Chapter 44

Something sharp dug into my back.

The pain grew worse as I tried to shift and found I couldn't. A heavy pressure banded around my chest, its rough skin tearing at the fabric of my jacket. The damp chill stroked my face, urging me to stay in the darkness that coated my mind.

But a voice emerged from the shadows there, soft but urgent. Wake. Wake now.

The sweet smell of dirt and greens filled my nose and coated my tongue as I forced my eyes open.

Mist shrouded the treacherous shapes around me—it took my hazy mind a moment to recognize them. Trees.

It seemed impossible; there was something so baleful about them. Knobby, stripped bare of their leaves, and covered in a skin of sickly green moss. I wondered if something truly evil had happened here to bow and twist them this way.

The ruined forests and groves of Avalon rose like a furious spirit to the front of my mind, stopping my heart in my chest. My fingers clawed into the icy dirt.

No, I thought. Avalon is gone.

The moon was bright overhead, undaunted by the thick canopy of branches as its radiance spilled onto the rocky forest floor. This was my world .

A strange light fluttered nearby. I tried to lean forward, only to find that I couldn't. My back was pressed to one of the trees, thick ropes of faintly glowing roots binding me to it. Memory rushed back, riding a flood of fire in my veins.

Now the bargain is complete.

Lord Death stood a short distance away, where the small clearing seemed to meet the very edge of the woods. Light streamed up from the stone cupped between his hands. My gaze drifted toward the sky.

Seething magic had torn open the dark fabric of the night, revealing a glimpse of what lay beyond. A world of gray stone—the kingdom of the dead.

Souls poured out of the widening gash, some drawn into the spell holding the doorway open, others racing back to the mortal world like falling stars.

Fear came alive in me, shuddering through my body. I struggled against the roots, but a deep growl of warning brought me up short. An enormous hound, its black, shaggy coat glinting with ice and snow, rose from behind another cluster of roots. Its red eyes burned as it lowered its head, watching me closely.

Cabell.

I held his gaze as I pushed up off the ground, ignoring the way the hound's lips pulled back to reveal his jagged teeth.

When it had come to this, when so much had already been lost, what did I have left to be afraid of?

"How pleased I am to see you awake, my love," came Lord Death's silky voice. "It won't be but a few moments more until you are safely home again."

"I'm not your love, you pig-breathed bastard," I said. "I'm the nightmare you were stupid enough to kidnap."

A smirk curved Lord Death's pale cheek. His horned crown was adorned with spirit lights, giving him a malevolent radiance. He didn't so much look at me as into me, as if my flesh, my entire self, were nothing more than a receptacle .

"Once you are free, we will never be parted again," Lord Death told me. "No one will be powerful enough to take what is rightfully mine."

"You're sick," I told him.

"Ridding Creiddylad of your crude form will be the greatest of pleasures," Lord Death sneered.

With his focus on me, the stream of souls escaping his stone pendant slowed, then stopped. But the souls of Annwn's damned still raced out through the fissure in the sky, undeterred.

My only hope for survival was distracting him long enough to figure out a better plan.

"She hated you, didn't she?" I began, pulling against the roots again. "She knew you were a monster undeserving of love and kindness. I can feel her disgust boiling inside me like acid."

"You lie," Lord Death said, letting the pendant fall from his hands as he faced me. And, truthfully, I did. But it was all too easy to imagine Creiddylad's feelings as my own.

He let out a dark laugh. It stung like the kiss of a scorpion's tail. "You're as fork-tongued as Erden. Tell me, was his death as pathetic as his life?"

There was a faint noise from beside me—a whine, almost. But only the hound was there, and I knew better than to assume it was anything other than the wind. That icy breeze did nothing to cool my flash of anger.

"Her skin crawled every time she saw you," I said. "You repulsed her. And what really burns you isn't that they sent you to live out the rest of your existence in Annwn, it's that she chose another. She didn't want you. "

"Enough!" Lord Death thrust a hand toward me. A hissing magic swirled up his arm from the stone pendant, blasting out from his fingertips. The roots around my chest burned brighter the moment before I felt them slither around me, tightening until I was struggling to take in enough air to stay conscious. Black blotted my vision like ink.

"There," Lord Death crooned, taking up his stone again. "Is that not better? "

"It is," Madrigal purred from somewhere nearby. "She's barely tolerable when she's silent, let alone when she runs her mouth."

The sorceress emerged from the nearby trees, her gown glistening with moonlight. Her hair was unbound, rising like flames around her face. My eyes shifted right, taking in the hound's still form. The magic pulsing in the sky reflected in the sheen of his dark coat.

"If Creiddylad's power is what you believe," Madrigal said to Lord Death, "why wait to free her? Why return to Annwn at all when she could create a new world to your liking?"

She could create a new world …

Something stirred inside me. A prickling that spread across my skin, seeping down into my blood. A growing awareness of rot and decay that had overpowered my senses. Death had felt like an infection my body couldn't reject.

Your … power … is …

Emrys had told me he could hear the song of the green life around him, that he understood its meaning intuitively. It wasn't a humming I heard now; I saw nothing but the dark forest around me. But I felt them—thousands upon thousands of sparks of magic, each growing in strength like tiny flames. Beneath my feet, under the thorned bramble, shadowed by the boulders—all around me.

"I told you before," Lord Death said, a new edge to his words. "I cannot be sure of my control until we are safely ensconced in Annwn. And this world must die before it can be remade by her power."

My eyes widened as his words sank in.

The spark of potential, Nash had said. The call of new life.

It wasn't the power to kill, or to restore life. It wasn't the ability to create from nothing but air and mist, it was rebirth. Like Neve's beloved fungi that broke down dead matter so something new could be born from it. The feeling of decay I'd sensed was raw potential, like clay to be molded by my hand. It had reached for me before I'd known to seek it out.

Cabell's ears pricked. My stomach bottomed out at the all-too- familiar sound of Children chittering nearby, scenting something in the wind.

"Perfect," Madrigal said, in her saccharine way. "That is all I needed to know."

A dark shape soared through the trees, screeching as its talons bore down on Lord Death and tore the crown from his head. The flow of spirits guttered like a flame threatening to go out but quickly resumed as the King of Annwn let out a growl of fury.

The hawk spiraled up above the trees, the crown a shadow against the bright moon's face. But quick as it was, it couldn't outfly the lance of silver magic Lord Death sent after it. The hawk released a scream of pain as magic pierced its breast, the crown slipping from its talons as both plummeted.

Light burst from it as the hawk shifted faster than my mind could grasp—from bird to bat to dog to man. The enormous human body of Dearie crashed down through the barren branches, lifeless as he smashed against the rocks.

In the silence that followed, Madrigal released a guttural scream.

Magic exploded from the sigils she'd carved into the roots at her feet, sending spirals of lightning racing for Lord Death's back.

His cloak whirled out as he turned, the furious magic flung away with a jerk of his wrist.

"What a treacherous snake you are," Lord Death spat, raising a clenched fist. "Slithering around, loyal to no one."

"Can you blame a girl for trying?" Madrigal asked, her teeth bared. "Why would I settle for a mere scrap of the power when I could command all of Annwn?"

Lord Death let out a cold laugh, his face as pale as a skull in the glow of the dead. He crossed the clearing, retrieving his crown and placing it back on his head.

"If it's the crown of Annwn you desire," he said, "come and take it."