King of the Woodlands

Chapter 22

He awoke from his memories in a melancholy mood. Sunlight snuck through the cracks in his windows. Kolzryrth could carve stories out of those skeins of light using merely his eyes and mouth, telling grand tales of Sol, the Sun God, and his forbidden love for Cerridwen, the Moon Goddess.

When would he step into the light again? When would he allow himself to feel? After all, what was the point of having a beating heart if you didn't allow it to feel anything at all?

He heard Lilibeth's laughter ringing in the distance. She was stronger than he'd ever be. She had hope, and she cradled it tight to her chest. There was a heart, big as a sunflower, still beating in her, whereas his was unbeating and black as Davy Jones' locker. I'm not sure I even have a heart to give anymore.

The Woodland King remembered where he'd left off in the book. He hadn't learned much of reading, but the clan matron had taught him enough to recite basic passages and string basic sentences together from a jumble of letters. The book actually wasn't too bad.

Another silvery, birdsong laugh drew him out of his thoughts. He imagined Lilibeth standing in a patch of soft grass, her clothes spun from cotton and leaves and berries, autumn leaf hair braided to her back. He knew that he was causing her so much pain, but here she was, spinning gold out of it. Oh, he longed to tell her that if he'd undo all this, he could.

Tell her, his mind pleaded. There was a storm of words brewing under his tongue, a hurricane resting beneath the mouth of a dragon with a false name and a disgraced title. But he couldn't tell her.

He glanced at the grandfather clock. Time was rolled up and swallowed down beneath its black minute and hour hands, each minute dragging him closer to the pits of Death's Mouth.

I will always find you, time vowed to him. You will bow down to my order, and my judgement will devour you. Time reared before him like a monster. It had grown skin, and the skin had grown sharp teeth.

He shut out that voice, that monster, making his way down the hallways to the cave entrance—towards the light. He didn't know why. He wanted to stop himself, but he couldn't.

Now that he could see the unraveling yarn spool of canary-colored sunshine, it was easy to imagine him and Kolzryrth tearing through thick, sultry air, past mountain springs and curved hills veiled in mist, devouring with beating hearts and feasting with lips dripping blood.

What am I fighting for, Kolzryrth? It was like they were fledglings again, just learning to spread their wings, promising to catch each another if one of them ever fell.

We are Fire-Dancers, his brother had said, keeping his eyes on some unreachable horizon. He'd been scared to fly, scared to spread his wings. We fight for our brothers, eyes blazing, claws drawn. We never stop fighting, even when this world is a forgotten spark.

Nearby, Lilibeth set down a woven basket of fresh indigo, lilac, and white blueberries. She'd probably give the bluest ones to the servants to bake into pies or cakes with buttercream icing. There was a smile on her lips, and her eyes sparkled like sunlight on a river. She found him standing against a stone wall, still ensconced in shade.

"Hello," she called, bounding over to him. "C-come out with me."

"I don't know if I can," he said. Just looking at the sun brought him pain. An iron hand squeezed at his black heart, and his bones splintered under the weight of forgotten memories.

"Listen to me," she said fiercely, the barest quiver in her voice, an acrobat dancing tentatively along a tightrope, trying to hold on, trying not to slip and falter. "Listen to me. The earth listens. The earth forgives. And if you do not have the strength to go out there, I will walk with you until the end."

Her dark mint eyes were brimming with hope, the first whisper of green spring upon a winter-white landscape, the promise to stir life from sleeping seeds. He could've sworn he saw forever in those eyes.

"Thank you," he said. And not just for this, but for . . . everything. "For being my friend." There—he'd said it. She could never be Kolzryrth, never fill that dark emptiness carved into his bones by grief's masterful hand. But she'd taught him the language of hope, of goodness.

And he couldn't call Beatha his friend, not really. He no longer saw her in his dreams, her broken body splayed out like a red-painted wooden soldier from the toy shop, her honey eyes wide and begging, a terrified girl afraid to die. Once, perhaps, she'd been his friend, in some fleeting moment of time.

He took one step out. The pain he felt was enough to kill a human man. He remembered the softness of dew-damp grass beneath his feet, the bright emerald shade it had possessed. The forest had once been so beautiful.

But it had taken one breath, one spark, and then the trees were screaming, the flames drawing blazing lines of light across the sky, tearing it open and drenching it in color.

For a moment, there was only silence.

He'd trained himself not to feel anything at all, but here he was, doubling over under the weight of his long-forgotten pain. He didn't know which pain was worse—the despair of the past or the ache for what would never happen.

"I'll walk with you," Lilibeth promised. "Until the end."

"End of what?" The end of his life, when he failed to save himself? Would she stay with him even as the world collapsed around him?

"The end of everything."

"I don't want you to see me like this."

"I don't care," she said. "I will see who you truly are, and I will not turn away."

He searched her face. No shadow flitted across it, no swift hint of deceit. He shook his head in shame and anger. Did he really think she'd lie to him? Was he so wary of the world that he thought this girl, who tried to see the goodness in others even when it wasn't there, would trick him?

Yes, she would truly walk with him, stay with him.

Open your wings, and never say no to the skies when they ask you to dance. Another one of the countless sayings that passed between the Fire-Dancers. He didn't know why it had passed through his mind all of a sudden. But it helped, somehow.

Let go, son, Father said. Let go of the earth. Fly free.

He was a dying tree, roots locked deep in the dark earth, spindly branches clawing at time, trying to catch more but always having it pass between his desperate, bark-coated fingers. Stepping into that light after an eternity of darkness would . . . help him.

But he felt cold fear slither into his bones through the cracks in his perfectly framed facade, curling up like a sleeping cat.

Let go, son. Embrace the wind, the sky, the earth we were born to tread on.

"Go on," Lilibeth said, her eyes deep and steady. Her shoulders were squared, a soft yet fiery girl who was learning to roar. "I'll go with you."

Birdsong twisted through the air like golden string spun from mirth and brightness. Beneath his feet lay the papery, near-white grass, a sea of bones. When would they return to the emerald shade they'd been years ago?

Sunlight warmed his scales. He was trembling as black panic crushed in, wrapping itself around his neck, choking him. It was winning.

And somehow, it was that terror, that terror of being left helpless, the terror of vulnerability, that stirred him to move. The shade reached for him, crying out, but their shadow fingers slipped on his scales. He wrenched himself from their grip.

The world had somehow grown more beautiful in his absence. Lilibeth turned him around, away from the white grass and empty landscape, wrecked by his own hand.

And the world he saw waiting beyond . . . it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his centuries of miserable existence.