Not thought. Instinct. And not hers. The pressure crushed her from every side, as if the very air were made of it: this place was sacred to the Devourer. In this place he had been worshipped, loved, feared, and reverenced. Hunger was his glory and destruction his delight. Worship him. Worship. Worship.
She realized that she was standing in a round, domed room hollowed out of black rock, and that the floor was carved with a labyrinth, the lines wide as a hand’s span and just as deep, lined with white marble that glowed in the darkness. Forestborn stood in a ring around the labyrinth. They were singing: a low, whispering chant that had no words Rachelle could recognize. And yet she knew the song; it came from the recesses of her heart. It was the same song that had stirred on the cold, sweet winds of the Great Forest.
Our master, she thought. Our lord. The hunger of hungers, delight of delights, and her body stumbled under a wave of desire to kneel and worship. She was a tiny candle flame, guttering in the wind before it went out.
Hands caught her shoulders, lifted her up. Erec looked into her eyes and said, “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so worthy of me.” His face was fondly affectionate, but his fingers had tightened on her arms as if he wanted to break them.
“I haven’t come to stop the Devourer,” she whispered.
“That’s good. Because I brought a hostage.” He glanced toward the side of the room, and there she saw one of the forestborn sitting with Amélie. Her body was rigid, her eyes wide; when she looked at Rachelle, it seemed to take her a moment to recognize her. Then her lips pressed together and she nodded fiercely. Once.
I’m planning to die as well, Amélie had said to her, and she was brave enough that she had meant it.
Erec was not always so clever as he thought.
“I won’t stop the sacrifice,” said Rachelle. “I promise.”
“Good,” said Erec. “Then come and see.”
He dragged her forward.
While they spoke, the walls of the room had faded away. Though the cold, raw stone was still beneath their feet, now vast, ancient tree trunks reared up around them, taller and thicker than cathedral towers. They were in the Great Forest.
The chanting swelled in her ears, her lungs, her blood. There was almost no difference left, she realized, between the human world and the Great Forest, between day and eternal night. The only wall that separated them now was the fragile human sitting, head bowed, at the center of the labyrinth.
The chanting ceased. The forestborn lady who had held the knife to Rachelle’s throat said, “Are you ready to accept our lord?”
Armand raised his head. He met Rachelle’s eyes. And then he said, “I will not.”
Erec strode forward, raising his sword, and pointed it at the base of Armand’s throat. “You have one more chance. Then we use another.”
Rachelle could feel the Devourer—could feel the vast, ancient power rising and waking and turning slowly toward the world again, ever hungry and ever yearning. It was like a rising black tide, and her heart stuttered because surely Armand would be drowned in it. Surely anything human would have to drown.
Armand smiled up at Erec and said, “No.”
“Now!” Rachelle yelled, and then she moved. It seemed to take a very long time: hours to shove a hand against Erec’s arm, jolting his sword point aside. Hours to lunge forward, slide, and crash into Armand. She had meant to shove him out of the center, but he hung on to her and they end up tangled together.
She had time to notice that the black tide had risen above them in a vast wave, cold and seeking and desperate. She had time to feel the weight of Armand’s body against hers, his elbow jabbed into her side. And she had time to think, He is never going to forgive me for this, before she opened her mouth and said, “Yes.”
The Devourer was falling too swiftly and greedily to turn aside from any willing sacrifice. The dark wave crashed down on her and filled her up. Her body shuddered and writhed under the weight. There was no sound in her ears but the screaming of the nighttime wind. Her vision blurred; she saw Justine and the Bishop charge into the room, saw the forestborn turning to fight, but it was like watching distorted shadow puppets on a faraway wall.
In one flash, she saw Armand’s gray eyes, wide with panic. She couldn’t see Amélie, but she knew that she was somewhere in the room. There was still a chance that both of them could live, and she thought to the darkness inside her, Yes, yes, yes.
Then nothing mattered, nothing besides the raw fury that she had been tricked, that this was the wrong vessel. This one still stank of human foolishness, but it was not human, and her lips drew back in a snarl of helpless rage.
“Rachelle? Rachelle!” Someone was shaking her shoulders and screaming.
She blinked open her eyes at the worthless traitor sacrifice—
“In the name of Tyr and Zisa, let her go!”
Her body shuddered. “Armand,” she gasped. She could feel his fingers digging into her shoulders, but the feeling wasn’t quite connected to her.
She remembered sitting with Amélie in the darkness and talking about peace. Just a few brushstrokes, Amélie had said.