Chapter 4
Maddox
The air down here is cool and damp. Much like the early morning air on Myrtle Tree Trail. But this is a different cool, a different damp.
The scent of wet earth overwhelms my senses.
No light streams through the thin cloth tied around my eyes.
For the first several minutes, I thrash and tug and scream, trying to get away from the creatures dragging me underground.
The sounds of the forest have vanished, and I’m stumbling blindly down a shallow slope.
The more I struggle, the more loudly the voices laugh.
The air sizzles with what I can only describe as static.
Like magic hangs in the atoms between me and them.
Eventually, I grow quiet, allowing them to lead me into whatever hell they reside. After all, I asked for this. Begged on my knees for this.
Up until this moment, my mind had been hyperfocused on all the things the dryad queen could do for me.
Now all I can think of are the things she and the rest of these creatures can do to me.
Long-forgotten nightmares come crawling back.
Nightmares of grown men screaming like children, of cruel laughter emanating from trees, of the Myrtle Queen.
How beautiful and terrible and powerful my dad had painted her in his journal.
The kind of power that could grant a mortal’s greatest wish or turn their fragile body to dust.
As they pull me forward, I trip on sharp rocks, falling to my knees a few times before they yank me roughly back up.
“Where are you taking me?” I growl in the direction of the creature whose claws are digging into the skin of my left bicep.
“Picky mortal, aren’t you?” the voice says. “First, you ask for a favor from the queen. Pleading for her help. Then, when finally listened to, you try to escape. Don’t fear, axeling. We wish only to help you.”
Axeling.
I’ve only heard that one other time in my life: the day those dryads murdered my parents in cold blood.
Watch what we can do, little axeling.
I can’t remember the voice of the dryad who whispered in my ear that day. Can’t tell if it’s like the one now on my left. Maybe it doesn’t even fucking matter. This dryad’s voice is all hard edges and sharp points. A ragged dagger jammed into my ear canal.
“It might feel more like you were helping me if you’d remove this blindfold,” I say through gritted teeth.
Laughter crackles around me.
The stone of dread in my stomach grows heavier. They have no intention of letting me go. Suddenly, diabetes and homelessness are the least of my problems, which is oddly invigorating and terrifying all at once.
Gradually, the blackness pressing on my blindfold lightens. Damp earth mingles with the scents of salt, bay leaves, and copper. Murmuring voices multiply around me, echoing. My head swivels left and right, trying to make out the shadows through the blindfold, when suddenly it’s ripped away.
I’m standing in a cave-like dome the size of a football stadium. It’s like all my dad’s journal entries have come to life before my eyes. There’s something hauntingly dreadful about it, and yet breathtaking nonetheless.
A wall of human skulls; a path of flat, sparkling crystals; candles everywhere—in sconces, massive pillars tucked in corners, and ornate candelabras that belong in the Phantom of the Opera’s sex dungeon.
Dryads with antlers, leather armor, and spears line the walls.
When my eyes travel over them, taking them in, they stiffen.
I suppose they don’t get many mortals with the Sight down here.
A natural skylight in the earthen dome hundreds of feet above our heads creates a moonbeam spotlight on a raised rock, which is odd because I swear it was daylight when I was dragged in here.
Two staircases carved from tree roots flank the rocky dais.
Atop the dais is a throne made of bones and rubies, and on this throne sits a thunderstorm in the form of a dryad woman.
In my mind, I always saw the cartoon version of Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty when I imagined the Myrtle Queen. Like a demon come to life. But this woman looks more like an antlered angel—the kind of angel who gets kicked out of heaven but isn’t allowed into hell.
Everything about the dryad queen is striking, like lightning crackling through dark clouds.
Sharp golden eyes, bloodred lips, fair skin with tattooed vines winding around toned arms, high cheekbones, and a pair of black antlers like those of a white-tailed deer.
Her dark blond hair is all shaved on one side, divided by an intricate braid.
Over her leather armor is a bodice made of gold in the shape of veined leaves cradling her rib cage.
The dryads to my left and right press down on my shoulders, forcing me to my knees.
“Kneel, axeling,” the one on my left purrs in my ear. “This is the woman you begged to meet. Queen Amanita Umbellularia. The great and powerful Myrtle Queen.”
I’m trembling, and for a fleeting moment, I wonder if my blood sugar has dropped again, but this doesn’t feel like hypoglycemia.
This feels like staring death in the face.
I stiffen to hide the most obvious signs.
Javen once told me if you clench your ass cheeks, it will keep your hands from shaking. Might as well try it.
Mixed in with the fear is a magma-hot hate that unfortunately makes me tremble even harder.
“I’ve come to ask a favor.” My voice is stronger than I expected. “I’m told you do that.”
The queen’s brow, edged in specks of gold, rises. When she speaks, her voice is a deadly melody. “Told by whom?”
A smattering of cackles echoes around me. I wish they would shut up. For a moment, I consider making them, but when I shift my hips, the hard outline of my knife is no longer in my pocket. Stealthy motherfuckers.
The other dryads in the room sit at wooden tables and in animal-skin chairs, watching the exchange with mild interest. Some lean against the wall; others stand with their arms crossed. Not a single one of them looks like they wouldn’t enjoy killing me.
The fingers of the dryad to my left dig into my shoulder. “The queen asked you a question, axeling.”
There’s that word again.
“My father,” I answer finally, tamping my desire to break this dryad’s fingers. “My father told me.”
“Your father?”
I nod. “He said he met you.” Though this isn’t wholly true. He wrote about her in his journal and spoke of her as he did most fae things—cryptically and without elaboration.
“Did he?” She rests her chin on her fist. “Come into the light, child.”
The two dryads holding me down release my shoulders enough to allow me to stand. I take four steps forward until the moonbeam kisses my face.
The queen tilts her head. A flash of recognition. The fist under her chin drops, twining in her lap with the other as she stares down at me with an odd expression.
“Deacon Sinclair’s daughter.” It’s not a question. “I was wondering when you would show up.”
A stir runs through the watching dryads. Their eyes widen, backs straighten. I have their full attention now.
The knot in my stomach constricts. “So you did know him?”
The Myrtle Queen’s scarlet lips form an unreadable line. “The last time I saw Deacon, he had just killed the previous Redwood King.”
Shock shatters down my body in waves of pine needle pricks.
My dad? A murderer? No. The man who nursed baby forest animals back to health, who everyone in our little coastal town loved, who wasn’t afraid to show the broad spectrum of his emotions?
He wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone, let alone kill.
Disgust curls my lips, my hands forming fists. I know better than to say what I’d like to this dryad queen, so I just shake my head slowly. “You must be mistaken.”
She’s wrong. She has to be wrong.
Maybe dryads can’t tell mortals apart. Maybe she’s thinking of another six-foot red-haired man named Deacon Sinclair.
“Oh, no, Miss Sinclair. I’m quite positive.”
“My father wouldn’t do something like that.” My confidence in my father’s morality wavers at the end of my sentence.
“I assure you, he would.” The queen flashes an amused grin. “Deacon Sinclair was rather good at doing as he was told.”
“You…told him to murder a dryad king?”
Her expression tightens. “I told him to rid Sylveris of its Redwood poison. King Cyperus was far too tolerant of Unseelie creatures, allowing them to live among us though they aren’t bound by Sylveris Law.
Then, of course, he made a most grievous error in choosing to ally with the Iron King, leaving acres of my forests to fall so avaricious city-dwellers could expand their palaces of ore.
” The queen’s voice has grown sharper and colder.
“So, yes, Miss Sinclair. I asked your father to murder a king. And he happily obliged.”
I can’t come to terms with a version of my father that would happily murder another living creature. In the confusion, my anger blooms. Denial rages. But then the doubt creeps in.
My breaths come faster. Words from his journal—words I didn’t know the meaning of until now—flood my mind.
The sovereign redwood must fall.
Knife? Gun? Axe? Rope?
The king’s heartwood is less guarded than his heart.
Fewest guards at midnight.
“You seem surprised.”
“I just…Why?” I’m not sure if I’m asking why my dad would kill the Redwood King or why she ordered him to. Not sure I even want to know the answer to either question, to be perfectly fucking honest.
The queen’s grin widens. “You are not the first Sinclair to ask me for a favor.”
The dryad to my left whispers in my ear, “Begging runs in your family, axeling.”
My teeth grit together. Swallowing the words I’d like to spew at them is like keeping down rising bile.
“What favor?” I ask through my teeth.
“Your father and I made a pact. And, in exchange for granting his request, he was bound to work for me, do my bidding.”