Larkin woke with a scream echoing in her ears. She bolted up from the hard rocks, her magic buzzing beneath her skin as she called up her sword. The light illuminated a small circle in the darkness. She clutched her sword and panted.

“Just a dream.” Her voice sounded strange after so many days of silence. She’d lost count of how many. Instead, she judged the passing of time by the fading of her bruises. The black bruising from her ankle had shifted to her toes, which had turned a sickly green.

She dared not close her eyes for fear she might see their faces again—the faces of the families of the men she’d killed. The remorse that had been so absent when she’s sliced through them had seeped in slowly as she wallowed in the pit. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw a child crying for her father. A mother for a son. A wife for her husband.

She dragged her nails through her greasy scalp. She itched. Everywhere. The reek of her unwashed body made her own stomach turn. She was weary, body and soul. She longed for sunlight and water and, most of all, the comfort of Denan’s arms around her.

How much sleep had she managed? Surely no more than three hours. Even if she tried, she wouldn’t go back to sleep—not with the taste of the nightmare still fresh on her tongue.

She dragged herself to the book—Eiryss’s book. For however long she’d been down here, it had been her only companion. She squinted at the words in the half light. Careful of the brittle pages, she sounded out the letters, painfully blending the individual sounds like Denan had taught her.

After Eiryss’s initial entry came stories of her life with her young daughter, fights with the council, and the building of their new kingdom. Interspersed throughout were the lullabies. They were similar enough to the ones she knew, so after the first two or three words, she could usually guess what came next, though sometimes whole lines were different.

For instance, in the book, one poem read:

 

Snatching his daughters from their dreams,

Never a chance to voice their screams,

Back to the forest, he doth go.

Find the light and fight shadow.

 

In the version Larkin had been taught, “his daughters” had been replaced with “virgins,” and the last line had been replaced with “to nibble and dribble their bones just so.” The lullaby as she knew it was about the beast. This was clearly about Ramass. But who were his daughters, and why was he snatching them?

There was another lullaby Larkin had never heard before.

 

Bound by shadow dark as night,

A curse queen, four ravens white,

Failed to drive the shadow into light,

Heal the darkness, cure the blight.

 

Wielder of light? Eiryss had mentioned light before. Larkin eased back a few pages. The queen had almost used it as an expletive. And why did Larkin get the feeling the wraiths thought that Larkin was the nestling they’d been searching for? They clearly thought she’d broken the curse. But that was Sela. What exactly did they want her little sister for?

There was one last poem, just two lines.

 

Light through dark and shadow pass,

Then tighten and trap the poison fast.

 

The sound of footsteps announced the guard’s arrival. His hair and thick mustache were always slicked down tight in contrast to his bushy sideburns, so she’d taken to calling him Sideburns.

“Please, do you know anything about my family or the man who was with me?”

Instead of answering, he tossed her a bag of food and a cask of water.

She sighed. “Can I have some water for washing?” This, too, she always asked.

To her astonishment, he returned shortly with a bucket of water, which he lowered to her along with soap, a simple, full skirt, and a shirt before locking the door behind him. She washed twice and used the remaining water to launder her awful dress in case she was desperate for clean clothes later. She reveled in the feeling of clean hair and the smell of her skin.

Sideburns came back before long with half a dozen other men. Between them was Tam, bound and gagged, but looking healthy.

“Tam,” she gasped. She’d begun to doubt she would ever see him again. “Are you all right?”

He winked.

She breathed out in relief. “Maybe Alorica won’t kill me.”

He grinned through his gag.

“You will submit to being bound,” Sideburns said, his first words to her. “Any wounds you give us will be meted out to your guard. Understood?”

She nodded.

“Take him back to his cell,” Sideburns said.

They took Tam away again, and men lowered a ladder. After she’d climbed to the high platform, she allowed them to bind her hands and climbed the long set of stairs. She was relieved to leave the damp, dark cave with its resounding silence behind. The light from the windows made her blink, eyes stinging.

She was taken to the throne room. The gallery was packed with druids, as was the main floor. Judging by the tooling on their belts, they were all Black Druids—either their ranks had swelled or every Black Druid in existence was present.

Fenwick sat on the dais with his council on either side. All of them watched her in utter silence. Would they hang her, as they had Bane? She wished for one friendly gaze in the room—just one person who didn’t want her dead.

Instead, she caught sight of Garrot in the front row. He looked at her eagerly, as if he’d been waiting for her appearance. Uncontrollable, her sigils gleamed hot beneath her skin, the angry buzzing setting her teeth on edge. If not for the threat to Tam’s life, they would have formed in her hands, and she would have used them.

Sideburns nudged Larkin, his hand on his sword. She’d stopped at the doorway without realizing it. She swallowed hard. Whatever came, lingering or fighting wouldn’t change it. She forced herself to take one step and then another. Heads swiveled, watching her. She passed Garrot on her left and resisted the urge to spit on him.

Sideburns escorted her all the way to the foot of the dais and then took a step back.

Fenwick stared down at her. “Larkin of Hamel, you, as well as your guard, have been ransomed by the Piper Prince. You will be escorted into the forest and released.”

All the breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Released. To Denan. Color came back into her world. She wanted to drop to her knees and weep, to cry out in relief. Instead, she forced herself to remain calm.

Denan had come for her, just as he promised.

Fenwick waved his hand toward his guards. “Take her to the appointed place in the forest.”

Sideburns stepped up beside her and took her arm.

“I must protest this,” Garrot said softly from behind her.

A shiver of horror cut through her relief.

Fenwick turned to one of his councilors, either not hearing or ignoring Garrot. “Now, about that dispensation.”

“I must protest this,” Garrot shouted.

Dread curdled in Larkin’s stomach until she thought she might be sick.

Fenwick rose to his feet. “You have forgotten your place, Garrot. We all saw how easily they sacked Cordova, how easily he could sack us all if he truly wanted.”

Denan had sacked Cordova?

“We cannot defeat their magic,” Fenwick continued. “Nor should we try—not with the wraiths bent on destroying us both.” Echoing silence answered him. Fenwick gestured vaguely to Larkin. “The Piper Prince has agreed to return Cordova in exchange for his wife and an increase in the tithe. We will be grateful that’s all he demanded. The army will be disbursed, and things will go back to how they were.”

“I told you,” Garrot said into the echoing silence. “I told you he would try to save her—his own granddaughter, the traitor of Hamel.”

“I am not a traitor,” Larkin said.

“That has nothing—” Fenwick began.

“It has everything to do with it.” Garrot eyed the druids in the gallery. “Brothers, can you not see that for the last three centuries, we have been sacrificing our daughters in the fight against the wraiths when all along, we should have been fighting the pipers?”

“What folly is this?” Fenwick cried. “The wraiths crave the death of all humanity.”

“They do not,” Garrot said darkly. “They only want to end the curse. As do we all.”

Fenwick’s eyes widened. “You’ve spoken with them?”

Garrot’s silence was answer enough.

“You’ve allied yourself with them?” Fenwick gestured to a pair of guards standing on either side of the dais. “Garrot of Landra, you have grown mad in your grief and your thirst for revenge. I hereby strip you of your rank. You are banned from ever setting foot in the druid palace again.”

Iniya’s palace, Larkin thought bitterly.

Fenwick waved. “Throw him out.”

Their hands on their weapons, the guards advanced on Garrot. He wore no weapons and made no move to defend himself. Until they were half a dozen steps away. Then he gave a shout. Over a dozen men around him slid into defensive stances, swords and shields suddenly appearing in their hands. In Garrot’s hands.

Larkin gaped at Garrot’s blade and the shadows swirling off it. A wraith blade. It had appeared in his hand as if by magic. But not the magic of the pipers. This was the magic of the Black Tree.

The guards stumbled back in shock. The councilors bolted to their feet. Fenwick shouted for more guards. They hustled from the four corners of the room to form a wall between Garrot and Fenwick.

“What madness is this?” Fenwick asked.

“Surrender, and you will live,” Garrot said.

Fenwick sized up Garrot’s men with their magic blades—blades that would easily cut through the weapons of his guards. “Only a fool aligns himself with the wraiths and think they would not turn on him.”

“Surrender or die!” Garrot cried.

Fenwick’s gaze swept across those in the gallery, the main room, and finally his councilors. He took his blade from his belt. “Black Druids of Idelmarch, stand with me. Cut out this rot before it spreads. Kill them!”

His councilors and guards pulled their own swords and cheered with him. With a shout, Fenwick charged, his council rushing with him.

A hand snaked around Larkin’s waist. Sideburns hauled her away from the battle. No. She must stay with Fenwick. He meant to return her to Denan. She fought and kicked. He only wrapped her up tighter as he dragged her away from the churning, fighting mess interspersed with sprays of red. So much blood that the floor ran slick with it, fighters slipping and falling in the sloppy mess.

And then it was over. Larkin wasn’t even sure who’d won—not until Garrot stepped onto the dais. He paced the length of it, looking at the druids, his gaze wild, his body soaked in blood. Larkin was once again at his mercy.

Fenwick had gambled on the rest of the Black Druids rushing to his defense, on the sheer number of them overpowering the wraith blades. His gamble had failed. She looked for Fenwick but couldn’t find him among the scores of dead and dying.

He was a monster, but he was also the master. Someone must remain loyal to him, someone who could help her.

She rammed her shoulder into Sideburns. “Let me go to Fenwick. Please.”

Sideburns studied her. His gaze swung to the locked doors. He must have decided she had nowhere to run and no one who would help her. He released her, staying a step behind as she rushed through the bodies.

“Years ago”—Garrot’s voice carried through the room—“my brother and I went into the forest after my own betrothed. Imagine my disbelief when I tracked not some beast, but a man. I found that man. He killed my brother and left me for dead. And when night came, so came the wraiths. But they did not try to harm me. No. The Wraith King took me to his home—a place of magic twisted to darkness. His servants bound my wounds, brought me food and water.

“It was there I learned the truth. Ramass was a man cursed long ago by the pipers, as was his home and all his people. If he could just reach the source of the pipers’ magic, he could use the last of that magic to break the curse.”

Larkin found Fenwick, his black robes soaked through, blood streaming from his mouth, which opened and closed soundlessly. She knelt beside him. “Is there anyone I can trust?”

His gaze fixed on her. “Fawna. Run. Her brother.”

Larkin instantly understood. Fawna must run to her brother for safety. She nodded, though she was in no position to help him or his wife. “Can you help me?”

He shook his head, tears streaming from his eyes—whether from pain or fear or regret she couldn’t guess. He would die the same way he’d condemned Iniya’s family to die—by treachery and blood. She had no pity for the man before her, save for the man he could have been had he made better choices. Now it was too late.

Still, she didn’t let go of his hand until his eyes slipped closed. He stopped breathing, gasped, and didn’t breathe again.

“Brothers,” Garrot said. “Can you not see? With the gifts bestowed by the wraiths, we are more than a match for the pipers. No more weeping parents. No more hollow-eyed children. No more lovers stolen in the night. With the weapons of the wraiths, we are our own masters. We will defeat the pipers and the curse at once!”

The druids murmured. A few cheered.

“You are a fool and worse,” Larkin said, her voice trembling. She felt the attention of the room swivel to her as she pushed to her feet. Fenwick’s blood ran down her shins. “The wraiths will turn on you and kill you all! They—”

Sideburns took hold of her arm and shook her. “Stop talking.”

“Take her back to the pit,” Garrot said in disgust.

Sideburns shoved her toward the door, through Black Druids who murmured uneasily. The word wraiths sliding through dozens of lips like a curse.

“When they are finished with you,” she shouted, “you will all become mulgars—as will anyone else touched by the wraiths’ dark magic.”

A druid stepped before her. Sour Face. He backhanded her. She staggered, fell to a knee, and spat blood, her teeth throbbing and her ears ringing.

“You killed my friend,” Sour Face said.

Her eye rapidly swelling shut, she looked up at the man. “You’re all going to wish you were dead.”

“You first.” He drew back his foot to kick her.

Sideburns drew his sword and stood over her, his gaze deadly.

“She is still useful to us, Met.” Garrot’s voice drew closer with each word until he stood beside her.

Met pointed at her. “She deserves to die for what she’s done.”

“Hold her, West.”

Warily watching Met, Sideburns—whom Garrot called West—held her by the arm. Garrot hauled out his knife. This could not be how she died—in a room full of death and hatred. She struggled against West.

“Easy,” he murmured in her ear.

Instead of plunging the knife into her chest, Garrot nicked her shirt at both shoulders and ripped the sleeves off, baring her sigils for all to see. He gripped her arm, pulling her tight against him, and said in her ear, “You’re part of my plan, Larkin. I need you alive, but I don’t need you healthy. I don’t need your piper friend at all. So keep your mouth shut, or I’ll make you wish you had.”

Plan? Oh, ancestors, what plan?

He hauled her up the steps and pushed her to the center of the stage. “A child of Idelmarch, bearing the magic of the pipers—the magic they could have freely given us but refused to share.”

Larkin wanted to scream the truth, but she’d sworn to defend Tam’s life with her own. Right now, she thought that might be easier than keeping her mouth shut.

Garrot tore open his own shirt, baring his chest, which was covered in black markings in the shape of twisted thorns—the antithesis of her sigils. The longer she stared at them … they seemed to move. Writhe. She wanted to look away, ached to look away, but they sucked her in, much like the wraiths’ poisoned gaze.

“Yes, brothers. The Black Tree has endowed me with magic. As well as my men. It will endow you as well.”

He turned from her, breaking the spell. She staggered back, blinking and gasping—she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath. To her astonishment, no one else seemed mesmerized by Garrot’s sigils. She didn’t know what that meant, but it made her afraid.

As if on command, another druid approached the dais with a tray covered in glittering black thorns. “Come, brothers, take what is ours by birthright—the ancient magic of our own people. The power to defeat the pipers, to defeat the curse.”

No. Even the druids understood evil. Surely they wouldn’t embrace it.

A man came forward. Sour Face, or Met. Garrot slid a thorn into his skin. Larkin stared at the bulge as blood painted a garish line down his arm.

More and more men lined up, their gazes eager. More and more received their thorns.

The pipers were stretched to the limit defending against mulgars and wraiths. Would their sacred blades stand up to magical ones? If the Idelmarchians joined the wraiths’ side … She bit her fist to keep from screaming.

“Make note of the ones who come last,” Garrot said under his breath to Met, who nodded. “End any who refuse.”

“You are all going to die for this,” Larkin said.

Garrot started as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Lock her back in the pit and make sure she stays there until the army is ready to march.”