I’m in the lake. One step and I’m past my knees. Another, and I’m sunk to my waist. The water takes hold of me. It’s cold and cold and cold. Waves wash at my throat, then higher. The mud beneath my feet dissolves and the water closes over me, an icy shock. I’m pulled beneath the surface.
I want to go back to the shore and my garden. Back to the moment of moonlight where Rowan held me and I let myself forget the rest of the world.
I want to go back, but I can’t.
The Lord Under is suddenly beside me, a smear of mist and shadows in the water. He speaks to me, his voice soothing. Don’t fight it.
The lake floods my mouth, tasting of dead leaves and bitter tea. The pale glow of moonlight is gone. All is dark, even with my eyes open. Not the muted, marbled light of underwater but full dark. Fear closes in. My lungs burn and ache. I gasp, a rush of bubbles streaming from my mouth. Something brushes against my hair, my cheek. A tangle of lake grass, a piece of bone, the scrape of claws.
Don’t fight it, Violeta. Let the water claim you.
Colors bloom across my blackening vision: blossom pink, rain-cloud silver. The tether is still there. Stretched from me to Rowan, from me to the world Above. No matter how far I go, how dark it gets, I’ll always be tied to home.
I walked into the shadows. I came into the dark. I chose this, and I am not afraid.
I open my mouth. I let the water fill my lungs.
The world goes still. A terrible, lightless silence that seems to stretch forever. The mud is gone. The water is gone. I fall to the ground with a hard, bruising thud and curl over onto my side, coughing desperately as I drag in breath after breath of ice-laced air and ashen shadows. It’s so dark that I can’t see anything. I stretch out a hand and try to draw on my power. A faint heat flickers at my fingertips, but I’m too weak and numbed from my struggle against the Corruption.
I try again. Light flares, then scatters into sparks. Another light echoes in return, bright and brilliant. The Lord Under appears beside me. Shadows spill out around him, but at the center of the darkness he glows. Bone white, luminescent.
“Violeta.” He speaks my name like it tastes of honey. “My Violet in the woods.”
I try to get to my feet, struggling because my hair and dress and boots are heavy with water. I take a halting step, then stumble forward. I brace myself, expecting to fall past him—through him—but instead I land heavily against his chest. His arms go around me, startled. For a breath I’m held.
He’s real. Solid and strong and real.
“Oh—!” I stagger back in shock.
His mouth tilts into a curious smile. “How … unexpected.”
He closes the distance between us in a single stride and catches hold of my chin, tight. My breath comes loose in a gasp. He can touch me now.
His claws are cold and so very sharp. I try to shake myself free, but his claws dig in—not enough to pierce, but hard enough to pin me still, hard enough to drag a small, hurt whimper from my mouth. His eyes run over me, inspecting my knotted hair, my lake-drenched skirts. He scrapes his thumb against the blood beneath my nose, wiping it away.
Shadows—his shadows—rise around us.
I twist against his grip. I can feel the frostbitten burn of his touch as though his hands have traced all over my bare skin. My heartbeat echoes hollowly. The shadows spiral closer, winding around my ankles, my wrists, my throat.
“Let go of me!” I put my hands against his chest and shove him, hard.
He releases me and takes a smooth step back. I let my hands drop, then look down, realizing my hair and clothes are no longer wet. I touch my fingers to the streaks of now-dry mud on my skirts and try to shake off the rise of nausea and panic. I can still feel his magic slithering coldly through my entire body.
The Lord Under smiles at me, his expression one of studied carelessness. “There’s no harm done, my Violet. You’re here, and safe, and now you can finish the spell.”
“No harm done?” I whisper harshly. I look to the branches overhead. Somewhere above there’s an open wound in the earth. Rowan, with his blood turned to poison. “You lied to me. Why didn’t you tell me I’d have to come here to mend the Corruption?”
I try to keep the hurt out of my voice, but it creeps in. Even though I knew how cruel the Lord Under could be, I trusted him to be forthright, thought I’d be exempt from his tricks. Now, the realization that I am no different from anyone else he’s lured into a bargain makes me feel angry—with him, and with myself.
He spreads his hands, as though in surrender. “Would you have agreed to help me if you’d known?”
I wrap my arms around my waist. I can still feel it, the determination that filled me as I made that first, terrible step into the darkness. I’d still have come here. Even if I’d known all along, I’d still have agreed.
I nod, avoiding his gaze, because I don’t want him to see my face, the resignation in my eyes. “Yes, I’d have helped you no matter what. You didn’t have to lie.”
“I didn’t lie.” He is completely unrepentant. “You just didn’t ask the right questions.”
He means to trap me with whatever I’ve said, so what are the right words, the right questions? My thoughts tangle as I search for how to answer him. “Tell me why you need me here. Tell me what I’ll have to do.”
“The Corruption began from my magic, but it’s slipped beyond my control. I can’t call it back, can’t mend it with my power. It needs an alchemist—an alchemist who can work not just in the world Above but here, too.” He looks at me, smiling coldly. “Violeta, you’re the only one who can see me and summon me outside the borders of death. The only one who can walk, alive, in the world Below. You’re the only one who can cast this spell.”
I look all around us: the mist, the trees, the watery, juniper light. Everything here is so quiet and still, so far removed from the torn ground, the blackened mud Above. It’s hard to believe this place is under threat from the Corruption as well. “Where is it wounded?”
“I will show you.” The Lord Under holds out his hand to me, but I don’t move. His voice softens, both threatening and gentle all at once. “The moon is setting, Violeta. Come with me now.”
His claws are smeared with my blood. His palm is crossed with lines, just as mine is. It feels strange to see a heartline on cold, inhuman skin. I don’t want to trust him, but I’ve already wasted so much time. So I step forward and take his hand.
The sigil on my wrist pulses as he laces his fingers through mine. Rowan. The wash of colors is distant now, only the barest, pale echoes. But there. Still there. I think of everyone waiting for me Above. How close they are to safety. I hold the Lord Under’s hand and let him lead me deeper into the world Below.
We walk quickly past rows and rows of trees. They’re endlessly tall, their branches furred with slender leaves. In the litanies, the world Below is described as a forest where souls sleep. But this is not like any forest I’ve known. There is no sky, only branches and needle-sharp leaves, and crimson-red trunks.
Heartwoods, we call them in the mourning litany. And the deep red color of the bark is just like that. A bloodied, hidden heart.
We go farther and farther, our footsteps swift. The Lord Under grips my hand tightly. His gaze is set on the path ahead, his pale eyes distant and preoccupied. I turn the motions of the spell over in my mind, trying to prepare myself for what I’ll face. Pretend this is no different from what I’ve just done Above at the lake.
Neither of us speaks. The only noise is from our hurried footsteps and the unsteadiness of my breath. The ground is covered with dark green moss, damp and cold beneath my boots. The path slopes down, the trees seeming to stretch taller as we move lower beneath them.
The enormity of it all—skyless, endless—is terrifying. But it’s beautiful, too. An eerie, solemn beauty. And even though I’m wary of being led into this darkness, of where the Lord Under will take me and what I will do once we’re there, I can’t help but look at it with awe. It’s a world. An entire world. Trees and trees and misted dark.
We move into a smaller, narrowed space. Here the lowermost branches are strung with tiny jars. Trapped inside are pale moths that dance and flutter against the glass, their wingbeats giving bright ghostlike flickers. The air is colder now, filled with dew that beads my skin and the ends of my lashes. Then the wind rustles the leaves with a susurration that—almost—sounds like a voice. As though the trees are whispering to one another.
I tilt my head, trying to listen; if I just concentrated a little harder, I’m sure I could make out words. When the Lord Under notices, an amused light sparks in his eyes. He pulls me to a stop beneath an arched bower of two enormous trees.
“Shouldn’t we go?” It feels wrong to be still when I’m so aware of the moon fading above, of Clover and Arien holding back the darkness, of Rowan so close to being lost to the poison.
“A moment,” the Lord Under says. “You have time for this.”
He guides me to press my palm flat against the roughened bark of the closest tree. I feel a beat, steady and slow, then the sound becomes a voice. Many voices, solemn and musical.
“It’s—” I look around wonderingly. “It’s alive.”
“You can hear them, can’t you, Violeta?” He puts his hand beside mine and spreads his fingers. His face turns almost tender. “These are the voices of all my souls. My forest breathes and blinks and feels, just like you.”
I lean closer to the heartwood, entranced by the sound of the interwoven voices. It’s like a chant, a spell, a dream. Countless lives and deaths all here within the trees, whispering, whispering. “Why have you shown me this?”
“I wanted you to see my world. To know what it is that you’ll be saving.”
I let the weight of it settle over me. I am alive in a place where no one living should be. “I’d never thought about where our souls actually go,” I tell him quietly. “The mourning litany sings about the forest, and the trees, but it’s all so different from what I expected.”
“And what did you expect?”
“We burn our dead.” I imagine the scent of ash, the rush of sparks against a darkened sky. An ache fills me, and I know this is an echo of the memories I’ve given him. “The fire turns the body to holy ash. Sparks to the air, coals to the earth. I guess—” I glance at him, strangely embarrassed at how clumsy I sound, trying to explain. “I’d not thought about which part was left for you.”
He peers down at me, his curious stare half-veiled by his pale lashes. “Which part? Well, you’ll find out eventually, won’t you?”
Shivering, I think of a pyre. In Greymere, they’d make the fires in a special field outside the village. We could see the smoke against the sky, and at night we could see the light of the flames. I picture the Lord Under standing in the field, his arms filled with a shrouded weight as he walks away into the darkness.
And then I imagine the weight in his arms is me.
I shake my head. “I’m not yours. Just because I’m here doesn’t mean you have a claim on me.”
“It doesn’t?” His fingers hover just beneath my chin. I jerk my face away, and the points of his claws scrape through the air beside my throat. He lets his hand drop back, laughing. “No, you’re not mine. At least … Not yet.”
I suppress a shiver. I don’t want to think about it, how my soul will be here—and his—when I’m dead. “Take me to the Corruption. I want to mend it. Now.”
The Lord Under brushes past me, the ends of his cloak stirring against my skirts. “Come on,” he calls over his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
We go farther into the forest, the trees lengthening as the path slopes deeper down. Soon the landscape begins to change, and there are stones among the trees. Tall, granite pillars covered with bright green moss. Mist traces through the air and over my skin.
The cold sinks into me, and everything is dark—there are none of the glass mothlights here. Each step we take stirs up grayish dust, like fireplace ash. It plumes into clouds that stick to my dress and my skin. The air—still cold—turns acrid. I cough and press my sleeve across my mouth. It hurts to breathe. “Where are you taking me?”
The Lord Under doesn’t look back. “To the wound.”
The path ends, and the forest thins into an open grove. At the edge are four trees, their crimson bark charred, most of their leaves burned away. They’re hurt. I press my hand against one of the trunks, trying to feel the whisper of the soul beneath. It’s different from the voice I heard from within the other tree. This one sounds faint and lost and frightened.
“What happened here?” I murmur beside the ruined trunk. “What happened to you?”
The Lord Under watches me with a curious expression. As though he’s set me a test and now isn’t sure if he wants me to succeed or fail.
I ignore him and press my cheek against the bark. I close my eyes as I strain to listen. The forest hums and pulses all around me, so full of power that it’s impossible to comprehend. The soul speaks to me, but what I hear aren’t words. There’s a voice, intangible—alive and not alive. A heavy weight, a sense of something that I can barely shape in my mind, let alone name.
I press myself closer, the bark scratching my skin. And then I catch a flash of scattered, frantic images. A tree house beneath a pomegranate bower. A cake shaped like a crescent moon. A hand curled over a shoulder. Whispers in the dark. Confusion that gives way to slow, creeping dread.
Then blood and fear and water, endless water.
Everything sways dizzily. It’s Elan I’ve heard, echoes from his soul.
“This is Rowan’s family.” The half-ruined trees. Four of them. Rowan’s parents and his brother, and the last tree left empty and waiting. I scrub my hands against my face. Try to catch my breath.
“I told you my world was hurt, too.” The Lord Under gestures to the ashen space where we stand. “Look around you, Violeta. This is what the Corruption has done.”
My heart beats wildly, and I stumble forward, past the heartwoods that hold Rowan’s family, into the grove. Here, the forest is blackened and bare. The trees are torn open, with leafless branches that stretch across the sky like desperate hands. I touch the nearest trunk. Beneath my palm, the bark is blistered, cracked, and rough. And it’s quiet. There’s no song, no pulse. “They’re—”
“Gone. The souls within are destroyed, completely lost. And it will happen to the others, to the whole forest, if you don’t mend it.” He points upward. “You can see it, Violeta. You know what must be done.”
I stare up in wordless horror. In the canopy above the clearing, the air is dark, full of heavy shadows that shift and churn between the branches. I’ve seen the darkness on the shore. I’ve seen the darkness turn Rowan into a monster. I’ve seen it fed and felt the endlessness of its hunger. And now I stand beneath its heart.
It seethes and writhes, an open, poisoned wound. It calls to me. A sound of despair and fury and depthless want. It knows me. Knows the taste of my power, the heat of my magic, the feel of my palms against the mud.
Darkness trails down over the trees, and I realize the Corruption has woken again on the shore above. I picture Arien with his hands sunk in the earth, fighting alongside Clover to hold it back. Rowan, poison filling his veins until there is only darkness left. This has to end now.
I rush toward the center of the clearing, where there’s a circle of granite stones—like the stones that ringed the Summersend bonfire in the village. I slip as I scramble over, scrape one hand and both knees. Hurriedly, I sketch a sigil on the ground inside the stones, repeating the names of the symbols under my breath as I move across the ashen ground. When I’m done, the lines are blurred and unsteady, nowhere near as tidy as what Clover would mark.
I clean my hands against my skirts and step forward quickly to stand at the center. But before I start to cast the spell, I glance back to the Lord Under. He waits outside the stones, back beneath the ruined trees. He’s watching me intently.
“Go ahead,” he says when I look at him. “Cast the spell like you did on the shore.”
There’s a desperate hunger in his face that reminds me so much of Rowan, that first day I saw him in the village. I dig my fingers into the crescent scar on my palm, trying to push down my wariness.
“That’s all I need to do? Just cast the spell, and it will be mended?”
“Yes.” The Lord Under smiles, and even his smile is hungry. “Don’t be frightened. I’ll be right here.”
I remind myself that he has no reason to trick me again. All he’s done—even the deception—has been for my benefit. I asked for his help, and so he’s helped me. He’s brought me here because this is where I need to mend the Corruption. And he wants it mended, too. The evidence of how much he has at stake is all around us in this ruined grove.
I force down the doubt that rises through me even as I ready the spell. Arien and Clover can’t fight forever. I have to do this, and I have to do it now.
My magic has already started to build, rising in response to the churn of the Corruption. I feel the heat, the same heat that burned through me so fiercely before in the world Above. I flex my fingers open and closed, and light flares eagerly at my palm like a handful of bright petals.
Then I look at the Lord Under. His cold, cruel face and his sharp, pleased smile. I stretch out my hand to him, my palm upturned, the same way I did long ago in the midwinter forest.
“When I was on the shore, I wasn’t alone.” I reach toward him. “I want you to cast the spell with me.”