Chapter 2
Two
Ivy’s breath left her in a relieved whoosh.
Her uncle had urged her to seduce the beast. Seduce him! All because of the stories of the Bygone Queen, where a human witch entranced a Skullstalker into making her his queen.
As if Ivy was capable of seducing anyone, let alone a Skullstalker. Until she had seen the Skullstalker in person, she didn’t even know it had lips. She always heard their whole face was a skull, not just the top part.
“Unless you would prefer me to eat you,” the Skullstalker continued in that deep, gravelly voice that sounded like a warning even when he wasn’t growling.
Ivy startled. She had been silent far too long, she realized in a panic.
“No!” she said with a nervous laugh. “This is good! I’ll be a perfect servant, I swear.”
“Assistant,” the Skullstalker corrected.
“Assistant,” Ivy said faintly. “Yes.”
Was assistant better than servant? It had to be. Her uncle had an assistant when he worked at the palace. He was treated well enough. Also, unlike assistants, servants didn’t get to quit. Was this Skullstalker being… kind to her? She doubted it.
Skullstalkers were the worst thing a mortal could encounter. They weren’t mindless, bloodthirsty beasts. No, they were bloodthirsty beasts who were at least as intelligent as a human. Ivy had been hoping to appeal to that intelligent side to buy her enough time to do what she was sent here to do.
Her injured arm throbbed. Ivy hissed in pain, lifting her arm to examine the cut. It had dripped blood all over her white linen dress, which was strangely dry despite emerging through that silver pool.
“You are distracted by your wound,” said the Skullstalker.
“No,” Ivy tried, wiping her bloody arm with her stained dress. “I’m focused. I can work!”
The Skullstalker ignored her, striding through the strange, thick foliage.
Ivy hesitated. This was no ordinary forest. Every plant was unfamiliar, dripping shadow or dust or shining from the inside out. There were trees made of bones and, alarmingly, a decaying frog climbing placidly up a pulsing tree. Everywhere she looked boasted new, unnatural features.
Part of her was fascinated. But it would be more fascinating if she were simply reading about this place instead of being dropped in the middle of it. This place was not used to mortals. What if it hurt her?
The Skullstalker stopped, turning back to look at her expectantly. “Come.”
Then he vanished through the dark trees.
Ivy clenched the vial in her pocket and looked back at the silver pool behind them. She would remember its location and find her way back. She had to.
Ivy hurried through the trees after the Skullstalker. Shadowy leaves brushed her skin, but they did not sting or burn like she had been expecting. They simply brushed past like regular leaves. When the dripping shadows touched her, they dissolved on contact.
Maybe her uncle had taken pity on her and suggested the assistant idea, she pondered as she followed the Skullstalker through the bush.
Maybe that was what he’d whispered to the Skullstalker at the end.
The idea warmed her heart. Her uncle was not a sentimental man, but he did care about her.
Even if he had been awfully distant since he’d been banished from the royal circle and had to make his own.
Ivy was so busy admiring her horrifying surroundings that she didn’t notice the Skullstalker had stopped until she ran into him.
“Oof,” she said, grabbing the Skullstalker’s robes on instinct. She let go immediately, mortified. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to. I won’t do it again.”
The Skullstalker peered down at her curiously. Ivy smiled as wide as she could, trying to look like she was too useful to eat.
“You apologize a lot,” the Skullstalker said finally.
“Sorry,” Ivy whispered, then winced. “I mean—shit. I’ll stop.”
The Skullstalker cocked his head at her again. He had moss on his skull, Ivy noticed. Dark green moss climbed his cheekbones and even parts of his antlers. But his robes were untouched, no moss or dirt or even leaves spotting the dark material, which looked like it was carved from nighttime itself.
Ivy almost wanted to touch it. But the Skullstalker’s fangs stopped her, not to mention his long claws and threatening height. He could rip her to pieces in a second if he wanted to.
But if he did want to, he was restraining himself. Which was… nice? Certainly a relief. For Ivy and the Circle, who were counting on her to do something very important as soon as the Skullstalker turned his back.
The Skullstalker reached up. Ivy flinched again, unable to stop it. But the Skullstalker only picked a glowing leaf hanging above her head and slid it into his mouth, chewing neatly.
He took her injured arm and leaned over it, opening his jaw. His tongue lolled out. Ivy stared, her cheeks heating. His tongue was so long. Long and pink and oddly alluring in a way she had never considered before.
A thin stream of glowing leaf-spit dripped from the tip of his tongue. Ivy tensed, but the green spit washed over her cut with a pleasant numbing sensation.
The Skullstalker rubbed the leaf-spit into her wound, spreading the tingling numbness.
His fingers were cool and smooth, his claws retracting.
Ivy’s skin prickled in a way that had nothing to do with the healing herb he was rubbing into her.
She couldn’t remember the last time she was touched so gently.
This was the dreaded ruler of the wilderness void?
“What is that?” Ivy asked.
“Soothepine,” the Skullstalker explained.
He lifted her arm, examining the cut. The bleeding had stopped. So had the glow from the soothepine.
“Thank you,” Ivy whispered.
The Skullstalker looked up, as if remembering that her arm was attached to something. He dropped it, standing back.
“As I told your uncle,” he said, “none of these plants have been used on your kind.”
“We will gladly take whatever you can spare,” Ivy replied. She touched her arm wondrously, mesmerized by the healing cut. It looked like it had been healing for weeks, not minutes.
The Skullstalker took off again. Ivy stumbled after him, looking behind her and trying to remember the path back to the silver pool. They hadn’t been walking far; surely she could find it again.
“I’m so grateful to you for keeping me as an assistant,” she called as she followed the Skullstalker through the thick leaves. “I love plants. Truly! I am even named after one. Ivy.”
“Ivy,” the Skullstalker repeated. His guttural voice made her shiver. It took her a moment to recognize his tone: he didn’t sound familiar with the plant.
“Do you not have ivy in your void?” Ivy asked cautiously.
“No,” the Skullstalker said.
Ivy thought that would be the end of it. But after several seconds of following him, the Skullstalker asked, “What is it?”
“It’s a vine,” Ivy said hastily. “It’s…”
A clinging, strangling, invasive species that people want to get rid of, whispered a voice in her head that sounded alarmingly like the bullies who tormented her back when she lived in a castle with her uncle.
The memories were hazy; she left the castle so young, stumbling after her uncle as he swore vengeance to the royals who unfairly banished him.
“Beautiful,” Ivy continued softly. She cleared her throat. “What’s your name?”
The Skullstalker was silent for so long that Ivy thought she’d offended him. But before she could apologize, his fanged mouth opened.
“Vale,” he said gruffly. He sounded surprised, like he hadn’t expected her to ask.
“Vale,” Ivy repeated, sinking into a deep curtsey. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
The Skullstalker—Vale—said nothing. Ivy sweated, staring down at her bare feet. Did she displease him? Maybe he would eat her after all.
He won’t need to, she reminded herself. Not if you prove you’re worth keeping.
For a month, at least. Then the Circle of the Jeweled Fist would come back for her. And more importantly, him. But only if she did what she came here to do.
Ivy straightened and gave Vale her best smile, which was admittedly still lacking. “What would you have me do first? Whatever you need, I’ll do it!”
This didn’t make him happy either. If anything, Vale only looked annoyed.
“I suppose I will show you to the eastern rib-thickets,” he said slowly. “They grow new bones every day.”
“Bones?” Ivy asked faintly.
Vale lifted his head to the shimmering sky. “You will not find your mortal plants here. Will this disturb you?”
“No,” Ivy said, too fast. “Like I said, I love plants! Even if…”
She trailed off, her gaze catching on yet another decaying frog. Despite what the rot might suggest, it was happily climbing a strange, bony tree trunk.
Before she could assure her new master of her devotion to these nightmarish plants, a sharp, bulbous jawbone on the end of a vine darted out of a nearby bush and swallowed the rotting frog whole.
Ivy couldn’t help it: she shrieked.
Vale didn’t react in the slightest as the vine slid back into the bush, pulling its chewing jawbone with it.
“If you cannot handle this work,” he began.
“I can handle it!” Ivy blurted, heart racing. She needed to do this now. She might not get a chance otherwise.
She patted her dress, ignoring the vial her uncle had sewn into the side. “Oh, no! I-I must have dropped my ring in all the fuss. It’s my uncle’s, the only thing he gave me to remember him by! I need to retrace my steps and look for it… Please, I beg you, give me two minutes to search!”
Vale’s tail flicked in annoyance. Ivy waited, sweat dampening her bloodied dress. He had taken the time to heal her wound. Surely, he didn’t want to eat her before she had proven that she was unable to do the work?
“I’ll come straight back,” Ivy blurted. “Then I will serve you with all I am. I swear!”
Vale’s face betrayed nothing. The part she could see, anyway. She wished she could see under the skull mask, but she suspected it would be just as expressionless as his mouth.