Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
MAVERICK
I shouldn’t have cared so much about this woman. I didn’t want to think about her. She’d murdered her husband. I clearly didn’t know her as well as I’d thought.
I stalked through the flowers, and every time one of them rustled or moved, I let my fire magic flare to life. I might die here, but I’d be damned if it was because a giant flower ate me.
I couldn’t say I was entirely surprised by this strange world. Annalee had prepared me for it, after all. Not that I’d believed her. I’d been too preoccupied with work, with getting a job at the academy, to pay her any time of day. Just another way I’d failed her. Another reason this was all my fault.
I reached into my satchel and pulled out her final note, staring at it before carefully folding it and putting it back. The field of flowers ended, opening up to a forest of blackened trees, all of them with branches in the shapes of... arms. Eyes peeked out from the darkness, but as I got closer, I realized it wasn’t random creatures lurking in the forest like I’d assumed. It was the trees. They had eyes, all colors of irises, staring, following my every move .
I had to blink a few times just to make sure this was real.
Oh Annalee, I’m so sorry for ever doubting you.
And now I didn’t even have the fucking bolt. Because of Emory. Without the bolt and its power, I didn’t know how I’d fare here. I did have something, though. I had Annalee’s stories. Everything she’d told me about this place when I’d actually bothered to listen.
The seeing trees and the singing flowers and the lake that told you your future and so much more.
And I’d brushed it all off as nothing but fanciful tales. Just like my parents had. Only I was worse. Because, in the end, I left her.
Now I was here, but I had no idea where she was in this spirits-damned land. She hadn’t prepared me for that part.
I entered the dark forest, the eyes all swaying in my direction. If I didn’t already have a mission to complete, I might stop and take the time to study these marvels.
Trees with eyes. Flowers as tall as mountains. Mushrooms the likes of which I’d never seen. I didn’t understand how a world like this was possible, how it had been created, or where it had come from. None of it made sense, and I wanted to get some answers. Maybe Annalee could supply them when I found her. If I found her. No, no, I did not come all the way here just to doubt myself now. I’d done the impossible. Made it to the Deadlands. I owed Annalee more than to doubt. I owed her everything.
“Looking for something?” a voice said.
I stopped, summoning my fire magic and letting it flow through me, alight in my palm. My magic wasn’t as strong here, but I was used to that having lived in the frost court for the last seven years. Elemental magic was always strongest in the court where you were born, tied to. At least my magic worked here at all.
“Who goes there?” I turned in slow circles, looking for the person speaking.
“Up here,” chirped the high, girlish voice.
My head snapped up to see a woman draped around one of the tree branches. I squinted. Not a woman. Not exactly. Purple fur covered her entire body, and whiskers sprouted from her human nose. Orange stripes slashed across her fur .
She smiled at me. “What’s the matter? Not used to seeing so much gorgeousness wrapped into one package?” She gestured to her body and dropped from the tree, landing in a crouch. She wore no clothes, her orange and purple fur providing enough cover over her human body. I had never seen anything like this before, yet I knew what she was. Because Annalee had told me about this catlike woman who had a penchant for mischief. Even with that knowledge, it was hard to believe what I was seeing.
The cat woman stalked up to me, using a long purple claw to lift my chin. “Well, you’re not very fun. I barely get any visitors, and now that I do, you can’t even talk to me?”
I eyed her and stepped back, the fire hovering over my palm.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“Who?” I asked.
“The queen of hearts.”
Just the name sent a chill down my spine. “I’m not concerned with the queen of hearts.”
The cat woman narrowed her yellow eyes. “You should be. She runs this place, you know. Doesn’t have a lot of tolerance for those who misbehave.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “She banished me to this forest.”
I wondered why but wasn’t sure that was a rabbit hole I wanted to dive down.
She wiggled her clawed fingers and slashed at the fire still in my palm. “You’re gonna have to put that away, or I’m going to use more than my claws.” She flashed a set of sharp teeth at me.
I had a feeling if she wanted to attack me, she already would have.
“Fine,” I said and closed my hand into a fist, extinguishing the fire. “I couldn’t see very well and needed a light.”
And a weapon, but she didn’t need to know that part.
She circled me, her tail whipping behind her, then curling around my leg. “What’s a handsome man like you doing in my forest?”
“I’m looking for someone, actually. Maybe you’ve seen her?”
She tapped her chin with a long claw. “Maybe.”
This was already getting tiresome. I was used to challenges, but the stakes had never been so high. The stakes had never been Annalee’s life. “She’s got black hair, long, thin braids that hang down past her shoulders. I don’t know what she’s wearing, probably a dress?”
It had been that long since I’d seen her. I didn’t even know if she liked dresses anymore.
“She’s nineteen.” I lined my hand with my chest. “Comes up to here.”
Maybe. She might’ve grown. Bloody fire. I couldn’t even give a proper description of her.
The cat woman’s tail had wrapped tighter around my legs as she flashed a big smile that revealed all those shiny sharp teeth. “Come to think of it, that does sound familiar.”
I raised a brow.
“I believe she went . . . that way.”
She pointed east with her tail, west with one finger, and south with the other. Every direction except north, the way from which I had come. There was always a catch.
“You can’t even give me a clue?” I asked.
Her yellow eyes narrowed to slits. “A clue.” She pursed her lips, whiskers twitching. “Yes, a clue. What a fun idea.” She glanced at her hands and tail, still pointing in all different directions. “Two of these ways will lead to her. One will lead to your death.”
I flashed her a tight smile. “I’m not sure you know what the word ‘clue’ means.”
She hissed at me, and I held up my hands. Annalee had told me this cat-like woman could be temperamental.
Also not very helpful.
One way would lead to my death, but the other two ways would lead to Annalee. That’s what she’d said. That gave me a two-thirds chance of going the right way. In any other situation, I might have liked those odds. But not when my life—and Annalee’s—was at stake. I stared at the ground, at my black boots that blended in with the shimmery black forest floor.
I opened my mouth to ask the cat woman another question, but when I looked up, she had disappeared. Maybe this land was doing something to my mind, making me see things like Annalee had. My jaw locked. I’d gone down that path before. I hadn’t believed her. I’d failed her. I wouldn’t do so again.
I turned in a semi-circle, seeing through the black trees to a road that wound around what looked like ginormous plants with thick green stalks, each as tall as a tower. And at the top of the stalk were huge red heads, wide and flat, no eyes or ears, but they did have gaping mouths lined with thorny teeth. A skeletal bird flapped past them and they all dove their heads toward it, jaws hinging open, all of the plant heads fighting to get the creature. One of them stretched its neck high and chomped the bird from the air.
Not ideal. I peered to my left, where the forest thickened with bramble. Instead of trees, thorn-saddled bushes filled the area, a green substance spitting from their points. Splats of it landed on the ground, sizzling, the ground melting away, gaping holes forming. Also not ideal. When I turned the other way, the trees were bent, their branches reaching toward the ground with sharp, claw-like ends.
It looked like every damn way led to death—except the way I’d come. Maybe the cat woman was just toying with me, playing games. Maybe it didn’t matter which way I chose in the end. So I just needed to choose.
I stared ahead at the chomping plants, which had calmed down now that the skeletal bird was gone, their stalks slumped and relaxed, their giant plant mouths closed.
That way it was. One step closer to finding Annalee.
I steeled myself and walked toward the plants. A branch cracked underfoot. Their stalks straightened and their mouths began snapping at the air. I froze, waiting and watching as they slowly settled again, slumping down. So they reacted to noise. If I could be quiet, I could sneak past them. Feeling more confident in my plan, I inched forward, taking slow, measured steps.
I held my hands out to steady myself, working my way out of the forest and onto the black-dusted path that wound through these strange, strange plants. As with everything in this world, I’d never seen anything so wondrous and terrifying, and I had a burning desire to know what created all of this. Dark magic, maybe? I knew of the magical items that lay in the jungles of Sorrengard. The shadow court was infamous for them, objects created when a shadow elemental used their magic to rip someone’s shadow from their body. The objects ranged from mirrors that could answer any question to cups that were always lined with poison to necklaces that could make one invisible. Some brave souls ventured to the shadow court to steal those items. They held great power, but the magic always came at a cost. The price could be anything. Could it be something like this? Did someone use dark magic and the Deadlands paid the price, everything becoming deformed and twisted?
Another step.
I’d never heard of the dark magic wielding that much power. The cost was proportional to the magic used. If you used the dark magic to take a life, for example, the cost could be another life. If you used the dark magic to heal a small wound, the cost might be less—like losing your magic for a few months. But a cost that could turn an entire court into this? Something that could twist everything so it became distorted, monstrous? The dark magic used would have to be astronomical.
Another step.
It didn’t make sense.
The snapping plants loomed over me, stalks slumped, mouths drooping down, and... soft snores filling the air. So I’d been right. They reacted to sound. As long as I stayed quiet, I could stay undetected.
I lifted my feet carefully, step after step after step, following the dusty path while threads of green twisted through the twilight sky above. Snores echoed through the space, and air puffed from the plants’ mouths, rancid and foul. The path twisted through the stalks, turning and winding, splitting into three different ways. Of course.
I slowed, studying my choices. The right and left paths led through the plants, no end in sight, whereas the path that went straight led to an end. Well, at least that was an easy decision to make. Tall blades of grass filled the field in the distance, looking far less threatening than these man-eating plants.
So close. I was so spirits-damned close. I glanced behind me at the sleeping giants just as a body collided with mine. I tumbled to the ground at the same time as I heard a voice swear .
Not just any voice. I sat up. The white fucking rabbit. The plants all stiffened, stalks going ramrod straight, their hungry mouths hinging open and ready to devour their newest victims.
She’d found me, and in that moment, I realized that maybe the cat-woman had given me a good clue, and I’d chosen wrong. I’d chosen the one path that would lead to my death after all.