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Lore willed herself to focus on gathering moss and to ignore the sliver of deep brown skin that showed above his belt when he reached his arm up to sheathe his sword.

How did he lift a sword that size with one arm?

Apparently, the few words he’d spoken were more than he could handle. But still, she had to ask, “How did you find me?”

Finndryl didn’t reply, and she thought maybe he hadn’t heard her until he glanced back at her when she hissed. She thought this moss would make her wound feel better, but it was still burning. In fact, her side was on fire. She felt like someone was holding a torch to it and the wound was still bleeding freely.

Poison.

Suddenly, Finndryl was crouched in front of her. She tried to pull her dress down, but Finndryl wasn’t having that.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Something is wrong. Let me see.” He removed her hand from where she’d pressed the moss against her side and nudged her dress up a little higher. His frown deepened when the moss came away bright red, not a hint of its original green.

Lore swayed a little where she sat, feeling lightheaded. Fear tore through her, sharp and burning. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

“Take a deep breath. I can hear your heart pounding. If this is, indeed, poison, you need to slow your heart rate. The slower the better. That’s right, slow breath in. Then do the same when you release it. I passed a stream back there, so I’m going to lift you up and take you to it, all right?”

“All right.” Her reply came out as a hoarse whisper. Suddenly her mouth and throat were so dry she could barely swallow, let alone form words.

In one swift movement, Finndryl slid one arm beneath herknees, while the other supported her back. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help letting her head rest on his chest.

The world was fuzzy. The only thing keeping her awake was the fire in her side. It burned with every step they took toward the stream. He was trying to be careful, but she thought he must know how fast he had to go if he were going to get her there in time.

In time.The thought rocketed through her, but she refused to think about what would happen if he didn’t reach the stream soon.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew she was screaming, woken by a burning she’d never known before. She thrashed, trying to push whatever demon was causing this torment away from her, but the monster wouldn’t budge.

She cried out again. It felt like liquid fire was soaring through her veins, burning her up from the inside. This was it. This was her end.

A firm hand held her down, and no matter how much she pushed or clawed at it, it wouldn’t let her go free. She’d never known pain like this. She thought she would go mad before this fire finished consuming her body.

She cried out again as the fire increased in heat, though a moment ago she would have thought that impossible. She ground her teeth against the searing pain, praying for it to end.

Before she could pull air into her lungs to scream again, the fire eased and went out. She felt a moment of peace as a sweet coolness washed over her side. She whimpered.

Was she dead?

She opened her eyes and noticed a male fae rinsing his mouth out, again and again, then spitting back into the rushing water. She had a moment to be confused before her world turned black and she slept the deep sleep of the dead.

Chapter20

Lore dreamed of a stone house on the edge of a forbidden wood and a flower crown.

She remembered plucking each flower, splitting the stems, and twining them together. It wasn’t easy for her small, chubby fingers. Mama could weave a crown in a blink, but it took all of Lore’s concentration to thread the stems together without damaging the soft, delicate petals or breaking the stems.

Still, she worked diligently, only picking the most beautifulblossomsand making sure each was secure before moving on to the next. As she sat among the flowers, she wondered...

Are the woods really calling to me or is it just my imagination, like Mama says?

If it was her imagination, why did she often sleepwalk to the edge of the woods? Her parents had had to move the lock up high, so she couldn’t open the door in the middle of the night.

She was forbidden from entering the woods—everyone knew that to enter them was to call to death.

But even as Lore sat among the fragrant flowers and her face was warmed by the sunlight, her feet itched to take her past the tree line so she could walk among the ancient trees of the wildwood.

She longed to meet the monsters that lived there. To learn their tales and tell their stories, but she never dared disobey her parents.

She ignored the call of the shadows among the trees, and she worked. The dancing lights that collected in the shadows weren’t real. Mama said she had to stop pretending to see them. So, she ignored them, instead plucking, splitting, and weaving.