And because she didn’t know what else to do, she put the ring to the amulet he wore around his neck.