I stare at Sorcha, uneasy now after everything I saw in her mind. She’s telling me the truth. I know it. I have so many questions, but first . . . “If you can’t recall how you found it, then maybe Aithinne can—”
“No.” Her lip curls. “If the Morrigan couldn’t dig that memory out of my mind, what makes you think this incompetent simpleton can?”
“I’m not incompetent,” Aithinne says easily. “I just hate you.”
Sorcha rolls her eyes, grips her skirts and shoves past me. “Look, let’s just find Kadamach and finish this so I can be rid of you both.”
She doesn’t get far before a loud crack! makes us all go still.
I grip my sword, my eyes scanning the trees. “What the hell was that?”
“What I wouldn’t give for my powers,” Aithinne mutters, turning sharply at another low rustle from somewhere I can’t identify.
“How about a blade?” Sorcha says in a low voice. “I’ve already vowed not to shove it between your ribs—”
Pop! Pop pop!
We whirl, just as the massive oak behind us tilts forward. I lunge to the side, scrambling to get out of the way before it falls.
It doesn’t. The damn tree is moving.
Branches reach for us like creaking, gnarled fingers. Roots wrap around Aithinne’s ankle and yank her back. She drops to the ground and the tree drags her forcefully across the wet soil.
“Go!” Aithinne shouts. She slashes with her sword, hacking away to free herself. She pushes to her feet and breaks into a run.
We sprint through the dense forest. Our boots kick up mud and water; it’s difficult to move through quickly. Slippery leaves on the ground further hinder our pace, but we keep going. We don’t slow down. Behind me I can hear the snapping branches, a crash as a heavy root hits the ground.
I look over at Sorcha and see movement to my left. “Behind you!”
I’m too late. Branches wrap around Sorcha’s torso, pulling her off her feet. The trees jerk her back through the mud, slamming her body painfully to the ground.
I can’t help my fleeting thought: Leave her there.
But even if Sorcha can’t help me find the Book, I still need her to open it. It’s the only reason I’ll bother to save her worthless hide. She’s right: I am ruthless.
I charge forward, slashing into the tree. The fae metal slices through it easily—but a branch grabs me around the ankle. I hack at it, severing it before it has a secure grip. Then I lurch to seize Sorcha’s arm.
“It’s about bloody time, Falconer.”
My blade whistles through the air as I cut her loose. “I considered leaving you.”
“I thought you would.”
I yank her with me as I break into a run. “This doesn’t mean anything. I need you to open the Book. I still hate you.”
“Believe me, Falconer, I understand your motives are far from noble.”
Where is Aithinne? I look left and spot her battling with a massive, towering tree—and others are starting to close in. The Morrigan has brought the entire damn forest to life.
Aithinne vaults into the air to avoid a branch, but another comes right at her. She spins into a crouch, her sword slashing high. With a running leap, she joins us. Her expression is grim; her shoulder is bleeding.
We break through reaching branches, fighting and clawing our way out. The forest is dense—too dense. I can’t see where it ends and this assault is too much, too quick. My limbs are burning, growing tired. When I slice through one branch, another takes its place. And another. Their grip is forceful, rough, leaving bruising red welts on my wrists and arms.
“There,” Sorcha gasps.
Through the line of trees is a shining portal.
Aithinne’s shout draws my attention. She slashes her blade, her movements fast. When she reaches me, Aithinne gives me a hard shove. “Go through the portal! Find the Book!”
Her silver eyes are bright. “Let me buy you time.”
“But—”
“Idiot,” Sorcha snarls, seizing me by the shirt. She pulls me hard and starts running. We sprint for the portal, the branches around us closing in. We’re not going to make it. It’s too far.
Too far.
No, we’re almost there. Focus. Find Kiaran. Find the Book. Kill the Morrigan.
Just a little farther . . .
A branch wraps around my wrist and I cry out, hacking with my sword. Another yanks my feet out from under me. I slam into the ground and the branch ruthlessly drags me back, but I claw at the mud for my sword to hack it away. I manage to get to my feet, but now it has me again, with a painful grip on my arm.
Sorcha is there. She snatches one of the small blades out of the sheath at my wrist and smiles with a flash of her fangs. “I guess I’m buying you time, too. This still doesn’t change a damn thing.”
She slices through the branch, grabs me by the coat, and shoves me hard through the portal.
CHAPTER 32
THE PORTAL sends me to the edge of a dark, moonlit field. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust enough to notice that there are figures on the ground. Shapes I can’t quite make out—
Footsteps crunch through the grass behind me. The low murmur of Sorcha’s voice drifts from the cradle of forest trees at the edge of the field. Then: “Ugh! Aithinne, would you let go of my—”
“Your arm is much less muscular than I thought it’d be.”
“That isn’t my arm, you idiot.”
I turn just as they both stumble out of the trees at the edge of the field. Aithinne is plucking branches and leaves out of her hair and Sorcha is tugging at the heavy material of her dress. Her heels sink into the soft dirt of the field as both women head toward me.
“Glad you made it,” I say.
“Of course I made it,” Aithinne said cheerfully. “I’m amazing.”
“You were stuck in a tree,” Sorcha says with a snort. “I had to cut you loose and pull your heavy arse through the portal just as it closed—”
Aithinne nearly runs into Sorcha, who has frozen in her tracks. She looks past me and her breath hitches. “Oh, my.”
I follow their gazes and a cold shiver runs through me. The figures in the ground I couldn’t make out before are body parts. Thousands of them. None of them whole or attached: just a field of limbs and hearts and other organs growing out of the dirt as if it were a garden.
This wasn’t a battle. This wasn’t even a slaughter. This was for enjoyment. There is an organization to it, a perverse sense of pleasure in the way the field has been tilled and the body parts separated into their own distinct sections. Hearts. Limbs. Organs. Heads. The way one might separate flower beds and catalog each different type.
Each part is perfectly intact. There are no signs of rot, not even the scent of it. Like Derrick said, the daoine sìth don’t decay. That’s why they burn their dead, because otherwise they end up like this. I can’t look at the pile of heads, at the features so pristine it’s as if they were still alive.
There is only the stench of blood, heavy in the air. As if the Morrigan had fertilized the ground with it. It’s so strong that I have to swallow before I heave.
I stagger back until my shoulder brushes against Sorcha. God, even through her dress and coat, I can feel her skin is frigid, alarmingly so. She hasn’t moved at all.