Chapter 2
T he monster jerked against the roots pinning it down, hard enough to send a jolt through my spine. My head snapped toward it.
It should have been dead.
The starlit sword had pierced clean through the monster’s chest, its tip jutting from the other side while dark violet blood poured around the wound and streamed down its ribs. But indigo light flared beneath its translucent skin as its legs scrambled for purchase.
Its ruined jaw swung toward Rhian.
How was it still moving?
Before it could break free, I lunged onto its back and seized the radiant hilt with both hands.
Fire burned through my right palm as soon as I touched it, and I nearly let go.
The monster bucked beneath me, but I tightened my grip and held on.
Another searing pulse tore through my hand as I wrenched the blade sideways through its chest.
Golden light erupted beneath my palms.
It spilled from the weapon, down into the monster’s body, racing through its veins after the indigo. The two collided beneath its translucent skin and the darkness fractured.
The monster screamed as its limbs curled inward and its body withered beneath me. Violet blood hissed across the moss before flesh and bone collapsed into a smoking heap.
I stumbled away from what remained of the monster, still clutching the sword.
Heat pulsed through the hilt in steady waves, fierce enough that every instinct told me to drop it, yet my skin remained untouched. No blisters. No scorch marks. Only that strange warmth sinking into my palm.
Gold streamed along the blade and slipped between my bloodied fingers before drawing back into the weapon.
My gaze snapped toward the stranger.
He hadn’t moved. His arm remained extended toward the sword, but his eyes lingered on my hand before lifting slowly to my face.
Something almost curious passed over his expression.
I followed the light along the blade to the same gold burning across his skin.
Constellations covered his arms and climbed his throat beneath the torn edge of his collar, each star joined by fine threads of light that curved and crossed over his pale skin like pieces of a living night sky.
His chest rose with a sharp breath.
“Who are you?”
His lips parted, but wind exploded through the rift before he could answer.
Behind him, pale silver trees twisted in the wind, their bare branches cutting across a full moon tangled in black briars.
Hooked thorns crept over its pale face, claiming more of the light with every breath.
Unease crawled over my skin.
Whatever was happening beyond the rift had left its mark on the sky.
The trees groaned around us. Bark peeled from the oaks and vanished into the silver trees beyond the rift. Leaves, soil, and shattered branches followed, tearing past my face.
Rhian groaned and was pulled toward the divide. His blood-slick fingers clawed at the ground but found nothing to grab onto.
I caught the strap crossing his chest as the vines along my forearm stretched from my skin and lashed around the nearest oak root, anchoring us in place. Pain ripped through my wounded thigh as Rhian’s weight wrenched against my shoulder.
“Hold on!” I shouted over the wind.
His hand fumbled over my arm before weakly closing around my wrist.
A dark shape shot from the ferns.
Bramble scrambled up my back and hooked his claws into the leather at my shoulder, pressing his shaking body against my neck.
Terror struck through me a heartbeat later, sharp and breathless, though it wasn’t mine. Bramble’s fear flooded the bond between us, carrying the same violent pull of the divide dragging at everything around us.
I tightened my arm around Rhian.
The stranger moved closer to the divide, fighting for each step as the wind dragged at him. His boots skidded over the pale earth before he caught his balance and reached toward me, golden light flaring through the constellations along his arm.
“Close it!” The wind howled and nearly shredded his voice, but I still made out the shape of his words.
“I don’t know how!” Rhian slipped lower against me, dragging at my injured leg. “Tell me what to do.”
His gaze dropped to the glowing vines stretched along my arms.
“The forest answers to you. Pull them back.”
I followed his stare.
The roots I had called during the fight had twisted around the oaks, stones, anything they could catch, but several thinner lengths stretched through the rift and tangled around the pale growth beyond.
Something moved through them.
The wood on the far side blackened first, then crumbled into soft ash. The damage raced toward me in branching veins, bark splitting and flaking away as each new section died.
A sick, hollow pull dragged through my arms as I strained against Rhian’s weight.
The ash kept coming. It crept past the opening toward the ancient oaks.
My stomach twisted as I glanced toward the forest beyond the clearing.
If whatever this was spread throughout the Deepwood?—
No.
I reached through the Wild threaded into those roots and pulled.
For one heartbeat, they strained toward me, but then the connection tore loose.
My Wild snapped painfully back through my arms, but the roots remained tangled beyond the rift, their dying lengths still stretched between us.
“I—I can’t.” I hauled Rhian closer as his grip slipped again. “They won’t come back.”
The stranger pressed one palm against a weathered trunk on the other side.
The sword shuddered in my fist.
I opened my fingers, and the weapon dissolved before it touched the ground. Starlight streamed through the rift and sank into the wood beneath the male’s hand.
The roots trapped between the rift convulsed.
The nearest one snapped toward the opening. I caught it with my right hand before it could wrench away, and a burst of gold flashed through the bark, bright enough to wash the clearing in light. Heat rolled through the wood beneath my fingers.
Rhian’s weight pulled me forward. My knee hit the ground, pain shooting through my thigh as his boots tore furrows through the moss.
I braced him more firmly against my side and reached deeper for my Wild.
The vines anchoring us to the oak drew taut while others stretched farther from my arms and wound around the living wood in my grasp. Their leaves flattened against the bark, stems trembling as I poured the Wild through them.
It rushed into the grain and met his starlight from the other side.
The wood kicked sideways beneath my hand. Bark split, and hot sap hissed from the crack.
I spit out a curse, straining to hold onto the burning wood.
Rhian dropped lower against me as the pull dragged us closer to the rift. I hooked my arm higher around his chest while soil scraped beneath my knee and freezing air burned down my throat with every breath.
“Look at me.” The stranger’s voice reached me through the howling wind, deep and rough at the edges.
My attention snapped toward him.
His silver eyes held mine through the screaming wind. Blood streaked one side of his face, and the constellations along his throat burned brighter with each strained breath.
Keeping one hand pressed to the tree, he reached through the rift with the other and caught hold of my wrist. His skin was startlingly warm. His thumb settled over my racing pulse as he pressed my hand firmly back against the bark.
I sucked in a breath and held on.
Starlight surged through the wood again.
My vines tightened around it, leaves shivering as the Wild poured through their stems and into the living grain. This time, our two powers met without sending the wood thrashing beneath us.
One trapped root tore free from the pale earth with a crack and snapped back around the oak. Another ripped loose in a spray of ash.
The pull weakened enough that Rhian’s boots stopped sliding. I held him against my side and kept feeding the Wild through my vines.
Movement flashed between the silver trees behind the stranger.
A pale male stumbled through the brush with a child clutched against his chest. Another followed, bent beneath the weight of someone hanging limp over his shoulders. More figures spilled between the trunks, fleeing deeper into the dying forest.
Indigo light glowed through cracks in someone's skin.
A female fell hard enough that her cry carried through the wind. She reached toward the others as they ran past until someone doubled back and dragged her upright.
My arm tightened around Rhian.
For one sickening moment, the silver trees became the Deepwood.
Green branches blackened overhead while Druids ran beneath them with children in their arms. Familiar bodies sagged against those still strong enough to carry them, while animals fled at their sides through the falling ash, indigo light burning in their eyes.
Panic swelled in my chest.
This could be us.
The stranger turned toward the female’s cry and the starlight inside the wood faltered.
The rift between us widened.
Wind ripped a branch from the oak above me and hurled it through the opening. It shattered across the pale earth beyond, scattering splinters beneath the fleeing figures.
My stomach dropped.
It would be us if I couldn’t close this.
“Help me.”
Silver eyes returned to mine.
“Please.”
His eyes shifted once toward the figures disappearing between the trees.
Then his shoulders squared and golden light flooded through the wood.
I reached for every thread of Wild I could still feel. My vines cinched around the living grain, leaves trembling as I drove everything I had through their stems.
The last trapped length tore free with a crack that jolted through my shoulder.
The rift began folding inward.
Wind caught the stranger and dragged him backward as the opening narrowed. His grip slipped down my wrist while I fought to keep hold of the wood.
Then it split beneath my hand.
My fingers tore free.
His grasp slipped with mine, catching my hand as the collapsing rift wrenched him farther away. My arm twisted, turning my bloodied palm upward.
Green and gold burst from the broken wood.
His bare palm struck the torn center of mine and pain exploded through the cut as celestial fire raced up my arm and plunged into my chest.
My vision suddenly fractured.
There was a dark throne beneath a starless sky. A silver tower collapsing into ash. And a single golden star sinking behind the jagged edge of a mountain.
The images vanished as the rift pulled him backward.
A warm metallic gleam flashed beneath the blood covering my right palm. An eight-point star burned into view beneath the crimson, each sharp ray bright enough to shine through the blood.
His grip slipped farther until only our fingertips remained caught together.
His mouth opened, but the wind swallowed whatever he tried to say.
Then his touch was gone and the rift snapped shut.
The force of it hurled me backward. I locked both arms around Rhian before we struck the ground, pain bursting through my spine as his weight collapsed against my side. Bramble still clung to my shoulder, his claws digging through the leather as he cried.
I dragged one breath into my burning lungs, then another.
Silence rushed in where the wind had been. The leaves hung motionless overhead. No insects called from the brush. Even the roots beneath my back gave one faint shudder before settling completely still.
“Rhian.”
His breath scraped shallowly through his chest.
I rolled toward him and pressed one hand over his wound. Blood surged between my fingers. The yarrow had been torn loose, and the gash beneath it had widened. Each shallow breath forced another hot pulse over my palm.
“Dammit,” I hissed the word as another wave of panic rolled through me.
Rhian’s eyes opened, but they moved past me without finding my face.
I shoved the blood-soaked leaves back against his side and pressed down with both hands.
His body gave a rough jerk.
“Rhian. Stay with me.”
His lips parted, but only a thin breath escaped.
Pain flashed across my palm. Gold shimmered beneath the blood, gone the moment I clenched my fingers against his wound.
Rhian’s next breath caught and failed to finish.
“No.” I pressed harder, waiting for his chest to rise beneath my arm. It didn’t move.
“Rhian, breathe.” My voice broke over his name. I bent closer, searching for air against my cheek while my pulse hammered through both hands.
Nothing.
“Come on!” I gripped his tunic and shook him once. “Come on, Rhian. Live, you inconsiderate assweed.”
The first warning whistle split through the trees. My head snapped toward the east.
A rising trill answered from the north. A long, descending call followed from the south, then another beyond the western ridge.
The light around us dimmed.
I looked up, my breath catching in my throat.
The moon hung above the canopy, pale and full.
A black thorn curled over its edge. Then another. Briars spread across the luminous surface, hooked branches crawling farther over the light with every heartbeat.
My stomach dropped.
I had seen those thorns before.
Above a silver forest beyond the rift.
The thorns had found our moon.