Chapter 7
Maddox
Ihave never seen so much gold in all my life, let alone worn it.
A golden gown, golden jewelry, golden shoes, and a delicate golden mask decorate my body, with a splash of golden glitter painted across my eyelids. It looks like King Midas threw up on me.
“Does the king have a thing for gold, or do you guys just really like color schemes?” I ask Drosera and Atlas as they guide me out of the cavernous kingdom.
“The king has a thing for gold and mortals,” Drosera answers. “So you should have no trouble drawing him to you.”
“You mean you don’t think he will be drawn to my dazzling personality and stunning beauty?”
Drosera merely snorts.
“I thought mortals couldn’t go into the Redwood Kingdom. How does he have a thing for them if they’re never around?”
“They can be brought in by a dryad. And they can see with the help of glamours and tieg wine.”
“What’s tieg—”
“It’s what I just told you,” she snaps. “It enables mortals to see. Fills them with wonder and excitement rather than horror at being snuck into a hidden world by a horned creature.”
“Oh, okay. I know exactly what it is now, thanks.”
Don’t drink the wine, indeed.
We climb a narrow set of stone stairs that lets out into a long passage lined with human skulls. I press my hand to the golden dagger now tied to my thigh—the dagger meant for the Redwood King’s heart.
“If I live through this, you’ll have to give me the name of your interior decorator. Very macabre chic.”
A wicked smirk rolls across Drosera’s cool visage. “Oh, I can show you exactly how we acquire those decorations if you’d like.”
I pretend her remark doesn’t strike terror deep into the marrow of my decorative bones.
“So, uh, what’s it take for a human to end up as interior design here?” Hopefully, it isn’t that they failed their pact with the Myrtle Queen.
“Most of those are from decades ago, when your kind deemed it necessary to fell thousands of our trees.”
“So these are mostly…”
“Axmen,” Drosera answers before I finish the question. “Yes.”
“I see.”
“No different from you building your empires from our skeletons. It may seem grotesque to you, but how do you think a log cabin looks to us?”
I hate that she has a point.
The passage lets out into dense foliage. Drosera and Atlas step lightly between the trees without making a sound. I trample after them, cursing under my breath as my dress catches on fallen branches and sharp rocks.
The ground smooths and slopes downward into a valley of myrtlewood trees as gargantuan as the one behind us.
Branches iced in moss and lichen twine together high above, forming a roof of sorts.
A rushing river cuts through the center of the tree city, bisected by tree root roads.
Tittering laughter and celestial singing pulse in and out like cicada song.
A swarm of indigo fairies flits past us, twirling through the twilight.
Dryads traverse the trails, ducking into houses built within tree trunks.
“And regular people can’t see this place?” I reach out a hand to touch a hanging vine coated in orange flowers.
“They can’t see us. But they could trample through here if they wanted.” Drosera grips the handle of the largest of her many weapons strung along her belt. “We make sure they don’t.”
“How?”
“Don’t you worry about that. Hurry up. At this rate, the masque will be over before you get there.”
Hiking my dress higher off the ground to keep it from dragging through the nettles, I trudge forward.
An oversized golden clutch filled with my insulin, needles, and testing supplies is all I’ve been permitted to carry.
That and the throwing axe hidden beneath my skirt—and the dagger strapped to my thigh.
They didn’t see me sneak my dad’s red leather journal out of my backpack and stuff it among my supplies.
“Are we just going to walk to the Redwood Kingdom? Isn’t that like sixty miles from here? Pretty sure the masque will be over by then. Unless you dryads party real hard.”
“It’s the Redwood Court,” Drosera corrects. “The Redwood Kingdom is spread out all across the western coast.”
“My bad.” A pause. “So are we walking to the Redwood Court, then?”
Drosera shakes her head, muttering to herself, and Atlas points across the river at a myrtlewood tree with a hollow arched base.
A short line of dryads and what Drosera calls arborfae has formed.
The only difference I see between the two is that dryads have antlers or horns and most arborfae have wings or unnaturally colored skin.
One by one, they pass through the arch and vanish into the air as if they never existed at all.
“Magic portal?” I say.
“An egress,” Drosera corrects.
“Ah, right. That was my next guess.”
As we approach the myrtlewood archway, my stomach begins to churn with the reality of my deal. And it’s not like my dad’s around to give me pointers. “How do you kill a dryad?” I blurt.
A humorless laugh escapes Drosera’s lips. “That’s something I suppose you’ll just have to find out on your own, axeling. Being the daughter of Deacon Sinclair has likely taught you a thing or two about murdering dryads.”
I grit my teeth and resist the urge to practice on her.
“Hmm. I believe, unless I’m quite mistaken, that my father killed dryads on your queen’s orders.”
Drosera rounds on me. “Your father was a mortal axman who cut down entire colonies of dryads. He didn’t need any orders from the queen.”
My head bobs back at this. Usually, I’m quick with a riposte, but nothing comes to me. Just the reminder that I clearly didn’t know my dad as well as I thought I did.
Atlas presses a hand to Drosera’s shoulder, and a meaningful glance passes between them. The blonde still has not spoken a single word in my presence. I wonder if it’s out of fear for my kind or if she simply can’t.
With a steadying breath, Drosera turns her head to speak without looking me in the eye.
“You can kill a dryad as easily as any mortal. The king will be heavily guarded, so you’ll want to get him alone.
If you can’t manage that, then you’ll have to find a way to kill his heartwood, which is also heavily guarded. ”
“I’m sorry. His heartwood? Are you talking about his di—”
“The tree that houses his soul,” Drosera interrupts with a curled upper lip. “The Sovereign Tree has a branch that hangs above the citadel. All the heartwoods of the Sovereign kings grow from that branch.”
“Do all dryads have heartwoods?”
Drosera’s eyebrow lifts at me, as if shocked I can see them but do not know something so seemingly simple. “Yes. Each dryad has a heartwood tree. It’s the source of our magic, and why some of your stories seem to paint us as spirits rather than fae.”
“Are all trees heartwoods?”
“Are all mortals parents?” she counters.
“No, thankfully.”
She waves a hand and flattens her lips as if to say, Well, there you go.
I can tell I only have a few questions left before Drosera decides the pain of answering me is greater than what the Myrtle Queen would do to her if she were to stab me through with one of her wooden blades. “So I either have to kill the king or kill his…heartwood.”
“You catch on so quickly. And here I thought all mortals were ignorant.”
“Which is easier to kill?”
“Both are pretty impossible given the Redwood Court’s increase in security,” Drosera says pleasantly. “But judging by how fond the king is of playing with mortals, I’d say he is the less impossible option.”
“Will it not be a bit suspicious for a random mortal to crash their tree party?”
“Oh, you will not be the only mortal at that party…Though most of them are there as accessories or pets.”
“Pets?”
“A fun trend started by the Redwood King. He has been known to enjoy certain games with humans.”
“What sorts of games?”
“All kinds. Mostly of the sexual variety.”
I’ve played my fair share of sexual games. But something about her tone tells me those are not the sorts the Redwood King likes to play.
“Good luck, axeling,” Drosera says. “Go do what you mortals do best.”
“Fuck shit up?” I say. Drosera’s eyebrows lift slightly. This may be the first time I’ve surprised her. “I plan to.”
Without another word I step through the egress.
~
I pitch forward into a forest I know to be at least sixty miles away from where I just stood. The air returns to my lungs, and I gulp it down, ignoring the bemused glances shot my way by fae decked in their best party attire. In some cases that means wearing nothing but a mask.
I must look so mortal right now.
Dryads and a plethora of other fae creatures walk by me, moving in a single direction.
A lithe feminine dryad passes by wearing a gown made entirely from pink rose petals.
Another is draped in nothing but glistening spiderweb.
All the dryads have horns or antlers of some kind, large and animallike or thin as tree branches.
Masks of all sorts hide their faces, from clusters of delicate gemstones to animal skulls with fur and blood still clinging on.
I follow the throng, shoulders back, chin up, as though I know exactly what I’m doing.
As though I belong. I wonder if any of them can sense my pounding heart.
A human man wearing a collar—an actual bedazzled collar—is being guided like a pet on a leash.
The dryad on the other end wears a gown woven from shiny green leaves.
Rather than horror or fear or any other reasonable emotion, the man smiles, as if he’s merely on a pleasant stroll through the woods with his dryad friends.
Several arborfae nearly collide with me, eyeing my neck like they are wondering where my collar is. I walk faster.