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That is not a sight you see every day.

I drop my sword, and together with my guards, I pull out the coughing soldier from the heart of the tree.

He pants, pulling off fine, spindly roots that seem to have wedged their wayunderhis skin and into his veins.

“Thank you,” he wheezes to his comrades, clasping one of them on the shoulder. His eyes move over the group until they find me.

The rescued guard gets up, dusting dirt and bark off himself. He kneels before me, taking my hand and pressing it to his forehead. “I owe you more than just my allegiance, my queen. I vow that as long as I live, my shield and my sword will protect you. My life is yours.”

Chapter 47

The oak we hacked into is making strange wheezing noises, and its neighbors have quieted for the moment. The vines that once entrapped the soldier now roll up into the tree’s core, withering away.

The soldiers, meanwhile, are tending to their comrade, leaving me to assess what exactly just happened.

A voice called to me, I saw Des’s likeness, and then two soldiers disappeared: one we recovered and the other still missing. The sequence of events is hauntingly similar to the tales that have been coming in.

I turn to the other trees that surround us. Never have I been so sick of the color green in my life.

But green isn’t the only color in this forest. Dark blood drips down many of the branches around me, turning the sacred wood into something macabre, something I’d be more likely to see on Memnos, the Land of Nightmares.

An ungodly thought hits me.

The men who are missing…

I stride over to where I dropped the soldier’s sword. Picking it up again, I head to a particularly bloody tree several feet away. Once more, I lift the weapon.

“My lady,” the female soldier calls after me, “cutting one tree to save a soldier is bad enough. To cut down another will be seen as an act of war.”

Too bad for Mara, she already swore an oath of peace with Des’s kingdom.

“I don’t give a fuck what the Flora Queen sees this as.”

I roll my neck and then pull the sword back and take a swing. The blade embeds itself into the thick trunk, something warm and wet spraying from the wound.

The tree screams—the sound like a pig squealing—as I cut into it.

I yank the blade out of the bark. From the gash, blood oozes.

Bleeding trees. What a grisly, grisly sight.

No one else dares to join me, though they all avidly watch.

I swing again and again, ignoring the strain in my arms. Each successive blow cracks a bit more of the bark, spraying shards of wood and bits of blood. The tree continues to shriek, its canopy rustling.

I’m covered in gore. It speckles my hair and paints my face, reminding me of that fateful night years and years ago when I stood up to my stepfather…and watched him die.

Slowly but surely, the hardened bark of the oak gives way to its soft core. I begin using my claws to rip it away, studiously ignoring the fact my hands are now coated with blood. With one final rip, I unearth exactly what I feared.

In the heart of the tree, covered in gore and a web of roots, is a sleeping man.

Like this whole outing, it’s downright spooky. I’m staring into the face of a man who’s been missing for who knows how long, his arms crossed over his chest as though someone laid him out.

Unlike the Night soldier we just retrieved, this man looks like he’s been here a particularly long time. The vines wrapped around him have now fused together, and his long hair is matted to his skin.

Whatever color his uniform originally was, it’s now crimson, steeped in blood. But I don’t need to make out the color of his uniform to figure out which kingdom he belongs to. The curving ibex horns indicate he’s a Fauna solider.

“There’s a tree-cutting party, and I wasn’t invited?” a familiar voice says at my back.