36
We wokeat dawn’s first light, making love to the sound of the sea. Neither of us speaking, letting our bodies tell our truths. Rían held my hand on the short walk to the portal inside the bowels of the mildewy dry well. The linen closet on the other side smelled infinitely better: lavender, vanilla, and fresh air.
The family who lived in the house was nowhere to be seen, but the doors had been left unlocked. Following a path through a forest draped in wintery white, we eventually ended up at a border of shiny black stones. No snow fell on the cursed black ground writhing on the other side.
An icy breeze laced with carrion fluttered my unbound hair.
Rían shifted a pocket watch, staring down at its ticking hands.
“Is it time?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from giving away the extent of my nervousness.
“Yes. But this is a terrible plan,” he muttered.
“It’ll be fine.”
“While I appreciate your poor attempt at optimism, we are depending on a man cursed to tell the truthlyingto a witch who can smell such things. You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your confidence.”
I had faith in Tadhg. Besides, this wasn’t just the best plan we had. It was ouronlyplan. “Do you like being controlled by a heinous murderer?”
A smile ghosted across Rían’s lips when he sent the watch away. “Ah, here now. I wouldn’t call you a ‘heinous murderer.’ You only killed Robert Trench.”
I punched him in the arm. He feigned a wince, rubbing at his shoulder. “I’m being serious, you know. Now, give me the dagger.” I motioned toward the glowing emerald hilt sheathed at his waist, which he had retrieved before we’d gone to bed last night.
Grumbling, he withdrew the blade, flipped it over, and offered me the hilt. “What are the rules?”
Rían and his bloody rules. “Surprise is key. Get close. Go for the kill.” My sister had killed Fiadh, but the witch had taken so long to die, she’d almost killed Keelynn as well.
“And?”
I rolled my eyes. “And if you turn, I am to kill you before you kill me.”
He released the blade with obvious reluctance. I tried to ignore the way it continued to glow as I stuffed it into my skirt pocket.
“Are you ready?” I could only imagine how hard this must be for him, after losing the woman he loved to the Forest.
He scowled down at his boots grazing the onyx stones.
We didn’t have time to tarry. I took a deep breath and stepped over the line. My boot landed on the cursed earth, roiling like the sea. “There. That wasn’t so—”
Black roots coiled around my ankles. Rían cursed. Flicked his wrist. The roots retreated enough for me to extricate myself. He picked me up and set me on a spot two steps to my right. The ground still roiled, but where I stood remained solid.
I gave him a sheepish smile.
“I know this is your plan,” he said, finally taking that step across the border, “but I might take the lead for this part, if it’s all right with you?”
We left the glistening white world for one without sunlight or life. Bodies of small birds and rodents in various states of decay littered the writhing blackened earth.
The invisible path wound through dead trees with roots that sat above the ground like the tentacles of some mythical sea monster. Nothing grew here but black trees.
Rían didn’t speak, for which I was grateful. Speaking would’ve forced me to drop my cloak from my nose and breathe in the bitter stench of death. He appeared immune to all of it. The skulls rising to the surface. The femurs. The hand.
A single crow circled the darkening sky, nearly invisible through the twisted tree branches. Then another joined it. And another. And another.
Cursed trees seemed to stretch on for eternity. Then the air grew damp, and the song of the sea replaced the murky silence. Suddenly, we were no longer in a forest but standing at the top of a sheer cliff face, staring down at churning waves. The call of seabirds echoed in the distance. The path wound precariously close to the eroding edge. My foot slipped; Rían caught my arm, dragging me back.
At the top of the next incline sat a large tower house built entirely of black stone. Candles flickered in the arched windows. I tried to ignore the dread swelling in my stomach as we drew ever closer. A gate of sharpened iron pikes topped with skulls marked the entrance to the keep.
“Where are the guards?” I had imagined a line of black-clad soldiers guarding the Queen’s castle.