Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

M ONSTERS HAD LITTLE respect for mealtimes.

Branwen crouched behind a thicket of briars. The late-autumn sunlight cast the forest into shades of crimson and gold. The lush scent of sun-warmed blackberries made her stomach clench with hunger.

It had been hours. Perhaps she should give up this hunt and return in the morning. She was reaching for her small lantern when she heard it.

A whisper of leaves. The murmur of a footfall against damp earth.

Branwen swallowed, her tongue suddenly too dry. She touched the knife at her belt. Her bow was at home; the thick undergrowth and close trees ensured that this hunt would need to be at close range.

A woman rounded a bend in the path. Sunlight caught in her red-brown hair. She carried a basket brimming with loaves of bread, apples, and cheeses.

Or so it seemed.

In the immortal lands, one could not trust mortal senses.

Branwen reached up, her fingers alighting on the iron-stitched cloth she wore across her right eye. Quietly, she pulled it free.

And then the world changed.

The forest glittered with unseen power. Branwen blinked several times, waiting for her eye to adjust. Then she looked at the woman. She half expected to see one of the folk: hair woven with vines, inhuman eyes, or too-sharp teeth. It was not unheard of for one of the folk to visit the village wearing the guise of a mortal.

But nothing about the woman changed. Her hair was still a ruddy brown, a flush on her cheeks as she carried her day’s shopping.

It was just a human woman.

Branwen blew out a breath and sat back on her heels. She would wait another hour, then return home. One did not remain in the forests of Annwvyn—even the outskirts—after dark. She slid the blindfold back into place. Using that eye for too long left her with a headache that throbbed through her whole skull, made her flinch away from light and sound. It was best to use her power sparingly.

The traveler continued along the path. There were always a few willing to risk the edges of Annwvyn. Most of the time, they came out unscathed. Some emerged with bloody injuries or enchanted trinkets. And some simply vanished.

A noble, Barwn Ifor, lost his son a few weeks ago, after the young man ventured too near Annwvyn. The hunt to find him had led Branwen to this briar patch and this very ordinary-looking traveler.

The traveler stumbled over a root in the path and grumbled quietly to herself. Sweat beaded on her brow, and she paused, setting down her burden long enough to swipe at her forehead. She knelt beside a stream and cupped one hand, reaching for a drink. Sunlight danced merrily upon the water. It looked so clear and refreshing that Branwen dragged her dry tongue across her lips. It was easy to imagine how sweet that water would taste, how refreshing it would feel against her dirt-smudged fingers. The traveler cupped a handful of water.

And then a hand surged from the stream and seized her.

The woman shrieked. She thrashed like an animal caught in a snare, but the grip was unbreakable. It began to drag her toward the water. She reached for roots, for ferns, for any handhold. But it was a useless struggle, and slowly she was dragged into the stream.

Branwen surged to her feet. Her legs tingled with disuse, and she stumbled as she ducked out from behind the briars.

There were a few charms against magic. Iron was the most common, but to scatter iron into Annwvyn was akin to walking into a prince’s great hall with a cup of poison. It was an insult at best and a declaration of war at worst.

Branwen shoved a hand into her pocket and withdrew a handful of dried gorse. It was less potent than iron, but it would also decay and leave no trace. She tossed the leaves into the water, where they bobbed merrily in the current. One of them touched the hand emerging from the water, and it flinched in pain.

The hand slipped back beneath the waves, and the traveler scurried to the path on hands and knees. When she saw Branwen, she let out a startled noise.

“Run,” snarled Branwen.

The traveler did not need telling twice. Leaving her fallen basket, she rushed up the path. Branwen listened to the thud of footsteps, to the ragged breathing, to those last mortal sounds. And then Branwen was alone with the monster that rose from the water. That stream should have been far too shallow to hide anything larger than a fish or frog. An illusion must have hidden this unseen creature.

Nothing beneath the trees of Annwvyn could be trusted, save for names and oaths.

The woman who stepped from the stream had hair black as obsidian, skin pale as sun-bleached driftwood, and the kind of beauty only glimpsed in paintings. She wore a white gown sodden with creek water. She looked like a maiden spun from magic and tales, just waiting for the right hero to save her from this place.

Branwen inhaled deeply a few times, blowing out each breath in its entirety—the way she prepared to dive beneath choppy waters. Then she pulled a small flask from her belt and tipped it into her mouth. Alcohol burned at the corners of her chapped lips, and she had to resist the instinct to swallow it down.

The corners of the woman’s mouth curved into a gentle smile. She opened her mouth and began to sing. It was as lovely as the rest of her: clear and perfectly pitched. Slow and gentle. The kind of melody that should have rocked babes to sleep.

Branwen dug her nails into her palms. She did not have magic.

She had something far more dangerous—knowledge.

She yanked away the cloth that covered her right eye. And Branwen saw the woman for what she was.

The creature was thin. Her stomach was hollow—not as one who was starving, but the flesh was simply not there. Her torso was all ribs and tattered cloth.

A cyhyraeth. A maiden of bracken, bone, and driftwood. It was whispered that they foretold death with a wailing song.

She was a nightmare. And yet somehow, when Branwen saw the truth of her nature, her song became all the more beautiful.

The creature approached on bare, skeletal feet. Branwen saw something glittering through her torso. A gleam of silver—no, not silver.

Iron.

An iron-tipped arrow had pierced the maiden’s chest and lodged there.

The cold weight of fear dropped into Branwen’s belly. She swallowed instinctively, and a few drops of the spirits slipped down her throat.

Iron was poison to the otherlands and to all those who dwelled within them. It smothered magic, like dirt poured on flames. It could drive monsters to madness. Iron sickness, the folk called it.

And this maiden of death had an arrowhead buried in her chest.

“Sweetling,” whispered the cyhyraeth. The melody was so lovely that it hurt. The song held all the ache of lost loves and faded flowers.

“What is your name, sweetling?” asked the cyhyraeth. Her voice was soothing as the touch of cool fingers against a fevered forehead. It made Branwen yearn to answer, to give this monster the power it needed to destroy her.

There was a cold touch at Branwen’s throat. Fingers that were half-bone and half-branch stroked her skin with such tenderness that a shiver of pleasure ripped through her.

“Tell me your name,” the cyhyraeth crooned. She had hold of Branwen, fingers curled around the young huntress’s throat.

It would have been so simple to tell her. To whisper the word that Branwen had forbidden herself to say. It was a name Branwen had tried to bury, to leave behind with the failings that accompanied it.

The cyhyraeth was so close, and she smelled of oceans and misty nights. It was intoxicating, as easy to slip into as a warm bath.

She opened her mouth—

The cyhyraeth’s song grew sharper, higher, hungrier .

—and Branwen spat her mouthful of spirits into the monster’s face.

The creature recoiled, its jaw gaping wide in a wordless scream.

Branwen’s left hand reached for her lantern, and she swung it upward, catching the cyhyraeth on the edge of her jaw. And this was why Branwen never stilled her tongue with mouthfuls of bread or iron.

Alcohol burned .

The moment the flames touched the strong drink, the cyhyraeth ignited. Fire caught in the wisps of her cobweb hair and the threadbare clothes dragging from her skeletal frame.

Her song sharpened into a screech. The cyhyraeth’s hand flashed toward Branwen’s stomach. Her long nails were jagged as broken barnacles. Branwen leapt back, but those nails sliced through the loose fabric of her tunic. It parted, a few threads fluttering through the air.

The cyhyraeth shrieked again, pressing her advantage. Branwen stumbled. Her feet were on damp, uneven ground, and this creature was swift as a fish in water. The fire guttered in the cyhyraeth’s damp hair.

Fighting back a surge of fear, Branwen ducked and rolled away, reaching into her pocket. When she came up, she threw another handful of gorse leaves into the cyhyraeth’s face.

But the cyhyraeth was too swift. She ducked beneath the flutter of leaves, her mouth pulled back into a snarl. Her teeth were jagged chips of river rocks and a terrible light burned in her eyes. Before Branwen could swing her knife, the creature had her by the throat again. She felt the wind gusting out of her as she slammed into the hard ground. Creek pebbles dug into her back. Her hand was pinned beneath her, knife sinking into the ground. She dared not thrash, not with her own blade pressed flat against her back.

The cyhyraeth hissed, her slender fingers tight around Branwen’s throat. “What are you? A mortal with a fang in her hand and fire in her mouth?” Even those hissing words had the cadence of a song. “The iron-blooded should know better than to touch our lands, our streams.”

“You’ve iron in you, too,” gasped Branwen. Her gaze flicked down to the arrow embedded in the creature’s torso.

“Iron, iron, iron,” sang the cyhyraeth. “It burns in our bones, sings in our veins. We used to fear it, you know, but now it’s in the streams, in the rains, in the trees. We will never escape it—and so, we shall drown the ones who made it. A young man came into the forest looking for legends and glory, but all he brought was iron.”

The barwn’s son. He must have been the one to fire the arrow.

“Let me take it from you.” Branwen rasped out the words; she had one hand around the cyhyraeth’s wrist, and the other was twisted beneath her. Her heartbeat throbbed in her temples as the cyhyraeth squeezed her throat. Every time she blinked, the cyhyraeth’s visage shifted. First, she saw the creature with her mortal eye—beautiful, cold as a starlit night—and then her right eye focused on the monster—bone and sinew, river and murk. “I will free you from the iron if you tell me where to find the one who shot you.”

“Take it?” The cyhyraeth’s grip tightened, and Branwen could barely hold back the animal panic of suffocation. “You offer mercy with a blade in your hand.”

“You’re—a—monster.” It took the last of Branwen’s breath to utter the words.

The cyhyraeth leaned in closer. “Want to know a secret, mortal girl?” Her voice softened, losing its giddy ire. She sounded suddenly, terribly lucid. “I may be a monster, but you are the most dangerous creature in this forest.”

Branwen went limp.

The cyhyraeth loosened her hold, satisfied she had wrung the life from the mortal. But as her bony fingers slackened, Branwen bucked like a startled horse. She twisted, wrenching her arm out from beneath her, and drove the afanc-tooth dagger up. She cut the creature from pelvis to collarbone, shattering ribs and driftwood.

The cyhyraeth screeched . She pulled back, retreating into herself, but the damage had been done.

The cyhyraeth died like a pitiful spider: thin limbs pulled tight, her body drawn up, suddenly so much smaller than before. Only once she had gone utterly still did Branwen sheath her dagger and slump into a crouch. Her throat burned, and she could feel bruises forming on her back.

I may be a monster, but you are the most dangerous creature in this forest.

Some hunts let Branwen sleep better at night… while others gave her nightmares.

This would likely be the latter.

Branwen nudged the creature over. Wincing, she shoved her hand into the creature’s ribs and withdrew the metal arrow tip. She tucked it into her pocket. The ironfetches—humans tasked by the otherfolk to seek out and remove iron—would have found this arrow eventually. But Branwen might as well save them the trouble.

She picked up her lantern. The fire had gone out, candle fallen into the damp earth. Her cloak was stained with mud, and she smelled like burning driftwood.

All she wanted was a meal and a bath. But her job wasn’t done, not yet.

Branwen carefully picked her way down the embankment. Without the cyhyraeth’s magic to enchant the water, its luster had faded. The stream had a tinge of green algae, and beneath that—

Bones.

Bones and fine cloth. There was a leather boot and glove, and what looked horribly like the remnants of blond hair. Tangled around one of the finger bones was something heavy and silver.

Forcing herself not to retch, Branwen reached down and took hold of the bones. Attached was a heavy ring, embossed with the seal of a noble. She recognized it at once: the signet belonged to the barwn’s household.

Well, that was that. The barwn’s son was dead, and Branwen’s hunt was for naught. All she had to show for it was a silver ring and a broken lantern. She straightened, giving the drowned bones one last glance before she picked up the traveler’s fallen basket. It brimmed with apples, cheese, and bread.

“It would be a shame for this to be left behind,” murmured Branwen, hefting the basket into the crook of her arm. At least she wasn’t going home entirely empty-handed.

She turned toward home, choosing one of the folk trails. She could see the traps, the enchantments, the lures. She knew which trees had false roots, ones that could be pried open with the right whisper. She knew where to step and where to avoid.

It had always been this way, as long as she could remember. One eye was mortal, the other immortal.

It was why she could hunt magical monsters. She could see them for what they were.

Human monsters were not so easily discerned.