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“I will keep them close,” I promised. Hopefully I would know what to do with them, should I have need.

“Do that,” she advised. “And, Tamsyn. You’re stronger than you realize. Draw from that. Do not be afraid of your power.”

Do not be afraid of your power.

But I was. I was afraid of it. Afraid of me.

26

Fell

IFELT HER. I FELT THAT THREAD CONNECTING US, PULLINGtight on the air, taut as a wire on the verge of snapping, but somehow managing to keep us tethered.

The woods had become nearly impassable, so we walked single file, one after another, like a row of prisoners steadily working toward our fate.

It was late afternoon, the day not faded. And yet the sun could not reach the forest floor. Ribbons of dim light filtered down, allowing only faint illumination. It felt like dusk, solemn and gray, even though that was hours away.

“Fell,” Mari whispered hoarsely, as though she was parched, even though she carried a waterskin at her side. It was hard work forging through the endless copse.

“We’ve gone too far.”

Too far.

I had a flash of Tamsyn. Arkin’s smoking remains. The dragon.

We had passed the point of “too far” long ago.

Ignoring her, I pressed on through the dense undergrowth. I couldn’t explain it. Mari wouldn’t understand.Ididn’t understand it. She and the others would think I had lost my mind. And trying to make them understand would only be a waste of valuable time. Time that should be spent hunting, searching, finding Tamsyn.

The terrain became only more difficult. A wild tangle of treesand brush and foliage with great hanging drapes of moss nearly impossible to penetrate.

The forest crackled and pulsed and breathed, tracking us with watchful eyes. The air that filled my lungs smelled pungent—of ancient trees and decay, of musk and sulfur.

“So this is a bad idea, right?” Magnus muttered between panted breaths, more of a statement than a question.

He was not wrong. We were deep in the skog, deep in a marsh where we never ventured, a place we always avoided, but here I was, my palm alive and buzzing like a bee, guiding me, pulling me on.

I had traveled extensively through Penterra, but never directly into the skog. I had braved the edges before, toed the perimeter, but never the interior. Never had I gone into the belly of the beast.

Protecting the Borderlands was all about risk. No way around it. Every day there was some manner of challenge. Invaders from the north. Brigands from the north, the south. Brigands from the west, the east. The end of the Threshing had not been the end of conflict.

But this? Venturing into the skog was not the kind of risk I ever took. There was nothing needed in these dark, smothering woods. Nothing I needed to protect. Nothing I needed to claim.

Until now.

It was one of the few places left thoroughly untouched. The same as it was hundreds of years ago. A thousand years ago.

A perpetual night wood, deadly and magical, full of sounds that spit and hissed, tormented and beguiled. A living, breathing creature. A monster with fangs and claws that reached out and grabbed anyone who drew too close. Those who were foolish enough, unlucky enough to enter, were never sighted again. At least that was the rumor. And was there not always some fraction of truth to rumors?

But she was mine. My wife. My responsibility.

I still felt her heartbeat in the cup of my hand.In me.I glanced down, as though I could see through the leather of my glove to the vibrating mark there. It was as though she had enteredmethrough that wound as we stood in that chapel. A part of her lived in me now.

And as long as she lived, there was hope.

As long as there was hope, I would not abandon her.

I glanced back at my faithful companions. They didn’t have to die. They could still turn around and leave these plagued woods.