The Lord Under brushes past me, the ends of his cloak stirring against my skirts. “Come on,” he calls over his shoulder. “We’re almost there.”
We go farther into the forest, the trees lengthening as the path slopes deeper down. Soon the landscape begins to change, and there are stones among the trees. Tall, granite pillars covered with bright green moss. Mist traces through the air and over my skin.
The cold sinks into me, and everything is dark—there are none of the glass mothlights here. Each step we take stirs up grayish dust, like fireplace ash. It plumes into clouds that stick to my dress and my skin. The air—still cold—turns acrid. I cough and press my sleeve across my mouth. It hurts to breathe. “Where are you taking me?”
The Lord Under doesn’t look back. “To the wound.”
The path ends, and the forest thins into an open grove. At the edge are four trees, their crimson bark charred, most of their leaves burned away. They’re hurt. I press my hand against one of the trunks, trying to feel the whisper of the soul beneath. It’s different from the voice I heard from within the other tree. This one sounds faint and lost and frightened.
“What happened here?” I murmur beside the ruined trunk. “What happened to you?”
The Lord Under watches me with a curious expression. As though he’s set me a test and now isn’t sure if he wants me to succeed or fail.
I ignore him and press my cheek against the bark. I close my eyes as I strain to listen. The forest hums and pulses all around me, so full of power that it’s impossible to comprehend. The soul speaks to me, but what I hear aren’t words. There’s a voice, intangible—alive and not alive. A heavy weight, a sense of something that I can barely shape in my mind, let alone name.
I press myself closer, the bark scratching my skin. And then I catch a flash of scattered, frantic images. A tree house beneath a pomegranate bower. A cake shaped like a crescent moon. A hand curled over a shoulder. Whispers in the dark. Confusion that gives way to slow, creeping dread.
Then blood and fear and water, endless water.
Everything sways dizzily. It’s Elan I’ve heard, echoes from his soul.
“This is Rowan’s family.” The half-ruined trees. Four of them. Rowan’s parents and his brother, and the last tree left empty and waiting. I scrub my hands against my face. Try to catch my breath.
“I told you my world was hurt, too.” The Lord Under gestures to the ashen space where we stand. “Look around you, Violeta. This is what the Corruption has done.”
My heart beats wildly, and I stumble forward, past the heartwoods that hold Rowan’s family, into the grove. Here, the forest is blackened and bare. The trees are torn open, with leafless branches that stretch across the sky like desperate hands. I touch the nearest trunk. Beneath my palm, the bark is blistered, cracked, and rough. And it’s quiet. There’s no song, no pulse. “They’re—”
“Gone. The souls within are destroyed, completely lost. And it will happen to the others, to the whole forest, if you don’t mend it.” He points upward. “You can see it, Violeta. You know what must be done.”
I stare up in wordless horror. In the canopy above the clearing, the air is dark, full of heavy shadows that shift and churn between the branches. I’ve seen the darkness on the shore. I’ve seen the darkness turn Rowan into a monster. I’ve seen it fed and felt the endlessness of its hunger. And now I stand beneath its heart.
It seethes and writhes, an open, poisoned wound. It calls to me. A sound of despair and fury and depthless want. It knows me. Knows the taste of my power, the heat of my magic, the feel of my palms against the mud.
Darkness trails down over the trees, and I realize the Corruption has woken again on the shore above. I picture Arien with his hands sunk in the earth, fighting alongside Clover to hold it back. Rowan, poison filling his veins until there is only darkness left. This has to end now.
I rush toward the center of the clearing, where there’s a circle of granite stones—like the stones that ringed the Summersend bonfire in the village. I slip as I scramble over, scrape one hand and both knees. Hurriedly, I sketch a sigil on the ground inside the stones, repeating the names of the symbols under my breath as I move across the ashen ground. When I’m done, the lines are blurred and unsteady, nowhere near as tidy as what Clover would mark.
I clean my hands against my skirts and step forward quickly to stand at the center. But before I start to cast the spell, I glance back to the Lord Under. He waits outside the stones, back beneath the ruined trees. He’s watching me intently.