Chapter 11
Eleven
Vale snatched the arrow out of the air and snapped it in two.
The malblossom twining wrapped around the weapon burned deep into his hand. He ignored it, cradling Ivy close as he watched the mortals pour out of the tree line.
There were six. Three men and three women, all bearing weapons except for one man who was holding two logs of firewood and looking scared out of his wits. One woman had half the straps of her breastplate on, the other straps hanging uselessly and making her breastplate clang against her chest.
They had not expected him, Vale realized as Christopher Silverpetal charged to the front of the group, swapping his crossbow for a mage’s staff.
None of his other arrows were tied with malblossom, only those first two.
The second had been so clumsily adorned that most of the malblossom had fallen off mid-flight, scattering to the forest floor below.
“Skullstalker,” called Christopher, pointing his mage’s staff at him. That infuriating vial still dangled from it, swinging distractingly. “You-you startled us! We thought you were something else.”
“Another Skullstalker, perhaps,” Vale snarled. “Standing at the stone slab where you offered up your niece to me?”
“Perhaps,” Christopher repeated, even mimicking Vale’s raspy accent. “You cannot be too careful. You understand. Speaking of my niece, might I have her back? She looks… unwell.”
“Because you shot her,” Vale roared. “And poisoned my void!”
He crouched, ready to spring. The mortals raised their weapons again, including the man with the firewood, who held it protectively in front of him.
“Well, that didn’t go quite as we hoped,” Christopher said in a rush. He raised his staff, that irritating vial swinging with the motion.
Ivy stirred weakly in Vale’s arms. Vale, who had never had anything to protect during a fight, looked down.
“NOW,” Christopher screamed.
A deluge of arrows and spells flew at him. Vale dodged and broke arrows and knocked a sword out of a charging man’s hand, sending him flying into the man carrying the firewood. Then he stomped on both men at once, blood splattering up his leg.
The women came for him next. He threw them all into a tree, which cracked under the force.
Christopher barked a hoarse laugh. “Hells! They did not exaggerate about your power, Skullstalker. You are every bit as deadly as they say!”
Vale yanked a useless, unadorned arrow out of his shoulder and growled. “You poisoned my void!”
“She poisoned your void,” Christopher corrected with a sweaty grin. He danced backward, his staff trained on Vale’s face.
Vale dodged the fire spell that Christopher had aimed, then lunged, grabbing Christopher by the throat. It would be so easy to snap his flimsy neck, but he held himself back. If he weren’t so thirsty for blood, he would have yanked that infuriating vial off so it would stop swinging for once.
“FIX IT,” he roared.
“I…” Christopher scrabbled at Vale’s claws around his throat. For some insufferable reason, he was still grinning. Like this was all some adventure and not his last day on earth. “I can’t! She’ll tell you!”
Vale glanced down.
Ivy stared up at him, her plump face pale. For once, her blood was not a temptation.
Vale brushed her hair out of her face. “Does he tell the truth?”
Ivy’s brow wrinkled. “I… I think so. He never said anything about an antidote.”
“There is none,” Christopher choked, still dangling from Vale’s fist.
Vale grunted. Then he raised Christopher higher into the air, ready to crush his puny throat.
“Wait,” Ivy croaked. “Don’t kill him.”
Vale did not take his eyes off Christopher’s reddening face. He was still smiling, although it was slowly stopping as consciousness drained from him at the lack of oxygen.
Ivy touched Vale’s chest. “He’s my only family.”
Vale entertained a vivid fantasy of crushing the mage’s throat anyway. Then he dropped Christopher on the ground, letting the man wheeze and gasp.
Vale trod on his staff. It snapped, making Christopher cry out hoarsely.
“It does not matter how weak I am,” Vale growled. “I will kill anyone who enters my void without my permission.”
With that, he turned to leave.
“You cannot escape us,” Christopher yelled hoarsely. “Soon you will be so weak you won’t be able to do anything but bend to our will!”
“And then I will die with my void before you can take back your precious castle,” Vale growled. “Outstanding work, mortal.”
He stepped into the dirt circle. But before he could will them back to his void, Ivy spoke up again.
“Wait,” she said, sitting up in his arms. It looked like a significant effort, her head wobbling before she straightened. “Let me talk to him. I can— I can talk him out of it.”
She did not sound certain. But she did sound determined.
Vale looked at the blood staining her dress. He did not know how much blood mortals could lose. But she was still talking and moving, which meant he had time.
“I will let you try,” he allowed.
He turned cautiously back to Christopher, who was still lying on the ground, massaging his throat and cradling the broken top of his staff, which still had the annoying vial attached to it.
Christopher snorted when he saw his niece staring at him. “So, you seduced the monster after all, hmm? You were always so dedicated to my cause.”
“There are many things you can use for weapons in the void,” Ivy said, her hand pressed just above where the arrow was inside her. “Just take them and go. You don’t need to bind him.”
Christopher sighed and rubbed a hand over his sweaty forehead. “Given that you collapsed from a single crossbow wound, I take it he hasn’t made you a god.”
“No.”
“Do you have any powers?”
Ivy hesitated. Vale waited to see if she would tell him about the void and their impossible connection.
“No,” Ivy said again.
Christopher nodded. He sat back against the forest dirt and twirled the front half of his snapped staff. The vial tied to it spun with it, and Vale ground his fangs together at its annoying glinting.
“Well,” he said. “You’ve obviously chosen your side.”
“I haven’t,” Ivy protested. “I’m your family! I just know that this isn’t the way. Uncle, please listen.”
“He does not seem very weak,” Christopher said over her, raising his voice until it rang through the trees and using the front half of his broken staff to point at the corpses lying around their small battlefield.
“Did you even use all the poison?” Christopher continued.
Ivy wilted with shame. “I… did.”
She looked up at Vale, who stared back at her impassively. He should have known. The void did know, but it did not tell him for some ridiculous reason. Though as soon as he thought of it, he knew the answer: It knew he would banish her, and it wanted her to stay.
Christopher hummed, drawing their attention back. “Can you tell us anything about it?”
Vale growled.
“No,” Ivy said over him. “I’m sorry, Uncle. I think you should leave it be.”
“Do you now?” Christopher laughed, slapping his knee like she had said something humorous. “Those Skullstalker plants must be something truly spectacular. Unless it’s something else about the Skullstalker worth betraying your family for?”
“It’s not about the plants,” Ivy insisted. “The void is alive. It’s alive, and it feels things. He feels things! He’s not a beast. He’s… he’s good.”
Ivy looked up at him again. Her eyes were wet, and she stunk of pain so badly it made him ache.
His anger at her deeds was already draining.
She had done something terrible, but she was trying to make up for it.
She was even risking death for it. Nobody had done something like that for Vale in a long time.
“And for him, you’d give up your duty to the Circle of the Jeweled Fist?” Christopher demanded. “Your duty to me?”
“No,” Ivy whispered. “Of course not. I just won’t let you…”
Her eyes rolled up in her head. She fell limp in Vale’s grip, head lolling against his chest.
“Ivy?” Vale snapped.
“Shame she didn’t get to finish,” Christopher called, spinning the top half of his broken staff lazily. “But we can assume what she said, hmm? She won’t let me take you. Let me guess, you let her eat the scraps after you were finished with your dinner?”
Vale ignored him, pressing his ear to her chest and listening. Her heartbeat was weak.
“I’ll tell you,” Christopher continued. “One nice deed, and that girl would do anything. I mean, anything! It was a real problem when she got to talking to folk outside of the Circle. But I guess I’ll let you have her next.
I’ll charm her back, of course. After this mess is done with, I’ll grovel and she’ll—”
Vale roared so loudly that Christopher dropped his broken staff and clutched his ears. Vale took one hard step out of the circle, then stopped.
He had promised Ivy. Even if he had not, she was running out of time. He needed to stop the bleeding.
“If I ever see you again,” Vale growled. “I will snap your neck. I do not care what she says.”
Christopher said nothing. He was still groaning on the ground, his hands over his ears.
Vale stepped back into the circle and closed his eyes, holding Ivy so tightly to his chest he feared he might crush her.
He appeared safely in the silver pool. Ivy was still slumped in his arms, her breathing dangerously shallow.
He stumbled out of the pool. He did not check to see if anyone had followed; the void was not so weak as to allow someone in without its permission.
The forest parted to let Vale through. Leaves swayed toward Ivy as he ran, holding her steady.
He reached the nest and placed her inside. Then he turned to the tree that was drooping over him, offering something.
“Thank you,” Vale said hoarsely as it dropped the soothepine into his palm. He crammed the leaves into his mouth, chewing hard. Then he took the arrow in Ivy’s chest and braced himself.
It did not take much. Just a small yank, and the arrow slid from Ivy’s chest with a slick pop. Ivy’s reaction, however, was awful. Her eyes snapped open, her back bowing as she sobbed in agony.
Vale threw the bloody, malblossom-wrapped arrow into the forest, ignoring the burns it scored into his fingers. Then he spat into her wound. The green leaf-spit dripped into the arrow hole, burrowing through the blood and glowing as it slowly healed her wound.
Ivy whimpered. Vale stroked her hair, a concerned rumble in his throat.
“You will heal,” he assured her. “We are here. All will be well.”
Those leaf-vines from before—ivy, she had called it, her namesake from the mortal realm—snaked into the nest and curled around her limbs. Strands threaded gently through her hair, stroking along with Vale.
“We are here,” Vale repeated quietly.
Ivy’s eyelids fluttered. Her writhing stilled, the fight leaving her. But before Vale could panic that he was too late, Ivy’s injury glowed brighter.
It was not the soothepine. Not just the soothpine, anyhow. That much was clear as the glow spread to her eyes, shining between her eyelashes.
I know that green, Vale thought. It was not the green of Ivy’s own eyes. It was the green of his. The green of the wilderness void.
Ivy’s mouth opened. Green light poured from it. Her skin glowed, green light radiating through her until her whole body shone.
Vale stared, spellbound. He had seen magic every day of his long existence. But he had not felt it like this, beautiful and blessed, for millennia.
Suddenly, Ivy sagged. Her eyes drooped shut, and her body went limp.
Vale climbed into the nest with her and pulled her into his lap. He did not understand what had just happened. But he knew one thing for certain:
Ivy was not going anywhere.