“You will pay me,” Joy’s voice shook with anger. “And if you were any kind of father, you would stop drinking and start taking care of your family.” She pivoted and walked up the hill.
Caelia was close enough to make out the woman’s profile in the distant firelight. And then Harben moved, shoving her hard from behind. Joy pitched forward, slamming into the ground with a wet thud.
“You will forgive my debt!” Harben shouted. “And you will apologize for interfering with my disciplining of my own—”
Caelia pushed past him. Joy’s body trembled and shook, her limbs kicking violently.
Afraid she would hurt her, Caelia picked up her head, cradling it on her thighs. Sticky, warm blood cooled on her hands—Joy had hit her head on something when she’d fallen.
“Joy?”
Joy went suddenly still. Caelia waited for the woman’s intake of breath. The moment stretched—like counting for thunder after a lightning strike. No sound.
“I barely touched her,” Harben said in a high, panicked voice. “She fell.”
“Joy?” Caelia bent over, holding her ear over the woman’s mouth. No stirring of air against the shell of her ear. No ragged inhalation. Even Harben was silent.
No. Caelia couldn’t lose Joy too. Not the woman who had been there after her mother’s death. Not the woman who had bathed her and helped her to the bed pan. Not the woman who had taught her the secrets of warm earth and hot bread.
“No, Joy, please.” Setting her head down gently, Caelia scrambled to her side and pressed her ear to Joy’s chest. The thump gave her hope. But it was too long before the second. And the third. And then . . . nothing.
“No. No. No. No.” Caelia clutched Joy as a wail rose in her throat.
“She can’t be dead,” Harben said. Even five steps away, Caelia could smell the liquor on his breath. “She can’t have died that easily.”
Caelia keened, the sound resonating through the hollow places inside her. It wailed out into the night, an inhuman sound.
Harben staggered forward and gripped her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to. She shouldn’t have died so easily. Not from simply tripping.”
“You pushed her! You killed her, and I will see you hang for it!” She screamed for help, the sound ripping through her throat.
Harben stumbled back. He looked fearfully toward the bonfire, the light catching the terror on his face. But the music didn’t stop. Didn’t so much as pause. No one had heard her.
Harben gripped fistfuls of his hair. “You can’t tell anyone. You won’t.”
Something in the man’s voice—something cold and hard and dark . . .
Harben took a step toward her. “You will tell no one!”
When her son had breathed his last, Caelia had ached to go with him. But now, every trembling breath seemed precious. She did not want to die. So she remained silent, fury and devastation giving way to fear.
Harben paced. “You have no idea who I am. I am the son of a queen. One word to the right ear, and I will have money and power you could never dream of in this filthy, insignificant town.”
The man was mad. Truly and completely mad.
He took a step toward her. “You will remain silent or I’ll kill you. I swear I will. And your brother and your father.”
Keeping her movements even—hidden in the dark—Caelia rolled her weight to the balls of her feet.
He took a step toward her. “Do you hear me, you vapid—”
She bolted, running hard for the bonfire. She cried out for help. Called for her father. Arms around her, wrenching her to the side. She fell on her stomach, Harben’s body on top of her. She clawed at the soft earth, trying to get out from under him, screaming for help. He forced her face into the ground. Dirt pushed into her mouth, choking her, caking between her teeth.
He grabbed for her hands. She rolled onto her back and thrust the heel of her hand into his chin. He reeled back, enough for her to wiggle out from under him. He was between the bonfire and her home, cornering her between the river and the forest.
The Forbidden Forest meant death. But so did he. She sprinted, saving her breath for each gasping inhalation. His steps sounded behind her. She concentrated on each stride, on the uneven ground. The forest loomed before her, a wall of black death. She punched into it without hesitation.
Two steps later, she tripped over something and landed, her palms scraped and bloody, her wrists jarring hard.
She was up again in a second, her arms out and her steps placed with a little more care. The second time she fell, she stifled her gasp of pain as something banged into her side. She rolled away from it until she fetched up against something solid.
She went utterly still, forcing her breath to come evenly, her head spinning. Ancestors, she was in the Forbidden Forest. She had to get out. Get out! Get out!
A shadow shifted. Stumbled. Cursed. A dozen steps directly behind her. “I’m going to find you,” he whispered into the darkness. “And when I do . . .”
Swallowing her whimper, she crawled on her hands and knees, easing her weight down to make sure she didn’t make a sound. A sudden pulling of her dress as it caught on something. A rip sounded loud in the night. She froze, waiting. Harben’s steps rushed toward her. She bolted, keeping low to the ground, her steps wide.
A vibration punched through her, sending her reeling. She staggered forward. All around her, faces loomed out of the shadows. Faces with black, empty eyes and mouths gaped wide enough to swallow her whole. The stirring—the forest attacking her.
A hand buried itself in her hair and jerked her back. She buried her elbow in Harben’s gut. His grip loosed. She turned and kneed him in the groin. She tore free, leaving bits of her hair behind. Ahead of her loomed the largest face yet, a tortured moan slipping through its torn mouth.
She leaped straight into it.
Chapter Four
Gilgad
Trying to keep her breathing even, Caelia stumbled through the forest, her ears keen to any sounds of pursuit. The faces continued to swallow her, and a horrible cold washed over her each time.
She knew the stories of the stirring. It didn’t go on forever. If she could reach the other side, it would stop. She banged her shin against something, a throb of pain shooting up her leg. She was going to break a bone if she didn’t stop. But stopping meant death.
So she crawled. Through brambles and sharp sticks and leaves. Bumping into trees. Until the lunging mouths suddenly ceased. She collapsed, breath sawing in and out of her throat. Ancestors, she was inside the Forbidden Forest. No girl who went into the forest came out again.
She stiffened, waiting for the beast’s teeth to crack through her ribs. His claws to shred the muscles of her back.
Nothing.
She dared lift her head, turning her ears this way and that for the sound of claws through dirt. The sound of Harben’s heavy footfalls. No sounds of pursuit, but she did hear something else.
Music. She tipped her ear toward the distant strains of a heartbreakingly beautiful song. It wound around her, touching the hollow place inside her, skimming along its surface like a rock skipping across a pond.
There weren’t any drums, but it had to be the bonfire. What else could it be?
She hadn’t been in the forest long—maybe twenty minutes? She could still escape before the beast found her. Or Harben.