When I reach the thicket, I kneel down and examine the plants. The old ones are too thick in root to upend with any ease—I hunt for the offshoots, the daring ones that fell away from their parents last winter and sprouted in the spring. I gently ease my spade into the earth, loosen the soil, and scoop my protection from its home. I set one in my bag, then another, wincing when it pushes a thorn through the seam of my glove. The spike in my chest warms again, but perhaps that is just from the exercise. Ignoring it, I stand in the thicket until I find three more young plants to uproot. My work done, I set my tools and gloves in my basket and walk the rest of the way around the thicket, over a fallen tree branch, and—
I hear the hiss of the viper half a heartbeat before it lunges from the foliage ahead of me. Enough time for my heart to plummet, but not enough for me to act.
But the snake stops midstrike, midair. Nothing holds it, and yet it lingers there as if frozen, its long neck compressed, its mouth agape, revealing dripping fangs and a struggle for air.
I stagger back from my near death, struggling for air myself. I lift my eyes from the snake to the invisible being I know holds it. I fight to speak, to act, for I’m stiff as the ancient trees around me and cold as the depths of winter. A deep ache radiates through my chest, and I wonder if the snake had sunk its fangs into me after all.
I manage a wheezy “Maekallus.”
His invisibility drops at his name. His fingers are coiled behind the serpent’s head, and his yellow eyes regard me, narrowed and wary. He slowly stands from a crouch, the viper writhing in his grip. He wears a cloak of strange make, fastened at his left shoulder, and pants of layered leather pinned together by small metal studs. They end at hooved feet.
Save for the blunt end of his horn, he is the same mysting I summoned the day after the first gobler attacked.
I’m at a loss for words. A lump hard as granite sits in my throat. I feel my pulse around it, quick and hard. My eyes burn without tears. The horn in my chest—the one that once protruded regally from his forehead—feels like an ember.
I lift a hand, not quite reaching, and take a step forward.
The viper writhes in his grip. Frowning, he moves to strike it against the nearest tree.
“No!” I call, staying him. “Please don’t hurt it. I . . . I was trespassing in its territory. It was only protecting itself.”
Maekallus raises an eyebrow at me before shrugging and flinging the snake far to my left. I don’t see where it lands, but it will survive.
I swallow, my mouth dry as week-old bread. My pulse thumps hard against my chest and neck. Does he hear it? “Do . . . you remember me?” I ask.
He scoffs. “I gave you back your soul, not my wits.”
There’s an edge to his voice. Not an angry one, but . . . one I don’t remember him having, even before he took that first piece of my soul. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know exactly . . . how it works.”
Yet I do know, but I try not to dwell on that knowledge, because I desperately do not want to fall apart before this man, this mysting. I don’t wish to show him the weakness I’ve been harboring like poached meat for too long.
He does not feel the way he once did. He remembers, but he isn’t . . .
Tears threaten my vision, and I blink and shove the thoughts away, clawing for composure. “W-Why are you here?”
He gives me that narrow gaze again, then a shrug. “The Deep isn’t a friendly place.”
“No, it’s not.” The lump has reformed and chokes my words to a whisper. I swallow again. Take a deep breath. “I—”
“He is not me.”
Four simple words. They would be nonsense to anyone else, but they rake across my skin like briars. Even with the fullness of my soul, I don’t have the strength to hold back the tears that pool in the corners of my eyes.
He shifts awkwardly, averting his gaze. His inhuman gaze. “I shouldn’t be here,” he grumbles as a tear streaks down my face.
I cross my arms over my chest, as if I could somehow keep more of me from breaking. As if I could squeeze out the hurt like pus from a wound. I tremble within my own arms, wishing I did not want so badly to be in his.
He turns and walks deeper into the wildwood. I can’t bring myself to watch him go, yet I feel each footstep as if my body were the forest floor. Before he gets out of earshot, I croak, “Maekallus.”
He pauses. Looks back.
I don’t dare to meet his eyes again. I won’t be able to say the words if I see his eyes, but I have to speak them. No other opportunity will present itself. I will down that lump in my throat without the aid of any otherworldly charm.
“I forgive you.”
He doesn’t reply. A moment later, his footsteps carry him away, and the warmth from the horn embedded in my chest dies.
I break like a dam, rooted where I stand.
Not even the threat of serpents can move me.
Looming night finally drives me from the wildwood. I have no protection against the predators that lurk in its shadows, monster or otherwise. Uneven steps take me to the house. I drop the basket and the collection of oon berry by the woodpile and retreat inside. My father reads by the fire. He calls my name. I continue to my room. Not to punish him—no, he has been nothing but good to me all my life. But I can’t face him. I can’t face anyone or anything, even myself.
I thought the heartache was terrible before. Now I would sacrifice my whole soul just to make it stop.
I barely have tears left to cry, yet they come, pulled from some awful reservoir inside me. I should never have gone into the wildwood. I wish I had never seen him.
I grab fistfuls of my hair and drop to my knees, sucking air into my lungs, forcing my breaths to be even. I am a fool. Three times over I am a fool. Four times. Ten.
Fumbling for flint, I light the single candle on the bedside table. I wipe my nose on my sleeve before reaching under my bed. I find the wooden box there, the one that once held my mother’s wedding ring. I open it and hold it toward the light. The shards of the Will Stone sit inside the container like scabs of blood. I pour them into my hand and crush them against my fingers until the skin threatens to split.
“Can’t you make it stop?” I plead to the lifeless charm. “Can’t you make me hate him? I can handle hate so much better than this. Can’t you grant me so much?”
Two tears splash against my knuckles. I don’t bother wiping my eyes.
Bending over, I press my forehead to the floor. “Can you not give him what he lost? Bastards have souls.” I whisper the words, not wanting my father to hear me, not wanting him to know how pathetic I’ve become. “Please. Make me forget, or bring him back to me. I want him here.”
A few more tears escape and join weeks’ worth of long-dried sisters against the wooden floorboards. The sting of the broken stone in my hand lessens. I lift my head, blinking my eyes clear, and open my hand to see blood streaking my skin. I sit up in alarm, only to realize my hand is undamaged—the pieces of the Will Stone have somehow liquefied against my palm. The droplets slide off my hand like oil and mix with the tears on the floorboards. They seep into the woodgrain and vanish, leaving not so much as a smudge of crimson behind.
I run my hand across the wood. Dry, save for my tears. Enough pieces of my heart fuse together to leap within me, and I run to the window that faces the wildwood, searching the darkness beyond.