Page 93

Story: Ashes to Ashes

I nearly choke on the bullshit response.

“Decide soon,” Whispen whispers. “The forest dwellers look hangry. I’ve seen them gulp whole humans in one bite.”

“There has to be a way to claim territory without becoming monster chow,” I say, proud that my voice stays steady.

“Wrong question, root-born.”

“What’s the right fucking question?”

“You’re getting warmer!”

The sobbing grows louder. Closer. Something brushes against my ankle through the underbrush, and I jump backward with a strangled yelp.

“Whispen, I swear to God?—”

“Wrong deity, but excellent passion!”

A shadow detaches from a nearby tree. Humanoid but wrong—limbs too long, joints bending the wrong direction. Its mouth opens to release that heartbreaking child’s cry while revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth.

Every instinct screamsrun, but there’s nowhere to go. The circle of eyes has closed, predators moving with coordinated patience.

My throat seizes with another truth constraint. Can’t lie. Can’t pretend. Can’t maintain the fiction that’s kept me functioning for twenty-eight years.

The thing wearing a child’s cry steps closer. Close enough that I smell its breath—rot and old bones and things that died screaming.

Fuck it.

“WHISPEN!” The name tears from my lungs with enough force to rattle pine needles. “WHAT THE HELL AM I?”

Silence falls like a hammer blow.

Every predator freezes. Every eye focuses on me with sudden, terrible interest.

And Whispen’s golden light explodes into brilliant relief.

“Finally!” he crows, zooming in delighted circles. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask the right question?”

“Answer it!” I shriek as something with wet breathing starts climbing down a tree directly above my head.

“Your true name...” Whispen’s voice drops to barely a whisper, his golden light dimming. “Ashlynne Moonshadow. Last breath of a murdered bloodline, grown from bone and soil and royal sacrifice.”

The name hits my DNA like a key turning in an ancient lock.

“But listen well, root-born.” His teenage face turns deadly serious. “That name is yours alone to guard. Anyone who knowsit can command you, bind you, control you completely. Let them call you Ash, Professor Morgan, anything else.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Because you need to know what and who you are,” he says simply. “But keep it locked away. Let them call you Ash, Professor Morgan, anything else. Your true name is yours alone to guard.”

The words slam through my nervous system like electric current. Royal bloodline. Wild Court. Heir.

The thorns beneath my skin don’t just pulse—they blaze. Ancient knowledge unspools through my DNA like code finally allowed to run. I know things I’ve never learned. Remember ceremonies I’ve never attended. Feel the vast network of root and branch and growing things that spans continents.

“That’s impossible,” I whisper.

“Is it?” Whispen asks gently. “Or have you been fighting truth so hard you forgot how to recognize it?”

The thing above me drops, landing between the trees like a liquid menace.

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