Tam settled in the chair Raeneth had vacated and started loading both his and Larkin’s plates. “Yeah, let’s hear it, Granny.”

She stared at him, eyes popping out of her head. “Did I not make it perfectly clear you would not be allowed in my house until you’ve been thoroughly inspected—”

Tam flattened her with a look. “My house in the Alamant is twice as grand as this. When I’m not serving as the prince’s personal guard—or Larkin’s—I command my own unit of a hundred soldiers. Your own granddaughter is a princess.” He dunked his scone in his soup and bit into it. He winced, probably realizing it was a sweet bread, and shook the remains in Iniya’s direction. “So from now on, you’re going to pretend to be respectful.”

Iniya blinked, opened her mouth, and shut it again. “A princess?”

Tam rolled his eyes. “And unlike in the Idelmarch, Larkin has power.”

Not yet. Still, Larkin wasn’t about to argue.

Iniya’s gaze turned inward. “Very well, Tam, Commander of a Hundred Men and Defender of the Prince. You may remain.” She took a delicate bite of her own scone. “The feast begins in two days. While I’m not technically allowed to bring more than two guests, the druids won’t turn away Nesha and her guard”—she looked pointedly at Tam—“sent by their very own prize Black Druid, Garrot.”

Tam huffed. “Appears I’ve been demoted.” He leaned into Larkin. “I might actually miss terrorizing Idelmarchians as a druid. It’s more fun when you can see their reactions.”

Rolling her eyes, Larkin tore apart her own scone and slathered it with butter and jam. “Garrot is important to the druids?”

Iniya stirred her soup, ran the edge of her spoon over the bowl’s rim, and set it delicately on her plate. “If all goes according to his plans, Garrot will be the next Master Druid.”

The forest take him and my sister both, Larkin thought darkly.

“And the current Master Druid would be all right with his disowned granddaughter at his celebrations?” Tam asked.

“The hero of Hamel?” Iniya scoffed. “He could not very well turn her away.”

Nesha, a hero—for betraying her family and nearly getting Larkin killed, twice. She hid her clenched fists under the table. “And after?”

“Leave that to me,” Iniya said. “But first, we attend the Black Rites.”

Larkin didn’t like the sound of that.

Tam looked up. “Black Rites?”

Iniya lifted her bowl to her lips. “Any regular druid who wishes to become a Black Druid must enter the Forbidden Forest and discover its secret.”

This was why the Black Druids were feared and admired—they had survived what no one else had.

Tam’s eyes widened. “Without knowing what’s inside?”

“A few make it back intact,” Iniya said.

Tam sat back with a huff. “That’s not far off from murder.”

“What’s a few less druids? While there, I must speak with a man, Humbent.”

Larkin looked between Tam and Iniya. “Just like that? We attend the equinox celebrations and try to get inside the crypts and library?”

“Just?” Iniya huffed. “If the druids realize who you are, we’ll all be part of the equinox’s culminating activity: the public hangings.”

 

 

Tinsy led Larkin upstairs to a darkened room. She opened the first set of three drapes, revealing pale blue everything—from the walls to the tufted furniture, drapes, and bed frothing with lace.

Against one wall, a dusty row of dolls sat in size from largest to smallest. They wore elegant gowns. Their wooden faces were beautifully painted, though that paint had faded and chipped.

Larkin touched the gorgeous embroidery on one dress, the jewels on the bodice of another, the dusty hair of a third—real and as riotous a red as Larkin’s own. “Whose bedroom was this?” Her father had been an only child.

Tinsy opened the last set of drapes. “These are Madame Iniya’s things from her days at the palace.”

Fitting that the Mad Queen would have a room full of dolls. There were other dolls with different color hair—blondes and reds. Hair from those long since dead.

They were her family too, she realized. Her great-grandparents and the rest of their children killed at the palace. Larkin recoiled and brushed the dust off her fingers. She wandered to the glass doors, released the catch, and stepped out onto the round balcony. The castle spires loomed high and to the right above the curtain wall. No guards surrounded Iniya’s house. Why was Iniya allowed to live autonomously outside the walls of the palace that should have been hers?

“Do you know Iniya’s story?” Larkin asked.

Tinsy stiffened. “She never speaks of it.” She left the room without another word.

“Is this what I’m meant to do?” Settling on the couch, Larkin took her amulet out and pushed the sharp branch into the skin of her forearm. She hissed at the pain.

The vision came with the taste of ashes and copper—the same vision she’d had before, of the day the curse began. Larkin wandered among the dead and dying, the shadows devouring. At the dais, she watched Eiryss and Dray fight and lose.

When the vision released her, she lay panting, tears welling in her eyes. What did it mean?

“How am I supposed to guard anyone with this?” Tam said from the doorway. He crossed the room, holding a dull metal sword. He pushed the tip into the rug. “It doesn’t bend! One good hit, and it will shatter like ice. And they didn’t even bother giving me a shield!”

Sitting up, Larkin pressed against the puncture mark to stop the bleeding. “You can’t very well show up with your sacred sword, can you?”

He harrumphed. “What is it you always say: ‘the forest take you’? More like the Idelmarchians take you. I don’t know how you stand these dark, dank houses.”

She stiffened. Her home in Hamel had been a beehive hut made of staggered stones and a dirt floor. There had been no window, and when the wood of their door had swelled, it wouldn’t open at all.

“Sorry,” Tam said.

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. It did. Poverty wasn’t something one shook off. It haunted her. It would always haunt her.

Tam looked about the room and made a face at the dolls. “I guess you can take the bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.” He started pushing the furniture to the edge of the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Well, we can’t exactly practice in the yard where anyone from the street might see.” He produced two sticks, the branches freshly trimmed. He grabbed two pillows off the bed, tossing her one and holding the other like a shield. “In a line, you stand shoulder to shoulder. Mulgars only come at you from the front. They’re all wild animal and no finesse. So when they crash into you, sweep your shield, stab from below. Reposition.”

Sweep. Stab. Reposition. “Denan showed me this before.”

“Not in working with a line, he didn’t.”

He stood shoulder to shoulder with her, and they repelled a dozen imaginary mulgars.

“Shouldn’t you be teaching me to fight druids?” The mulgars couldn’t reach them here.

Tam took a deep breath. “If we’re caught, we’re dead. Unless we can convince them to ransom us.”

She swallowed. “It might make a difference.”

He considered her. “Your sword and shield are a last resort. If anyone sees you using a magic blade, it’s over. Here, wrap me up from behind.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Slice your foot down my shin, stomp on my foot, and throw the back of your head into my nose.” He demonstrated slowly. “Now you try.”

She worked on the move until he was satisfied.

“You can throw an elbow into my guts too. Always remember—hard to soft. So elbow to guts, fist to throat, fingers to eyes, knee to groin, that kind of thing.”

Her lip curled in distaste. “One more time.”

He wrapped his arms around her. She slid, stomped, elbowed, and headbutted. “Good.”

“Now for the front.” He turned her so she faced him. “In this pos—”

“What is going on?” Iniya stared at them from the doorway, her jaw tight.

Larkin and Tam jumped back, though they’d done nothing wrong. “He’s teaching me to fight.”

Iniya jabbed her cane at them. “The only fighting you’ll be doing is with your wits.” She tossed something at Larkin. A dome-shaped pillow and a rag belt used for monthlies. “We’ve the Black Rites to attend. Tie that around your middle. The horses are waiting.”

 

 

The pillow stuffed under her shirt to imitate Nesha’s pregnancy, Larkin settled into the saddle atop a placid gelding. It had been a long time since Bane had taught her to ride on his own horse, but her body remembered what to do.

Ancestors, Bane. I wish you were here with me. Was Denan having any luck with ransoming him? Surely the Black Druids would value money more than hanging a lord’s son.

Feet planted firmly on the ground, Tam stared at his horse. “Could we not take the carriage?”

“The roads outside the city will be a swamp from all the rain.” Harben swung effortlessly into the saddle. He reached down and patted his mare’s neck. He seemed happy, content even. It wasn’t fair after what he’d put them through. Thankfully, Raeneth stayed home with her baby.

Oben pushed Iniya’s rump into the saddle. She winced, rubbing her hip as if it pained her. “Surely the Captain of a Hundred Men can master a dumb beast.”

Tam glared at her. “We don’t have them where I come from.”

“Why?” Harben asked.

“Horses can’t climb trees,” Tam said darkly.

Larkin winced to think of an innocent horse faced with mindless mulgars, gilgads, and evil wraiths.

“Stay behind if you like.” Iniya kicked her own horse into a smooth trot.

“It’s all in your legs,” Larkin told him.

Tam pulled himself awkwardly into the saddle, his expression set like when he faced down mulgars.

After the first few blocks, he settled. “This isn’t so bad.”

They passed beneath the gates they’d crossed only that morning, workers still constructing the wall and dead men still hung by their necks. Shortly after, the sun set. Larkin found herself sweating, her hands shaking. She itched for the nearest tree—she suspected the impulse to hide at sunset would never fully leave her.

“We’re late.” Iniya kicked her horse into a lope.

Tam’s eyes widened. “There’s nothing natural about this.”

Larkin held back her horse, which fought to keep from being left behind. “Roll your hips and brace your legs when the horse hits the ground.”

One hand on each rein, Tam tried to hold his horse back, but it took the bit between its teeth and took off. Larkin released her own gelding and leaned forward. Tam’s arms flapped and his backside bounced, but he managed to hold on. Larkin caught up with him. The look of fear on his face … She tipped back her head and laughed. He glared at her.

She swallowed the rest of her laughter. “I’m sorry. It’s just nice to be better at something for once.”

They slowed the horses when they reached a muddy road between green fields of all different types of grains, vegetables, and orchards. In the distance, before the dark smear of trees, bonfires roared, throwing long shadows on the hundreds of people gathered.

Their voices rose like rushing water punctuated with a woman’s wailing. At the back of the crowd, the rich rode horses like Larkin and her companions, offering a better view and keeping them out of the mud.

In the center of the crowd of hundreds stood a huge curse tree. Lanterns had been tied to the upper boughs so that it gleamed like starlight reflected on water. They drew closer, the fresh, bright colors dancing on garlands through the boughs as the druids tied up the last of them. Closer still, and Larkin could make out thorns the size of her smallest finger.

Even wearing leather chaps, jackets, and gloves, some of the druids sported bloody bandages from the worst of them. Larkin’s group shifted to the left, keeping back far enough that they could speak softly without being overheard.

Beneath the tree, twenty or so men stood side by side in a long line. They wore druid black, weapons bristling from their backs and hips. Before one of those men was the wailing woman—his mother, clearly—and behind them, a platform had been built. Upon it stood a bald man with shoulder-length silver hair, his jowls scruffy. The flames on his elaborately tooled belt marked him as the Master Druid.

“Your grandfather, Fenwick,” Harben said tightly from beside her.

Larkin tried to find something of her mother in this man. Perhaps she was too far away, perhaps it was the living shadows in the hollows of his face, but all she saw was her own hatred reflected at her.

Fenwick held up his fist. The crowd fell silent. He turned to the druids. “Tonight, you face the Forbidden Forest of your own free will. You have studied and prepared and trained. Throw that training away.”

The druids looked uneasily among themselves. The crowd murmured.

“I take it this isn’t his usual speech,” Larkin said to Iniya.

“Fenwick is a soldier turned politician,” Iniya said. “The older he gets, the more the politician dies.”

“Nothing is what it seems,” Master Fenwick went on. “Knowledge waits inside the forest. But that knowledge comes with a price. Some of you—perhaps all of you—will pay with your lives. Those who wish may proceed. Those who do not will remain behind, ignorant but alive. Make your decision.”

Larkin searched the shadows beneath the trees. Two dozen paces in lay the barrier. Then they would face gilgads and mulgars and wraiths. If they didn’t figure out to hide in the trees after sundown, they wouldn’t survive a single night.

“Someone should warn them,” Larkin said.

“The curse binds our tongues,” Iniya said. “This is the only sure way they can learn the truth of the forest.”

“And how did you learn?” Larkin asked.

“My father took me inside the forest to meet with the pipers when I was six years old,” Iniya said, her voice heavy with grief.

Six? What kind of father took his daughter into the forest at six?

The first man stepped beneath the shadows. Two more followed a few steps behind. Then three. Then a dozen. Until two men remained. One looked at the other and stepped out of sight into the Forbidden Forest. The last ducked his head and marched back into the crowd toward one of the horses. He mounted up and galloped through the crowd and past them without looking to the right or left.

“Well,” Fenwick said. “Bast, if you will make the offering to the forest.” The man nodded to someone in the crowd. A pair of druids brought out a bleating goat.

Larkin looked away. As a child, she’d always hated this part. As she grew older, she lamented the waste of a healthy animal. And now … knowing this was all just theater made it that much worse.

Motioning for them to follow, Iniya reined her horse toward a cluster of men and women. “Humbent. Manervin.”

A man and woman around Iniya’s own age turned to them. The woman was slight, willowy even. The man had a large paunch and a solid build.

The man frowned at Harben. “Iniya. It is good to see you out of the city.”

“Do you remember when we were children?” Iniya said. “The year none of the druids came out of the forest alive.”

The man exchanged a look with the woman, then stared at Larkin and Tam. “Who are they?”

“My granddaughter and her trusted guard.”

Humbent glanced around nervously, but they were far enough back from the crowd, and his group was all around him.

“Two old friends chatting after a ceremony is nothing suspicious,” Iniya said. “It’s the clandestine meetings they watch for.”

“It’s been over fifty years, Iniya.” His voice pitched low.

“Your father and mine were the best of friends, Humbent,” Iniya hissed. “You swore when the time came you would support us.”

His mouth tightened. “And what chance do you think we stand? The druids have an army.”

“An army made up of our own people,” Iniya said. “People who are tired of the druids failing to keep them safe.”

Humbent shook his head. Iniya gripped his arm. “Come to my house. Tomorrow. I swear you’ll understand.”

He considered her before nodding. Iniya released him and turned her horse away from the gathering.

Larkin started after her. “What if Humbent doesn’t agree to help us?”

Iniya didn’t even glance at Larkin. “He will.” She kicked her horse into another lope, Harben following.

Larkin’s mouth thinned. Behind her, the crowd stilled. She turned, wondering how so many people could be so utterly quiet. She quickly found out. From far away came the sound of a man’s terrified screams.