She was shuddering now in the cold and her fingers were numb. She gripped the belt buckle, but she could barely feel it. Aunt Léonie had spent six months braiding and rebraiding the leather before she was satisfied that the belt was strong enough protection for her apprentice.
It was too late to turn back. But she still said, “Tell me first. Is there a way to stop the Devourer?”
He stepped closer. “Yes.”
The metal bit at her fingers as she fumbled the clasp open. And then the belt fell to the ground, and she was standing unprotected before a forestborn, and her blood was pounding hot and ready.
“So tell me,” she said, and it felt like the world was whirling and creaking and falling apart around her. All her life she’d been traveling toward this moment where she wagered everything, and whatever happened, she would never be the same. “Tell me about the Devourer. All I need to know.”
“All you need to know,” he whispered, and his hands gently cupped her shoulders.
Then he slammed her against the nearest tree.
For a moment the pain dazed her. Then his mouth was pressed over hers and his tongue was forcing her lips open and sliding inside. It was a bizarre, helpless sensation, nothing like she’d heard kisses were supposed to be. She choked and tried to push him away, but he had her pinned.
Then he pulled back, and while she was still gasping for breath, he pressed his thumb to the base of her throat. From that one little point, fire seared throughout her body.
When she was aware again, she was lying crumpled on the snow. The forestborn stood over her, tall and remote and terrible.
“This is all you need to know,” he said. “You belong to our lord and master now. And you will kill for him before three days are up, or you will die.”
Her body was numb except for the throbbing pain of the mark on her neck. She knew what it looked like: an eight-pointed black star. If she killed somebody and became a bloodbound, it would turn crimson.
“You said,” she choked out, “that you would tell me how to stop him.”
“Yes,” said her forestborn. “The only way to stop him is with Durendal or Joyeuse, the swords of Tyr and Zisa. And those swords are lost forever.”
Then he was gone.
She lasted for nearly three days.
On the first day, she hid the mark under a scarf and tried to be brave.
On the second day, she crept into the village church, clutching her rosary, and begged the Dayspring for a miracle.
On the third day, she gave up and ran for Aunt Léonie’s house. The mark hurt so badly she could barely breathe. She didn’t care anymore how ashamed she was; she just wanted Aunt Léonie to comfort her. Surely she could help. Aunt Léonie had always been able to make everything all right.
Around her, the woods awoke. Shadows became deeper shadows, and eyes glimmered from their depths. Ghostly fawns leaped over tree roots and disappeared. The Great Forest was coming into being all around her, and soon she would be lost. Then she made the last turn, and she finally saw Aunt Léonie’s house. She sobbed in relief as she staggered to the door.
But she was too late.
The forestborn had gotten there first.
ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE LIVED A PRINCE AND a princess named Tyr and Zisa.
You have heard this. After a fashion, it is true. The people who lived before the sun and moon built no cities, crowned no kings, fought no wars. They stole from one darkened hollow to the next, listening to the wind, dreading the day when the lords of the forest would visit them.
When the forestborn did visit their mewling human flocks, sometimes they would choose favorites. Tyr and Zisa’s father was one of these: he had danced to the forestborn’s music and offered them his kin. In return, they had made him ruler of the tribe that huddled beside an icy black lake.
What it gained Tyr and Zisa was this: they knelt beside him when the forestborn came to visit. Every member of the tribe but their father watched them with silent fear. And when they were sixteen years old, they painted their faces with ocher and blood, and sat obediently as the forestborn came to decide which of them would become a forestborn, and which would be sacrificed as a vessel for the Devourer.
The forestborn stood in a ring about the twins and laid a sword between them. Whichever one first cut off the hand of the other would become the forestborn. Whichever was weak enough to be maimed would become the sacrifice. If neither fought, they both would die that instant.
Zisa would have gladly lost hands and feet and eyes and tongue for her brother. But she knew that if she waited for him to pick up the sword, he would refuse and die beside her, and his death was the one thing she could not endure.
So she picked up the sword and cut off his right hand.
1
Wind gusted down the twisting nighttime streets of Rocamadour, whipping up the soft rain into a lash. Crouched atop the house’s gable, Rachelle slitted her eyes against the sting and looked across the rooftops. There was no moonlight, but to Rachelle, the air gleamed with hidden currents, whorls and eddies of power unseen by normal human eyes. She could not only see the great hulk of the cathedral far off to her left, but also distinguish the silhouette of every gargoyle clinging to its spires. Three streets over, a carriage rattled homeward, and she could spot the individual spatters where the horse’s hooves struck mud.
And all around her, she could see the shadow of the Great Forest.
Something happened when cities grew large enough. When the labyrinths of their grimy cobblestone streets became as twisted as the interwoven branches of the forest canopy, the power of the Great Forest began to seep through. Ordinary humans might only have a vague feeling that there was something uncanny about the darkened streets. But Rachelle was bloodbound. Within the shadows of the buildings, she could see darker shadows cast by phantom leaves and branches. Within the whistle of the wind, she could hear the ghostly forest whispers.