“How?”

“Same way she cured you, I’d imagine.”

“I wasn’t dead for eight years.”

“Oh, I assure you I am still very much dead—”

I shook him one good time, and a flower broke off his shoulder and fell between us.

“Fine! Fine,” he relented. “Her magic, I would assume, is keeping me alive now, just like it’s keeping you human. But I can’t be sure because I’m no longer connected to the wood, and once you break the curse, I am going to die and you’ll be a fox again. Just like you wanted. You always liked running away from things.”

“You don’t know me.”

To that, he smiled, flashing sharp shark-like teeth. “Don’t I, Lorne?”

Lorne?

Where had I heard that name bef—

A needle of pain flared to life behind my eyes. Not again. With a wince, I let go of him and pressed my palm against my eye, watching the colors bloom under my eyelid, wishing that this wouldn’t happen now, of all times—

“You’re not supposed to be in here!” someone said from the entrance to the prison. The guards? Not now.

I could barely hear them over the high-pitched screech in my head.

Seren leaned against the cell bars. “I would suggest you run. They’re coming, you know. And everyone’s going to blame you.” Even his voice sounded too loud, knocking against the inside of my brain like a sledgehammer.

“Blame me—f-for what?”

As the guards came closer, the corpse repeated, “I honestly suggest you run.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I fought to push myself to my feet. I could barely see straight anymore. I doubled over, my hand covering my face. It felt like a hot poker had been shoved into my eyes. My head hurt so much I wanted to vomit.

Then there were images again. Memories, I now knew. They folded together like Daisy braiding her hair in the mornings, tastes and sounds and smells. A castle—the Sundermount? The tallest spire. A girl with golden hair—Anwen.

My—

My sister.

My father, gray beard and swept-back hair, handing me my first sword. A town—no, the village. The Village-in-the-Valley. Pressing my face against the flower shop window, seeing a girl with honey-colored hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose, smiling at me with a gap where she’s lost three teeth. Daisy. A lanky young man behind me—black hair and dark eyes, always smelling of horses and complaining of boredom. Playing in the wheat fields, studying with a gray-haired seneschal, an itchy purple uniform and a heavy circlet, looking into the mirror at—

At me.

I was—

I was back in the wood, hiding in a hollowed-out log. Thick, heavy mist hung in the forest. I was trembling. My trousers were dirty from crawling through the underbrush, my fingernails caked in mud.

“Where are you?” I heard Seren cry. He tore through the wood, his footsteps crinkling the fall leaves. “Princeling! You’re going to get me in so much trouble! Come out!”

I began to shout back—when I saw it again. The ancient. Moss-covered limbs and vine-strewn horns, creeping through the wood, hunting. I knew I should’ve told Seren to run, but I was too scared to move. If I warned him, then the ancient would find me—and I didn’t want it to find me.

“Hey! C’mon, where are you? We should leave before . . .”

I watched as his boots turned around and slowed to a stop to face the ancient. Then I couldn’t watch anymore. I buried my head in my arms, but I couldn’t block out Seren’s screams. I heard him fight and beg, and I stayed safely in my hiding hole, cowering. I didn’t even try to help. I just lay there, praying to every old god I knew, hoping the ancient wouldn’t find me, trying to block out my best friend’s voice.

I was a coward. I didn’t deserve to be a prince. I didn’t deserve to be human.

They were the words that kept repeating in my head, over and over again, as Seren screamed and fought—I was a coward. I didn’t deserve to be a prince. I didn’t deserve to be human.

I don’t deserve to be human.

I curled my fingers into my hair, my eyes burning with tears, and I tried to keep myself quiet as the ancient lifted Seren off the ground. Blood splattered across the leaves where his feet had been. I tried to keep my sobs in my chest.

I didn’t know how long I cowered there. It might have been minutes. Hours. An eternity.

I didn’t notice the fur sprouting from my skin, my nails blackening to claws, my teeth sharpening to points, until it was too late.

And by then, I didn’t remember my name at all.

But—I remembered it now, as I looked up at the flowering corpse, his long black hair tangled and wild, his leathers barely recognizable, ripped and punctured and too soft to protect him at all. He stared through the cell bars at me, waiting for me to see him—finally see him.

And I did.

“Seren.”

Something odd flickered across his face. Relief? Worry? “You . . . remember.”

Yes. I did.

The wood changed me. It turned me into a fox.

It protected me.

“You there! Turn around!” the guards cried behind me.

My hands tightened into fists, magic crackling at my fingertips. I swayed dizzily, but my head no longer hurt. It felt full and strange, memories lighting up in the dark parts of my head where I’d thought there was nothing. They came back to me slowly, like water through a siphon.

Seren leaned toward me, his eyes dark and gleaming. “Listen to me: Ancients are tearing through the gates. They’ll kill everyone—or turn them. You need to run.”

“But—Cerys—Daisy—”

Which was her name? Did I even deserve to call her anything?

“You couldn’t even save me—how do you think you’ll save her? Run. You’re best at that.”

Run.

He was right.

I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled down the corridor of prison cells. She would hate me—I hated myself.

I had to get out of here. I had to leave—

The guards followed me.

“Run, little princeling,” Seren’s voice echoed after me long after I’d torn into a sprint. I was faster than I’d been as a child, my legs longer, my body stronger—but I still felt like I couldn’t run fast enough.

35

Siege of the Ancients

Cerys

A SIREN SCREECHED across the city, followed by another and another. I watched as lights flared on in the windows of Voryn, families and children poking their heads out of their doors, as guards rushed down the many stairways toward the entrance.

There wasn’t just one ancient—there were many of them. All twisted forms of the old gods—a horse-sized hawk with bone wings, a wolf with poison ivy in its fur, all dark and twisted creatures that weren’t gods anymore, but monsters. And with them came bone-eaters that scaled the sides of the ramparts. Screams came from all over the city; I heard them from the top of the Grandmaster’s fortress. The creatures swarmed in like ants, and there was no stopping them. A black seed drifted down from the night sky and landed on the back of my hand. It shriveled and turned to ash.

The woodcurse. I could smell the seeds in the air—the bitterness like biting into an apple seed.

I stumbled to my feet.

“Petra!” I cried, racing off the rooftop and down into the fortress proper again. I found her in the next hallway, and she caught me quickly by the shoulders.

“Why are the sirens going?” she asked, fear furrowing her brow.

“Ancients—they’re at the gates. I think when Seren put on the crown, he called them,” I said, now realizing what he meant when he said they were coming.

They weren’t guards or Fox or the Grandmaster.

They were the nightmares.

Petra’s shoulders stiffened, and her hand went quickly to the dragon-hilted sword at her belt. “Do you know where it is?”

I nodded.

“Is it safe?”

“I think so—but I need to find Fox,” I added, and she followed me back to my room. The fortress had erupted into chaos, servants rushing toward a safe vault. Petra met Briath in the stairwell. She was crying.

“Bone-eaters are in the fortress!” the girl cried. “They’re going to kill us! One tried to—one came into my room! It—it tried to—it—”

“Shh, shh, you’re safe now,” Petra consoled her. She couldn’t both help me find Fox and get out of the city and protect her sister, and I didn’t want her to have to choose.

I fisted my hands and made the decision for her. “Go with her and make sure she’s safe—protect everyone else. I’ll go find Fox. And whatever you do, if you see black seeds, do not let them touch you.”

“Are you sure you can . . . ?” She hesitated.

I pulled a smile over my lips. “I’ll be fine.”

She didn’t look convinced at first, but then she nodded, took her sister by the hand, and followed the other evacuees. There was a stone door toward the back of the fortress—the kind that you trapped yourself behind when you had no other choice. They would be safe there. I had to find Fox, and we would get the crown and Vala and leave—and hopefully draw the ancients away with us.

I flew down the next flight of stairs and rushed back to my room, stumbling through the curtain, gasping for breath. “Fox! We need to get the crown and leave! The ancients—” My voice stopped in my throat. I stared around at the empty room. “. . . Fox?”

But he wasn’t here. His coat was gone, as were his shoes.

Oh, no.

I inched toward the bed and pulled up the edge of the mattress. The firelight caught the golden leaves of the crown. The anxiety wound tight in my middle loosened. It was still there, thank the old gods.

I took my old sash from the bottom of the wardrobe, tied it around my waist with the crown, like I had done in the wood, and ran out of my room. Fox wouldn’t have left without a reason—good or bad.

But I had a feeling I knew where he might have gone.