Nearly five hundred women gathered to listen to Larkin. They were blood-splattered and bandaged. They kept glancing toward the front—where the opposing sides of their families had been killing each other.

“You want us to fight our own fathers and brothers?” a woman asked.

“No,” Larkin said. “I want you to knock them on their arses, then stand before them, proud as the dawn, while Magalia tries to talk some sense into them.”

“What if they won’t listen?” another woman said.

Larkin pulled herself up onto the first branch of a tree. “Once, we were taken. Forced away from everything we ever knew and loved. But it did not break us. We learned to forgive. We learned to love.

“Now, we face another reaping. Only this time, our past would try to steal us from our future. No matter who wins, we are the ones who lose.”

She shook her head. “I say to you, no more! We are not our fathers’ daughters. We are not our brothers’ sisters. We are not our husbands’ wives. We are our own. Warriors who fight for what’s ours!”

A cheer rose up, the women lifting their magical weapons.

“It’s time to make them see—we don’t need saving.”

Another cheer. This one louder than the first.

“Sisters of my soul,” she cried. “Will you fight?”

They roared, weapons lifted to the sky. Larkin dropped from the tree to the ground beside Alorica and Magalia.

“That was beautiful,” Alorica said dryly.

“Shut it,” Larkin grumbled back.

“I thought it was well done,” Magalia said, but her gaze didn’t leave the assembled Idelmarchians.

“Captains,” Larkin said. “Spread your women out behind the pipers. We’re going to relieve them.” The captains left to see it done.

“And what do we do when our past won’t listen?” Alorica said under her breath.

“Then they leave us no choice.” Larkin fought to keep her voice even. “We will defend what’s ours.”

Sick anticipation twisting her insides, Larkin formed up in the center of her line. She opened her sigils until they buzzed like angry bees. She looked up and down the line, watching the captains move their subordinates into place.

“Larkin,” Denan called from atop a boulder above her. “You’re out of time.”

Down the hill, the Idelmarchians and mulgars charged.

“Alamantians, withdraw!” Denan roared.

One of his men played a sharp, short note three times. Captains echoed the command up and down the line. The women took the places of the retreating pipers—just under five hundred where over two thousand had stood before. The nearest women on either side were four strides away. Such a sparse line wouldn’t hold against an initial charge.

“I’m no warrior,” Magalia said. Indeed, she had no sigils.

“Stay back until I call for you,” Larkin said.

Magalia nodded nervously.

Larkin glanced back at Denan, the feel of his chapped lips still raw against her own. His words from minutes ago echoed in her ears, “I understand this is a battle you have to fight alone, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be ready and waiting to help in any way I can.”

Taking a fortifying breath, she faced the oncoming horde. Each step brought the battle closer. Brought with it the rank sweat-and-blood stink of warfare. The cries of those pierced and battered down. The sight of hands crusted with blood that lay thickest between the fingers.

“Helms!” Larkin cried.

The women pulled off their helmets, their faces exposed, their hair shifting in the brisk wind. Some of the Idelmarchians faltered, slowed. Others continued. She waited as she had with Tam at the previous battle.

An Idelmarchian soldier’s ax slammed into her shield. She shifted her arm, so his blade glanced to her left and thrust her sword up and in. He fell.

Ancestors, he wasn’t her enemy!

Another soldier took his place, his face twisted with hate. He was tall, so tall he peered down at her. He took her in. Her long red hair. The softness of her cheeks. His expression shifted to concern. He hesitated and took a step back. “A woman?”

Similar cries were heard up and down the line.

“Copperbills, pulse!” Larkin shouted.

Five hundred women pulsed. A concave burst of golden light slammed into the Idelmarchians and threw them back half a dozen steps. They shook off the impact and gaped at the women. Larkin knew how surreal they must look, backlit by burning fires, their hair shifting with the smoke and wind.

Larkin risked a few steps in front of the line. “We, the daughters of the Idelmarch, demand this bloodshed stop! I will speak with Master Garrot. Bring him to me!”

Idelmarchians blinked up at her in shock. They lurched to their feet and glanced among each other as if searching for a clue as to how to proceed.

“Maylay?” A man staggered to the empty space between the two armies. His gaze fixed on a girl with short blonde hair. “Maylay!” He staggered toward her.

“Stay back!” Larkin barked. She couldn’t risk losing her entire line to weeping reunions. If they were scattered, Garrot would divide and conquer them.

The father stumbled to a stop and stared at Larkin.

“Hold the line!” she called to her copperbills.

“Girls.” A man with hair shot through with gray motioned frantically to them. “Come here. Hurry. We won’t let them hurt you anymore.” The other men seemed to latch on to this. Some of them eased forward.

“You come into the forest and slaughter our husbands,” Larkin shouted. “The fathers of our children. All because you have believed the Black Druids’ lies! You have aligned yourselves with mulgars and wraiths because of these lies.”

“I know you, Larkin of Hamel. I know how you betrayed your own people to become a piper whore!”

Larkin searched out the voice she wished she didn’t recognize. Horace Beetle climbed a nearby tree—a boy she’d once freely given kisses to. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“If she’s a whore,” Alorica cried, “then so am I.”

“And I!”

“And I!”

The cry echoed up and down the line.

“Alorica?” Her father stepped forward, his hand extended toward her. “You’ve been enchanted, child. Come away with me.”

“More lies,” Alorica said, her voice shaking. “The pipers took us because they have no daughters of their own. Only sons to fight the mulgars you’ve aligned yourselves with!”

“Come away from there,” a druid with silver inlay on his belt said.

“You will do as you are told,” said another man.

He motioned, and a few of the braver men followed him a couple of steps forward. Larkin signaled again. The woman shifted into fighting stance—shields held before them, weapons cocked back.

“You’re enchanted,” the same man pleaded. “Please, girls, come away from the beasts.”

A Black Druid spurred his horse to the front lines. “What are you doing?” he cried. “Fight!”

The Idelmarchians called out the names of their daughters and sisters, begged them to come to them even as the druid lashed them with his whip.

“Steady.” Larkin paced before her army. “We do not give way. We do not give in. We do not go quietly. We stand steady and inescapable as the dawn.”

“Hello, Larkin.”

Dread skittered up and down Larkin’s spine. She forced herself to turn. To face Garrot atop his massive bay horse.

“Magalia,” Larkin called without daring to take her eyes off him.

His gaze shifted behind Larkin. All the color leached from his skin. “Mags?” he whispered.

She stepped up beside Larkin. “Hello, Garrot.”

His horse danced beneath him. “Come away from there. I’ll protect you.”

“I don’t need protecting.” Magalia tipped her head to the side. “Tell me you didn’t make an alliance with wraiths, Garrot. Tell me you haven’t allowed yourself to be deceived. Tell me you’re not that big a fool.”

His brow furrowed, his breaths coming faster. His gaze landed on Larkin. “Is this because of her? Because of her lies?”

Magalia shook her head sadly. “You hurt her, Garrot. The gentle boy I knew could never hurt anyone.”

Garrot pointed at Larkin. “She belongs to the wraiths!”

“She’s the Alamantian princess,” Magalia chided. “She belongs to herself. As do I. As does every other woman here.”

Hurt flashed across his face. “I risked the forest to bring you back. Jonner and I both did. Only one of us returned.”

She winced.

He nudged his horse forward, his voice deadly. “I control the wraiths. I made a deal with them to bring you back and end the threat of the pipers once and for all. Nothing will stand in the way of that. Nothing.”

“I will stand in the way of that,” Magalia said.

The two glared at each other, the tension so thick Larkin could taste it. She longed to wipe away a drop of sweat running down her temple but dared not move.

“You think you control the wraiths?” Larkin said. “The wraiths only want one thing—the utter destruction of mankind. They will turn on you and rend you to pieces. And they will not stop. Ever.”

Garrot studied her a long moment before dismounting. He slowly made his way toward them until he was close enough to hold his hand out to Magalia. “Come with me. Come with me—prove you can—and I will call off my armies.”

Magalia hesitated, turned back questioningly to Larkin.

It could be a trick—a way to whisk Magalia away from harm before he ordered his army to attack. Only Larkin didn’t think they would obey him even if he ordered it. “Any woman who wishes may return with you, Garrot, but you will take none by force.”

“How do we know you are not under enchantment?” someone cried from within the druids’ ranks.

Larkin signaled for the women to release their sigils. “Ask them for yourselves.”

The magic slipped back into the copperbills, though it remained ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice.

Garrot ground his teeth. “It’s a trap,” he murmured. He turned back to his men, his body tensed to shout.

Magalia grabbed his hand, his shoulders, took his face between her palms. “Look at me. See me. The only trap there has ever been has been from the wraiths.”

Garrot softened. Larkin saw it then. The love he had for Magalia. The love that had caused him to risk the Forbidden Forest, as Larkin had for her sister. Only unlike Larkin, Garrot had returned empty-handed, save for his brother’s tooth and an unholy bargain with the wraiths.

“I should have waited,” he choked. “I should have waited for you, Magalia, but I’ve fallen in love with another. She’s having a child and … and it’s too late for us. But it’s not too late to save you.” He wrapped his arms around Magalia.

Larkin flared her sword, but she couldn’t attack him without risking Magalia. Garrot dragged her back as she struggled and cursed him. Larkin followed half a dozen steps before she paused, not daring to draw any closer to the Idelmarchians.

“Attack!” Garrot shouted.

A handful of men charged, but then paused when they realized the other men weren’t following.

“You want us to kill our own daughters?” A man hauled himself up a tree. Kenjin, Alorica’s father. He’d dragged her from her home to face the crucible in Hamel. “We came here to free them.”

Garrot’s head whipped from side to side in disbelief. “They made themselves our enemies when they turned against us!”

Kenjin’s gaze narrowed. “It sounds like you’re the one who turned against us.”

“The girl,” a thousand mulgar voices thundered in unison—perhaps the first time Larkin had heard them make a sound.

Every mulgar turned, their gazes locking on Larkin. Idelmarchians warily backed a pace or two away from the mulgar units they’d been fighting beside moments before.

“Bring me the girl. Kill the rest,” the mulgars said.

As one, the mulgar turned on the Idelmarchians. Shocked, the Idelmarchians fell back, rallied, and braced against the attack. Their organized rows and ranks turned into a melee.

Of all those mulgars, the dozen nearest arrowed for Larkin. And at their head … At their head was what was left of Talox.

Magalia screamed. Garrot thrust her behind him. But Talox paid them no mind as he shot past them, aiming for Larkin.

Oh, Talox. Oh, my dear friend. She’d promised him if she ever faced him, she’d end his existence. But Denan’s words echoed in her head, “You’re not ready to face an ardent yet. Run.”

Heart twisting in her throat, Larkin sprinted for the safety of her line as Talox bore down on her. It’s not Talox. It’s the monster that killed him.

Two steps before she reached safety, Talox tackled her from behind. She hit hard. Her lungs froze with the shock of it.

“Larkin!” Alorica took a step toward her, only to be driven back by one of the mulgars with Talox. The line buckled under the furious assault. Pipers rushed up from behind to assist. Talox cinched a rope around Larkin’s hands and hauled her toward a knot of mulgars.

“I have her, Master,” he said, his voice hollow.

Larkin threw her head into his chin so hard she saw stars. She kicked her heel down his shin and stomped on his foot. Pipers and Idelmarchians fought the mulgars, slaughtering them. Larkin thought she heard Denan’s voice.

“Here, Master,” Talox said. “I am here.”

With a roar, Garrot barreled into Talox, knocking them both to the ground. Larkin rolled free and ended up in a bush, jammed against a tree. She coughed, her ribs singing with pain. She crawled out and came face-to-face with Garrot.

She yelped and jerked back.

He grabbed her hands, knife sawing through her bonds. “I still think you’re a traitor, but I promised Magalia I’d save you.”

“Nesha?” Larkin asked.

“Fine, no thanks to you.”

So he’d bought their lie, then. Good. No time to feel relief. Garrot grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. All around them, mulgars fought Idelmarchians. A thick knot of mulgars shot down the hill toward them.

“Larkin! Larkin, this way.” Maisy motioned to them from the heart of a thicket.

“Maisy?” Where had she come from?

Larkin looked behind her, at the mulgars bearing down on them.

“Hurry!” Maisy disappeared in the thicket.

Larkin started after her.

“You want to follow a madwoman?” Garrot cried.

That made her decision. “Stay behind, then.” Larkin pushed through brambles.

Grumbling, Garrot followed her.

Two dozen steps and innumerable scratches later, Larkin stumbled from the thicket into a clutch of dozens and dozens of mulgars. She flared her weapons, but none moved to attack.

Maisy stood among them, her expression lost. “I tried to warn you. So many times, I tried to warn you, but you never listened.”

A pit yawned open inside Larkin. She turned to run back into the brambles, but Talox hacked into view. She and Garrot were surrounded. But still the mulgars made no move to attack.

She glanced up the hill to her left, where the pipers and copperbills fought side by side with the Idelmarchians—too far away to hear her scream for help over the din. Maisy had lured them here, far from where Denan could help.

“Oh, Maisy, what have you done?” Larkin said.

Maisy sang.

 

The beast comes. The beast takes.

That which he takes, he breaks.

That which he breaks, he remakes,

And then a beast like him awakes.

 

The song. Maisy had been trying to warn her all along. But Maisy wasn’t a mulgar. Nor was she a wraith. “What are you?”

“One of their daughters,” Maisy said.

Like Larkin was.

And then Larkin smelled it. The mineral rot of the grave.

Garrot’s head came up. “Wraiths.”

Before them, the Wraith King appeared.