Yet, how could he walk away from this? A chance to be immortal.
“There’s just one small thing I ask in return,” Aurora said, so softly he almost missed it.
Apollo immediately tensed. “What do you want?”
She slowly turned toward him, and for once there was nothing sweet in her expression. She looked wolfish in the moonlight, white teeth gleaming as she said, “I want you stop this nonsense about trying to kill Jacks. After tonight, you will clear his name of crimes and he will no longer be wanted or hunted.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then I cannot show you the Tree of Souls.” Aurora stopped walking as the path ended and they reached the misty in-between that led to the Cursed Forest. “Either you can have immortality or you can choose to hunt Jacks, who I actually doubt you’ll ever be able to kill—not as long as you’re human. You’ve sent a whole kingdom after him, and what have you come up with? Perhaps once you’re immortal, you’ll have a fighting chance. But I don’t want you to take that chance, which is why right now, you’ll swear in blood on your life never to harm Jacks.”
Apollo’s shoulders tensed. “Why do you want to save Jacks?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It is if you’re asking me not to kill him.” Apollo glared. “Did he bewitch you, too?”
Aurora bristled. “No one bewitches me. I’m a Valor.” She looked at him with all the haughtiness of a princess.
And this was exactly why Apollo had never liked princesses. Like Aurora, they often looked good on the outside, but so many of them were rotten at the core.
“If you’re worried about Jacks winning back Evangeline or taking her away from you, you don’t have to,” Aurora said. “I’ve already taken care of it.”
“How?”
“You don’t need to fret about that. I keep my secrets, just as I’ll keep everything between us secret. Now what will it be, Prince?”
Apollo knew he couldn’t walk away from this. His father had always told him to be more, and there was nothing more than immortal. He imagined that he could probably keep fighting Aurora about Jacks, but he doubted he’d win. Despite what Aurora had said, clearly Jacks had bewitched this girl, just as he had bewitched Evangeline. “After you take me to the tree, then I’ll swear in blood. But not before then.”
Aurora narrowed her eyes.
“You have my word,” Apollo said. “If I’m lying, you can tell the entire kingdom I took the memories of my wife.”
“Very well,” said Aurora. Then she was tossing petals again as she led Apollo deeper into the in-between.
“Why are you still doing that? It’s not raining here.”
“I do it because the forest likes it,” Aurora said. She tossed out several more petals, and as she did so, the ground beneath them glowed, lighting up more of the in-between.
“Is that where we’re going? Into the Cursed Forest?”
“Not if it can be avoided. You can reach the Tree of Souls by venturing to the other side of the forest. But there should be an old arch around here that can take us to the Tree of Souls quicker.” A crease formed between Aurora’s brows as she scanned the misty stretch of land. Finally she squeaked, “Found it!”
Apollo didn’t see anything except a patch of mist that looked darker than the rest.
Then Aurora tossed out more of her petals. This time she threw them high into the air, and as they hit the mist, they clung to it. Briefly the petals formed the outline of an arch, and then they seemed to melt and spread until the arch wasn’t just an outline but an actual structure made of glowing white marble.
Apollo had heard stories growing up that there were hidden arches in the North, but this was the first time he’d seen one of them.
He almost asked how Aurora knew it was here. But then he remembered that the Valors had built all the arches in the first place.
As the North’s ruling monarch, Apollo had a couple of arches of his own. One he’d used to dazzle the guests who’d attended Nocte Neverending. The other protected a very old phoenix tree. That one actually looked a little like this arch, as both were covered in curious magical symbols.
Aurora bit her lip as she looked over the symbols. Then she took one of her fingernails and jabbed it into her palm until it bled. She smeared the blood on the side of the arch.
“Good arch, please open and let us through to the Tree of Souls,” she said.
A second later, a door appeared, the same glowing white as the arch. The door opened to what looked like a tunnel, although it was too dark to properly see.
Aurora pulled out a match from within her cloak and struck it against the wall before dropping it to the ground. As soon as it fell, a row of fire spread along one wall in a fiery streak. She repeated the process with the other side until the cavern was lit bright as day by two outstretched lines of fire.
Aurora entered gracefully, humming as she strolled between the rows of flames. The air was hot and grew even warmer as they continued down the path, until the tunnel expanded into an enormous cavern formed of sparkling white granite ringed in the same fire as the tunnel.
Apollo could not see the sky, yet the cavern must have opened up to it, for ahead of them a perfect beam of moonlight illuminated the most colossal tree that Apollo had ever seen.
Although tree didn’t feel like quite the right word. Trees weren’t supposed to have heartbeats.
The bloodred trunk of this tree appeared to be pulsing. Beating. Apollo swore he could hear it as he drew closer. Thump . . . Thump . . . Thump . . .
And were those human faces carved into the trunk?
He thought he saw terrified eyes and twisted mouths frozen in the wood, as if people were trapped inside the tree, but it was a little difficult to be certain it wasn’t a trick of the flickering firelight.
The Tree of Souls was dotted with spiky burnished red leaves and full of branches the same bloodred color as the trunk. Some of the untamed branches crawled up toward the sky, while others grew outward and downward toward the ground.
When Apollo had first read about this tree in the scroll from Lord Slaughterwood, he’d thought it would be similar to his phoenix tree. Something enchanting and magical. He’d imagined a perfect place to pose for portraits—not that Apollo did that sort of thing anymore.
“It’s ugly,” he muttered.
Aurora shot him a scolding look. “Be careful what you say.”
“It’s just a tree,” Apollo said. But then he heard its heartbeat again. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It was beating faster now, eagerly, hungrily, bringing to mind Wolfric’s warning: I was also a fool to plant it in the first place. The Tree of Souls is evil.
It certainly didn’t feel good to Apollo.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared now,” said Aurora mockingly.
But Apollo noticed that although she had drawn close to the tree, she didn’t dare touch it.
“Do you plan on drinking from it as well?” he asked.
According to the scroll from Lord Slaughterwood, all Apollo had to do was pierce a branch and blood from the tree would pour forth. He then had to drink the blood straight from the tree, and immortality would be his.