Chapter 10
Ten
Ivy awoke to a leaf brushing her cheek.
She fumbled at it, prying her eyes open. It was ivy, she realized with surprise. Her namesake plant. The same species of ivy that had climbed her castle walls when she was small. The same ivy that had sprung to life on the riverbank on her first day in the void.
Something loomed over her.
Ivy startled. Then she spotted Vale and laughed with relief.
“You scared me,” she said. She shifted in the nest, holding back a wince as her body ached. “I thought there was no ivy in this void.”
She expected him to tell her that he called it another name here. But Vale only looked down to where the ivy was climbing up his clawed foot. He was silent for so long that Ivy started to worry.
Then he said, “Is that what this is?”
“Yes.” Ivy sat up, untangling a vine of ivy from her hair. “It’s so strange. This is the same species of ivy that was on the castle when I lived there as a child. I haven’t seen it in years.”
The ivy was resistant. Ivy pulled harder, wincing as it came free from her messy hair. Then she gasped, a memory coming through her sleep-addled mind.
“You’re back,” she said. “You said you were going to get that spell. Did it… happen?”
She snuck a look at his robes. Everything looked the same, which could mean nothing. Magic was magic, after all. Looks were deceiving.
Vale didn’t reply. The ivy vine tangled tighter in Ivy’s hair, winding up her arm and squeezing.
“Hey!” Ivy laughed, pulling herself free. But not before she got a pulse from the void, timed perfectly with the ivy’s squeezes as she tore it away. The void was sad. No, the void was mourning.
She looked up at Vale, panicked. “What’s wrong?”
Vale said nothing. But his tail swished, his jaw clenched tight. Then, so fast Ivy hardly saw it, he bent down and scooped her up, walking into the trees.
“Wait,” Ivy said. “What are you doing? Where are we going?”
Trees didn’t bend out of their way like they usually did.
Branches scraped against Vale’s arms, and bushes were trampled under his feet.
A leaf spiraled into Ivy’s lap, and she brushed it away right as she recognized what it was: ivy.
The ivy vines were racing over the trees above her, trying to follow them.
“You must leave,” Vale said, staring straight ahead as he carried her toward the silver pool that would deliver her back to the mortal realm.
Ivy went cold. Had she been found out? She would almost be relieved if he weren’t forcing her away. She had thought about telling him so many times, only to stop at the last second. She had known Vale for a mere two weeks; she couldn’t betray her family for him.
“But—” Ivy tried.
“I am sorry,” Vale said over her, his gait increasing. “I must fix this void.”
“And making me leave will help how?”
“It may not. But I must try. If your very presence is the poison—”
It’s not my presence, Ivy wanted to scream. It was that stupid little vial my uncle got me to empty into the silver pool! I feel worse about it every day!
“But the pollen sickness,” Ivy stammered.
“There will be mortals to help you,” Vale said.
His tail swished so hard that it broke a nearby branch.
“It is likely the void that is making you sick,” Vale continued, sounding bitterly amused.
“That seems like something it would do. Make the pollen stay in your blood, to keep bringing us together. To—to make us attached to each other.”
Ivy shrank back at the venom in his voice. Then she spotted the silver pool through the trees and struggled up in his arms.
“Is that so bad?” Ivy demanded shakily. “I—I’ve been happy here. Happier than I thought I could ever be in a Skullstalker void! Let me stay, we can fix this together!”
Another ivy leaf fell around her face. A vine wrapped around Vale’s antler, pulling him back before he yanked himself free and came to the edge of the silver pool.
“See?” Ivy yelled. “The void doesn’t want me to go!”
Vale growled, gripping her arms and holding her up in front of his face. “You think you know my void better than me? We are eternally entwined! You are a visitor! You are a mortal and will die before the century is out!”
Ivy’s eyes pricked with tears.
Vale growled louder, but his grip loosened. “If it worsens, there is no point in you being here. If it gets better once you are gone, then you should stay gone.”
Before Ivy could protest, he carried her into the silver pool.
Shiny water rushed around Ivy’s face. It was corroded with the smallest hint of sickly white, the scent so acrid it almost made Ivy gag.
Then they rose out of the water, into the mortal realm. They were standing in a dirt circle in front of the stone slab Ivy had been tied to when her uncle presented her as an offering. Her blood was still on the ground, tacky with age.
Ivy rubbed her arm where he had healed her cut. Then she yelped as Vale stomped over and set her down unceremoniously on the stone slab.
“What about our trade?” Ivy said. “You said you’d give us weapons!”
Vale snarled. “Our deal was forfeit when your people poisoned my void!”
“You don’t know if that’s what happened,” Ivy tried, choking up with the betrayal of it all.
Not because of what Vale was doing, but because of what she was doing, still.
Lying to him after weeks of plucking bones from trees.
Watching him painstakingly untangle a corpsefrog from a vine and send it on its way.
He was rough and strange and otherworldly, but he was not a beast. And Ivy had doomed his void to death and him to a life of pain and servitude.
Vale turned back toward the dirt circle. Then he growled, turning back.
“This could be temporary,” he said. “If my void continues to sicken—”
“Which it will,” Ivy croaked, kneeling up on the stone slab. “Vale, I’m not the poison! The poison was—”
She stuttered to a stop. But it was too late. Vale stopped, his tail stilling and his glowing eyes fixing on her.
“Ivy?”
It wasn’t a threat. Ivy might have preferred it if it were. But Vale’s gravelly voice was full of betrayal, so thick it choked her.
Ivy wiped at her wet cheeks. “Th-the poison was…”
Vale’s head snapped up.
Like a dog scenting a rabbit, Ivy thought, dazed.
She twisted on the stone slab, looking desperately around the forest. Were the Circle back? They couldn’t be. They had weeks before they were due back.
And yet…
Vale breathed in, catching their scent. His glowing green eyes narrowed at the dark woods ahead.
Ivy turned, heart in her throat. Something was glinting in the dark. She couldn’t make it out from here, but she knew what it meant. It was the tell-tale glint of her uncle’s crossbow, raised ready to fire.
“Wait,” Ivy blurted.
She shot to her feet.
An arrow spun through the darkness.
Vale roared, moving for her. But while Skullstalkers were fast, an arrow was faster.
The bolt hit her just above her heart. Ivy stumbled back, raising a dazed hand to touch the arrow sticking into her. It was wrapped in malblossom, a flower she had helped them find when her uncle told her of his newest plot. It was the only mortal plant they knew of that could harm a Skullstalker.
Oh good, Ivy thought, dazed, as she rubbed the small white flowers that surrounded the arrow protruding from her skin. That would have really hurt him.
Vale roared. Her uncle yelled something back, but Ivy couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing through her ears.
She crumpled toward the stone. A huge clawed hand caught her, and Ivy found her cheek pressed against Vale’s cool collarbone. His fangs were bared, his green eyes glowing brighter than she’d ever seen them.
Another yell. This time, Ivy could hear it.
“Fire, damn you,” her uncle screamed.
She looked up just in time to see a second arrow streaking out of the darkness, right toward Vale’s head.