These Vile Hearts

Prologue

Silence is loudest in the myrtlewood forest. Birds screech, animals skitter over dry leaves, trees fall.

Screams reverberate off wooden trunks. And no one is around to hear.

Not a single mortal soul. Until a rare sunny day in southern Oregon, when a family of three arrived at Myrtle Tree Trail for a pleasant hike.

Only one of them would leave.

The child was no older than ten, with hair the color of fire and freckles spattering her face like she’d just trampled through a mud puddle.

She wore a look in her wide silver eyes all dryads feared.

Most mortals who visited the old forests gazed past them into the trees, looking at everything and nothing all at once.

But there were some—an unlucky few—who were gifted with the Sight.

And this girl could most certainly see.

“This is where the Myrtle Queen lives,” her father whispered in her ear while her mother busied herself with tying her shoe. “Stay close, okay?”

“Who’s the—?”

Her father pressed a finger to his lips, shaking his head. He didn’t talk about the fae or dryads while her mother was around.

Nodding obediently, the girl didn’t ask any more questions, keeping her eyes on the tree line and reveling a little in the secrets she kept with her father.

A wood sprite lounging beneath a spiky red plant caught the girl’s eye. She stopped walking and knelt down. If anyone were to look closely, they would see the hollows of the girl’s cheeks, the thinness of her arms. As if all the strength in her body had been stolen by her eyes.

The sprite startled at her closeness and dashed into the brush.

“Wait.” The girl stretched out a speckled hand. “I won’t hurt you.” Reaching into her pocket, she procured a lemon drop she’d snuck from the emergency candy bowl and offered the sweet. “Here.”

Peeking out from behind a shrub, the sprite laid its black eyes on the candy.

Her father glanced over his shoulder, a knowing grin lifting his sunken features as he caught sight of the sprite.

There was awareness in his eyes, too, less childlike wonder than vigilance.

He slid a worn red notebook from his pocket and made a note in the pages as he often did when they were in the forest. As if he wasn’t merely witnessing the fae but studying them.

“What are you doing, Maddox?” Her mother’s Sightless eyes sharpened to daggers as she turned them on her. “Your dress is getting filthy.” Then a change of tone. “Is that candy in your hand? Do you want to end up in the hospital again?”

The sprite leapt behind the shrub again as the girl named Maddox let the lemon drop fall to the ground.

Flashes of movement. Quick footsteps, until she counted two, three, four, five, six of the creatures she’d only ever seen from afar.

Creatures that looked human but had antlers and horns of different sizes.

Lithe, strong bodies. Cunning, mischievous smiles.

These were the fae born from the trees. Dryads.

All of them were dressed in shades of brown and green and black.

For a moment, Maddox smiled. She had never seen dryads so close before.

Her father had always warned her about them.

Told her to run straight home if she ever saw them.

It seemed a silly warning. She’d had far scarier run-ins with the little pixies that stole fruit from their bushes with sharp, greedy claws.

Dryads usually stayed back and watched. Like deer.

But these creatures weren’t looking at her like a deer would. They were looking at her like…predators.

Fear pinpricked down her limbs, making her hands go numb.

“Maddox. I’m speaking to you,” said her mother.

But she barely registered the words, distracted by a pair of dark dryad eyes.

They held a cruel smile and a deadly promise.

And their hands held wooden daggers. The dryad nearest her had wild dirty-blond hair and dark makeup accentuating the darkness of their pupils, blown wide like a mountain lion about to pounce.

This dryad held a finger up to their lips as if letting her in on a secret. Shh.

You like the pretty dryads with the pretty sharp blades? a voice said on a gust of wind. Watch what we can do, little axeling.

The dryad moved fast. Quick, soundless steps danced along the trail until the tallest of the creatures loomed behind her father. As he turned, she saw dread pool in his eyes just before she screamed.

“Dryads!”

But it was too late.

Blood from the gash in his neck spilled to the ground, turning the dirt muddy.

Later Maddox would remember the gurgling sound her father made as he dropped to his knees like he was praying at an altar, both hands attempting to stem the crimson flow.

She would recall his notebook tumbling to the ground, just out of reach of the tide of blood.

But most of all, she would remember the look of horrified realization in her father’s eyes.

As if he’d been winning at a game of chess only for his opponent to say, Checkmate.

Her mother screamed, “Deacon!”

Without Sight, all she registered was her husband lying in a pool of his own blood. Meanwhile, a horror-struck Maddox watched as the spaces between the trees filled in with the very dryads her father had warned her about. The ones she used to think were shy and afraid. Afraid of her.

Two more of the creatures stepped onto the path, one with lichen-crusted antlers akin to those of an elk, and the other with the curling horns of a ram. Both carried wooden blades.

“Momma, run!” Maddox screeched.

Or would have screeched, if one of the dryads hadn’t come up behind her, hadn’t wrapped an arm around her shoulders and covered her mouth with a calloused hand. Her own hands flew up, nails digging into their skin. The dryad only laughed.

Maddox watched as the antlered dryad stood behind her sobbing mother and drove a blade into her back. Watched as they did it again and again.

The forest was silent no longer.

Her mother’s screams grew faint after a time. Then she was gurgling, too, blood pooling with her husband’s. Wide eyes stared unseeing at the creatures who had just stolen her life.

“You’re welcome, Maddox Sinclair,” the beast behind her whispered in her ear, the words carrying a chill that felt like knives down her shoulders.

Then they were gone, their laughter lingering on the wind in an eerie song.

Until the silence returned, punctuated by Maddox’s gasping breaths.

Dizziness swirled in her brain as she stood before the still forms of her parents, as she watched their blood pour onto the ground.

Her heart wouldn’t slow, hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

Even though she’d watched it all unfold, she couldn’t wrap her head around what had happened. Couldn’t understand why.

When she knew she was alone, Maddox began to scream.

But no mortal heard her. She sobbed, but no one came. Not for hours.

If a girl falls apart in the forest, and no one is there to hear…does she even make a sound?