Chapter 47

A ragged cry erupted from Caitriona's throat as she thrust her hands forward and called her magic to her.

Golden fire exploded through the air, racing toward Lord Death's dark figure. He threw a protective arm up, a pulse of silvery magic flaring around him to deflect the river of flames to the open moorland and small stream behind him.

The remaining Children descended from the trees, called to their master's defense. Caitriona had an answer for them, too. She dropped what remained of Excalibur and sent writhing knots of fire toward them—one, three, five—leaving them screeching as they collapsed into blazes or fled into the sanctuary of the gnarled trees.

"Olwen!" she called.

Her sister answered, racing after the Children, driving them back and back with yet more fire.

"You fool, " Lord Death thundered at Caitriona. "I offered you a life of glory, but I'll gladly enslave your soul in death!"

His magic struggled against hers, pushing forward across the clearing, silver devouring gold. Caitriona's arms shook, beads of sweat dripping from her face as she screamed again. The fire fought back, and the renewed clash sent sparks of magic scattering among the souls still hovering nearby.

Watching, I thought. Powerless to stop him without form .

"Tamsin," Caitriona got out between gritted teeth. "Tell Neve … tell Neve I'm sorry."

"You tell her yourself," I shot back, rising to my feet. Fear rippled down my spine at her bleak expression.

Useless, I thought desperately, watching the warring magic. After everything, you're still useless.

I tried to reach out for the magic I'd felt around me before, sensing those flickering pulses. The potential they had to be reborn into something new. Something that could help us. I had to figure out the right way to call it.

The white rose. That had to be the key.

"When I drop the ring of fire around us, take your brother," Caitriona said, her feet sliding back with the force of the warring magics. "Take him and Olwen and run."

"I'm not leaving you," I told her. The stone of Lord Death's pendant was lit from within, stirring with the souls imprisoned inside. "Cait, look—!"

The warning came too late for either of us to dive away from the roots that burst from the ground, crackling with death magic.

"No!" Caitriona shouted, but the word died on her tongue as the roots lashed around her body like a vise and threw her to the ground. Her golden fire went out with one last desperate flare as her body was caged against the boulders. She fought, trying to twist herself free.

After so much light, the clearing, the forest, the world—everything seemed darker now.

"There is no magic stronger than that of Annwn. Nothing can defeat it, least of all a quarrelsome girl who cannot accept her own wretched weakness," Lord Death told her. His sword appeared again in his hand, sparking with power. "Perhaps I won't claim your soul at all. How well you would do as one of my Children."

Caitriona strained, arching her back to try to break the magic's hold on her. The roots covered her mouth, silencing whatever words or spells still burned in her eyes .

"Defiant to the end," Lord Death drolled.

I lurched toward Caitriona, trying to intercept him. Lord Death didn't so much as glance my way. His hand rose, the stone glowed—I leapt away, but the roots tackled my center and banded around my waist. I fell forward as they dragged me back away from Caitriona.

I fought for purchase in the rocks and decaying leaves. Mud packed painfully beneath what remained of my broken fingernails. Vines of death magic yanked me back. My jeans tore against the rocks, taking my skin with them and leaving a trail of blood in my wake.

Help me, I thought. Help me, please.

"What a disappointment you have revealed yourself to be," Lord Death told Caitriona. He brought the point of his sword down to her throat.

Close your eyes, a voice whispered in my ears. The words were carried in the wind, in the mist. Let go of your fear. You know what must be done …

The tightness in my chest, the tremor that moved through my hands—it had a name now.

Fear.

Release it, the voice whispered. Release yourself.

My past. The powerlessness I'd felt as a little girl trying to cobble together the life I thought I wanted.

Release it.

My present. The dread that held me back, that clouded how I saw myself.

Release it.

The wall came crumbling down inside me, and I felt then what waited for me on the other side. The magic that was mine alone, sleeping in the darkness beneath the snow. The decay waiting to be transformed by the coming of spring.

The magic that existed in all natural things, in their life, was also the potential in death to transform into something else.

"This is your final chance," Lord Death's voice rumbled nearby .

In Avalon, there had only been one creature that lived beyond his control. One that had transformed herself.

The memories of High Priestess Viviane's revenant flooded my mind, but there was none of the terror I'd felt as I faced her. She had remade herself from a rotting wasteland, reassembled a body out of dead bark, mud, long-withered grass. Her soul defiant to the end.

Now I dreamt her as she should have been, blooming with life. Her body regenerated, the roots defining her limbs renewed, becoming young and green, the crumpled wet leaves a blooming flower. I imagined others growing up from the decay littering the woods, standing beside her. Their bodies new, strong. Under my command.

I forced my eyes open.

"Kiss … iron … you … bastard …," Caitriona ground out around the root. From her vantage point, something caught her eye and she froze.

A hand made of roots and green leaves rose from the dirt behind Lord Death's feet, its long, sinewy fingers unfolding as ribbons of braided grass. The palm, then the wrist, an arm—and a head, crowned with flowers. The revenant had no face as she rose, but she glowed with some inner magic.

Concentrating, I imagined the hand flexing, then closing in a fist around Lord Death's ankle. Through the tether of magic between me and the revenant, I pulled.

He stumbled back with a noise of surprise. The only thing more satisfying than the way his eyes widened was the sight of the other silhouettes rising from the earth, taking shape in the mist. One by one, my creatures blossomed up from the ground.

Lord Death hacked at the revenant with his sword. "Damn you— damn you —what devilry is this?"

The magical restraints binding my waist eased as his attention splintered. I scrambled to my feet, but the roots seized me again, punishing in their grip. The revenants' bodies shuddered, threatening to fall to pieces without my focus to direct them .

Before I could center myself, to tighten my grip on the magical tethers, lights streaked around me, weaving through the tortured branches of the trees toward Lord Death.

No—not to him. To the revenants. To the bodies I'd created.

The tethers I'd been fighting to hold on to went slack, and instinctively, I released them. The spirits of the priestesses of Avalon streaked across the night air, sinking through the skin of leaves, mud, and roots of my revenants. The bodies I'd made turned iridescent as the souls settled into them, their forms stabilizing, steadying, even without my control.

With a furious howl, Lord Death flung Caitriona away, sending her soaring back through the trees.

The vines that were wrapped around my center jerked hard enough to knock the breath from me. They dragged me toward Lord Death as he sliced at the revenants with growing agitation. Each time he succeeded in severing a limb, it grew back, stronger and faster.

Digging my feet into the ground did nothing to slow Lord Death's magic as he dragged me into his outstretched arm. One of the revenants grabbed me, tugging me back, but the force of his magic was such that it ripped the revenant's arms from its body. New limbs grew from flecks of bark to replace them.

"You are under my command!" he bellowed at a revenant. The leaf-laden arm ripped the sword from his other hand, sending it scuttling into the forest.

I slammed into Lord Death's side and immediately shoved against him, trying to escape the disgusting feel of him against me. Instead, he hooked his armored forearm around my neck, pressing my face against the curve of his freezing breastplate.

"I'd thought to free Creiddylad's soul in Annwn," he seethed at me, "but I'll take pleasure in doing it here."

Threads of black lightning crawled over his fist. I let my legs go limp, trying to use the element of surprise to drop out of his hold. Instead, his other hand closed over the back of my neck, twisting in my hair. Where my blood dripped over the earth, clover and thistle and roses sprouted, reclaiming the burned ground.

Lord Death drew his arm back, the magic crackling as it intensified. Poised to strike. He leaned too far back for me to reach the crown on his head, but he'd left his chest open.

I ripped the pendant's chain from his neck. He swore viciously as I threw it into a nearby cluster of stones.

The revenants fell upon us, clawing at his face, his scalp, ripping at the ties of his armor. And in the struggle, I heard a voice emerge from the revenant tearing at his shoulder.

"I was Betrys, you cut me down, but here I stand—"

I reared back in surprise, but Lord Death's grip only tightened, tearing some of my hair out at the root.

"I was Rhona—" came another. "You took my life, but I remain—"

"I was Seren, and I am alive—"

"Mari—"

"Arianwen—"

Their voices were melodious, echoing, threading through one another like a tapestry, a song of mist and memory, each verse bold, the chorus carrying those same words, again and again. Here I stand. I remain. I am alive.

"I was the Sorceress Seraphine—"

"—the Sorceress Briar—"

"You may have killed me," came Lowri's voice, "but I endure—"

"Enough!" Lord Death bellowed. A torrent of pressure and light burst around us as Annwn's magic tore through the revenants, rending them into ash and shredded leaves. But the moment they struck the ground, I re-formed them.

"No," Lord Death began, trying to summon the souls of the dead to him with his raised fist. "Obey me—"

The lights danced in the air around us.

"We were never yours."

My heart clenched painfully in my chest. Flea .

The souls of Annwn fluttered down through the tear in the sky like snow, screeching through the darkness. The longer that gateway remained open, the more malicious spirits would flood into our world to torment the living.

The revenants circled around us, closing in slowly. Lord Death surveyed them all, his stolen face pale. His gaze caught on something beyond them—a dark figure crouched on a boulder, mostly hidden by the tangle of bramble and roots.

What I could see of his skin was mottled with bruises. Blood streaked down his face from the cut on his cheek. He held the pendant and its crimson stone aloft over his head. The crystal cast an eerie glow over him.

"Bledig," Lord Death's voice boomed. "Bring it to me! Bring it here!"

The young man looked up. His words were soft at first, lost to the wind and the fury of the Children. But as he spoke them again, and again, they grew in power. In certainty.

"My name is Cabell. "

He brought the pendant down against the rocks, smashing it and smashing it until the cracking stone was drowned out by Lord Death's primal scream of fury.

Souls burst out of their prison, whirling around the clearing, or flying into the sky, chasing those that had escaped the world beyond.

Cab, I thought, overcome.

For a moment, the grip on me eased. I tried to reach my brother—only to collide with Lord Death's fist as he punched it through my chest.