It’s no abyss, though. I’m tumbling backward through the years, a long lifetime of memories passing by as illusory as ever.
The falling slows, and there, in this place of nothingness, I’m met with the darkest parts of myself. They’re illuminated in bold and breathtaking light, the moments of my life that will surely one day see me bound to the pits of the Shadow World, along with all the other monsters.
I try to fight it, to claw my way free.
I can’t endure this.
That thing gives me no choice, though, forcing me to watch as every life I’ve ever taken slips from existence—including the woman who once held my heart so completely, and the son she bore in my name.
It’s like I’m there all over again, standing knee-deep in mid-summer crops, hearing their screams chase over the vale. I run, sickle in hand, desperation clenching my heart while the hot sun beats down upon my back.
I see the slice of the blades before I can reach them, the bloody slits smiling at their throats, their empty eyes watching a blue sky for the last time. I feel my love’s auburn hair in my hands, my son’s tiny body cradled in my arms.
I didn’t save them. I’m the reason they were killed at all. A man with magick who wanted to be a nobody farmer yet tangled with the wrong king. Over time, I’ve forgotten the details of their precious faces, but now, in this infernal creation of a shadow wraith, they stare back at me with excruciating clarity.
Misery washes through me, intense and violent. The shadow folds around the deepest part of me, the part I must keep locked away at all costs. There’s a prison inside me, and the shadow rattles the cage, agitating the thing my magick has held captive for so long.
No. No, no, no.
Don’t stir him, I plead. Don’t weaken me. Nephele, please. I beg you. Where are you?
From somewhere beyond, I sense pain, knowing inherently that it isn’t mine. It’s only mingled with my consciousness. Suddenly, I’m falling again, this time toward a dim but present light surrounded by shadow.
I open my eyes to find Helena still atop me. A grimaced of disbelief twists her face, and her hand is raised, her bleeding palm folded around the edge of my sword like she caught it mid-swing.
Because she did.
Raina stands above us, hands tight around the hilt, rage hot in her eyes.
With the taste of the Shadow World still thick in my mouth, I rise on my elbows, but before any of us can make another move, the earth quakes, and the wood beyond the shadow wraith shifts.
I squint into the ghostly wood, unsure what I’m seeing. Even the shadow wraith turns a glance over Helena’s shoulder. Raina looks too.
The dense tree line opens, one tree after another unfurling from the tangle, creaking back to where it belongs. A groan fills the night, the sound of wood waking, followed by unnatural sighs whispering through the air on a hushed moan.
The earth shakes again, so hard the wraith tumbles off me. Raina’s knees give, and she falls at my side. I curl my arm around her waist, pull her close, and hold tight as deep drifts of snow dislodge, the vibrations causing the dense layers to break apart and settle, scattering through the wood.
Trying to stand on human feet, the wraith grips the narrow limbs of two saplings an arm’s length away. The ground settles, but panic hangs like a mask from Helena’s face, as though the wraith knows more than us.
It tries to run, but the saplings come to life, snaking around Helena’s legs before the wraith can take her far, bringing the girl’s body to its knees at my feet.
Gnarled roots of a dozen trees rip from the ground and flail in the air, scattering frozen dirt through the forest. Leaves fall from branches, and birds flee their nests as the roots land like twisted wooden talons, stabbing into the now-thin snow. They creep toward the wraith, almost taunting, like the demon taunted us.
I feel her then—Nephele—her magick warm and reassuring against my skin. Raina looks at me, eyes round. She feels her too.
A soil-covered root reaches out and coils around Helena’s waist. The wraith fights the woody grip, kicking wildly, but when it can’t break free, it looks back at me with evil shining in Helena’s eyes. Suddenly, it clamps a hand around my ankle.
With extraordinary strength and an unnatural moan, the wraith yanks me from Raina’s arms, taking me with it when more roots latch on to Hel’s body and drag us deeper into the wood. The wraith screams, a wail that curdles my blood.
I flip to my front and claw at the ground, grasping for anything until I finally stop sliding, and Helena’s hands let go.
Panting, I turn over, and Raina rushes to my side. She clutches my tunic and arm, her breaths hard and fast as my own. Ahead, in that silver-outlined dimness, the wraith kneels inside a cage made of roots and seedlings. It thrashes against a dark vine wrapped around Helena’s wrists and mouth, a vine that stifles the wraith’s cries.
But it’s no longer the wraith prostrate before us. It’s Helena. She’s close enough that I can make out the abject horror etching deep lines in her face, the panic burning bright in her eyes. The wraith has let her through once again—to torment us.
But gods, how it must torment Helena.
Raina lurches into the wood. I stumble to my feet and run after her, hooking an arm around her waist a second before she reaches Nephele’s makeshift prison. She twists and turns, jerking against me, but I hold fast.
There’s nothing we can do for Helena now, not if we want to live.
“Listen to me, Raina.” I shift her around and catch her wild gaze with a steady stare. “This is Nephele’s doing,” I tell her. “I know you feel her. She’s doing this because Helena isn’t Helena anymore. She would’ve killed me and taken you to the prince had Nephele not intervened, and you have no idea what that would’ve meant for your future.”
Raina pushes out of my arms. “What is she then?” she signs. “She is not that thing lurking inside her.” She steals a glance over her shoulder at her sobbing friend, sitting helplessly in her cage. When Raina looks back at me, tears stream down her dirt-streaked face. “I have lost everything. I cannot lose her too. I will not let the Prince of the East take her from me. I refuse.”
She stalks around the wood, studying the ground, the treetops, fisting her hands in her hair. I can see her anguish, her desperation to find anything, think of anything, do anything that might help Helena.
As more tears flow, her inconsolable weeping ensnares my heart. A sense of defeat pulses from her, a sense that she’s coming to terms with her powerlessness in this situation.
It almost breaks me.
I go to her and take her face in my hands. “Stop. Look at me.” When she meets my gaze, her furor eases. Her panting remains, but her cold hands wrap around my wrists like I’m the only thing keeping her tethered to this world. I press my forehead against hers. “Just breathe.”