Page 45

ASH

The forest has it out for me.

Branches whip across my face like backhands, leaving welts that sting worse than pride. Roots reach up like gnarled fingers, hooking my ankles with the precision of practiced torturers. My bare feet squelch through mud that’s definitely plotting against my dignity.

“Fucking trees,” I mutter, shoving aside a particularly aggressive pine branch. “Fucking magic. Fucking seeds burning into people’s hands.”

A low branch catches my hair, yanking hard enough to bring tears to my eyes.

“And fuck you too, Smokey the Bear!”

My voice echoes through darkening pines. When I turn around, something golden hovers directly in front of me—close enough that I can feel warmth radiating from its tiny form.

“FUCK!” I stumble backward, nearly tripping over a root. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Language, language!” the golden orb chirps with obvious delight. “Though the passion is noted and appreciated!”

Lightning races down my vertebrae as I glare at the floating light. “Whispen?”

“The one and only!” He bobs in what might be a bow. “Following you through this delightful tantrum like the devoted soul-keeper I am!”

I want to squeeze the blue out of his little balloon form.

“Should I add anger management to your lesson plan? Or perhaps basic forest navigation for the directionally challenged?” he chirps in that sing-song cadence that makes me want to swat him like a mosquito.

I whip around to glare at him. “You could help instead of floating there like a sparkly cheerleader. Just saying.”

“Could I? Hmm. Yes, technically possible it is. But also technically not allowed until you ask the proper questions, yes yes.”

“What proper questions?”

“Ah, that would be telling! The ancient magic is particular about protocol, root-born. Cannot guide what won’t acknowledge it needs guiding, no no.”

Something snaps in my chest like a wire under too much tension.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

The scream tears from my lungs with enough force to send birds exploding from nearby trees. Squirrels drop acorns. Something large crashes through distant underbrush, fleeing the sound of my complete psychological breakdown.

Whispen’s response is immediate and equally deafening:

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

His golden light strobes like a rave gone wrong, his tiny voice somehow matching my volume despite his size.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU SCREAMING FOR?” I shriek.

“SEEMED LIKE THE THING TO DO!” he shrieks back, his light pulsing frantically. “VERY THERAPEUTIC! GOOD FOR RELEASING TENSIONS!”

“STOP SCREAMING!”

“YOU STOP SCREAMING!”

“I STOPPED FIRST!”

“NO, I STOPPED FIRST!”

I clamp my hands over my ears, breathing hard. “Christ, speak like a normal person!”

“But I am not a normal person,” he says, his voice suddenly shifting—less sing-song, more... real. “I am not a person at all.”

As he speaks, his golden-blue light begins to shift and condense.

Golden light bleeds together like melting wax, condensing into the shape of a boy who died too young.

Translucent skin reveals veins of starlight.

Pointed ears sharp enough to draw blood.

Teeth like surgical needles designed for precision cutting.

“Better?” he asks, tilting his head.

I stare at him, mouth hanging open. “What the actual fuck.”

“Language, your majesty,” he chides, but his grin reveals all those needle-sharp teeth. “Though I appreciate the passion.”

“I’m not royal anything!” The lie hits my throat like poison, windpipe slamming shut like a bear trap. Thorns erupt beneath my skin, each one a white-hot needle rejecting the bullshit. Black spots bloom across my vision as oxygen evacuates my lungs.

“Your body seems to disagree,” Whispen observes mildly.

I bend over, hands on my knees, gasping until the truth constraint releases its stranglehold. “Right. So I’m a magical plant baby with anger management issues. That’s not fucked up at all.”

“Reality often is. Particularly the magical bits.”

Twilight settles over the forest like a predator’s cloak. The cheerful afternoon birdsong cuts off abruptly, replaced by sounds I don’t recognize. Skittering. Clicking. Something that might be laughter but pitched wrong for human throats.

My spine turns to ice. We’re not alone anymore.

“Whispen.” I straighten slowly, scanning the deepening shadows. “What comes out at night in Fae forests?”

“Oh, many things!” His tone stays disgustingly cheerful. “Shadow-weavers who hunt by sound. Bone-singers who mimic human voices. Thorn-cats with claws like razors. Blood-moths the size of dinner plates.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“He’s not available for consultation, I’m afraid. Different pantheon entirely.”

Eyes kindle in the darkness like dying embers—dozens of them, blinking in patterns that suggest intelligence, hunger, and something worse than both. They don’t just watch. They calculate. Measure. Price out my meat by the pound.

Not to mention the silence. Every creature holds its breath. Frogs, birds, crickets. Nothing stirs. Nothing chirps.

Adrenaline floods my bloodstream as combat training kicks in. Assess threats. Plan escape routes. Identify weapons.

Except there are no escape routes. No weapons except a knife that felt like touching molten metal earlier. And threats that don’t follow any tactical manual ever written.

And I’m still barefoot.

“Whispen,” I say carefully, “why aren’t they attacking?”

“Protocol.” He drifts closer, his light dimming to avoid attracting attention. “Nocturnal hunters must wait for royal blood to claim territory or submit to being prey.”

“Royal blood.” The words taste like copper and destiny. “You mean...”

“I mean you get to choose. Claim this space as yours by right of bloodline, or...” He trails off meaningfully.

“Or become dinner.”

“Such a colorful way to phrase potential mortality!”

More eyes appear. A sound drifts through the air—sobbing, like a lost child. Except it’s coming from something with too many teeth.

My hands shake as the circle of predators tightens.

“Fantastic. Twenty-eight years of therapy, and it turns out my abandonment issues are actually destiny. Perfect.”

“No one asks for what fate deems necessary,” he replies softly.

I clench my teeth and look to the sky, where blue and purple swirl together as though even the universe here breathes. “I’m supposed to be a combat instructor. That’s it.”

“Ah, but you were never just that.” He floats closer. “And you’ve always known.”

Always known.

That I was more than human. I’ve spent a lifetime on Earth believing that was it for me. Unhappiness in my own skin. Yet here I finally feel alive.

And all I have to do is claim it.

“I never wanted this.” The words tear from my throat.

“Ashlynne,” Whispen smiles with all those pointy teeth. “This is your destiny.”

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 screams run , 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 knows it 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.

But instead of terror, something else rises in my chest. Something that tastes like moonlight and smells like wild storms.

Territorial fury.