Page 174 of Evil Hearts

Chapter 1

T he stories didn’t do the forest justice. They called it cursed, haunted, a place where the shadows grew teeth and the trees whispered your name. But as I pushed through the underbrush, I realized the truth was worse than any tale I’d heard.

The air was heavier here, thick with the scent of damp earth and decay, and the trees twisted unnaturally, their branches clawing at the sky like skeletal fingers. The further I went, the quieter the world became—no rustling leaves, no chirping crickets. Just silence. And her song.

I stopped and closed my eyes, the melody washing over me. It wasn’t loud, but it didn’t need to be. It curled through the air, soft and mournful, pressing against my chest like it was trying to wring the breath from my lungs. The stories had said the Harpy’s voice could drive a man mad, that it burrowed into your head and stayed there, whispering until you couldn’t tell your own thoughts from hers.

I didn’t believe in bedtime stories, but this? This was something else entirely. It wasn’t just a song—it was a voice. A voice so beautiful that it shouldn’t exist in the natural world. It pulled me forward like a string around my throat.

I hadn’t come this far to turn back now.

The song grew louder as I climbed, no longer a distant echo but something closer, pressing against my ears like the pulse of a second heartbeat. My boots scraped against the jagged rocks, every step a little less sure than the last. The trees thinned here, giving way to bare stone that gleamed faintly under the moonlight.

And then I saw her.

She perched high above, balanced on the crumbling edge of a stone pillar that jutted out of the rock like the spine of some ancient beast. Her wings stretched wide, their feathers shimmering like molten obsidian, alive with shifting light. Her talons clicked softly against the stone as she shifted, her glowing eyes fixed on me with an intensity that froze the breath in my lungs.

I didn’t move. Hell, I wasn’t sure I could.