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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

With no leaves or brush to dampen the sound, the river cutting through Cedar Haven Forest roared. Its waters were deep brown from all the tannins and red clay, and yellow foam bobbed in the eddies created by the boulders hidden below the surface. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve thought the river to be made of beer.

We tethered our horses at the top of the steep sawmill path and entered the Cedar Haven Forest on foot. Without rain or snow and the temperatures dipping to freezing every night, the path was hard beneath our feet. Where it broadened at the sawmill, the Brothers were instructed to stay and Ossian slung me onto his back.

The fae king took off through the forest, following the same deer paths my family and I had used to access the foraging grounds. This time, I didn’t hide my face from the wind. With eyes slitted, I watched the dreary colors of a wood on the verge of winter hibernation streak by in browns, grays, russets, and evergreen. Just as my thighs were beginning to ache, held tight against his ribs by his arms, Ossian slowed.

Titmice and chickadees fled at our arrival, twittering madly. A handful of blue jays cawed from the nearby trees—a warning for others to stay away. Ossian might be the King of Beasts, but they knew he wasn’t the benevolent sort.

Verdant green leaves and furrowed bark laced with faint silver light consumed my vision. The bright colors, especially contrasted against the deep blue of the sky, gathered tears at the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away, running my tongue over my lips and tasting their salt.

“Go on,” Ossian urged softly.

His hand on the small of my back gave me a gentle push in the direction of the green flames. They snapped and flickered at my approach, tensing. Once they recognized my magic signature—the source of their existence—they immediately parted to let me pass.

I’m sorry, I mouthed to the elm tree, and I extended my glowing hands to either side. A deal was a deal, and maybe if I was really, really lucky, the elm tree could withstand its consequences.

The green fire licked my fingertips, and it took only a thought from me and a pulse of magic from the oak tree to change their composition. The flames turned the yellow-green color of a Bartlett pear, and I stepped back with a bowed head.

Ossian sucked in a deep breath, chest filling, his eyes bright with excitement. Approaching the ring of fire, he tested the barrier with a soft touch. Grinning at the lack of response, the Stag Man swaggered through the flames, unscorched, and pressed both hands against the furrowed bark of the trunk.

The golden aura of his skin brightened like the dawn of a new day. The silver veining that followed the furrows of the barks began to pulse, stronger where he made contact with the trunk and weaker at the tree’s extremities. The leaves shivered in an unseen breeze, filling the air with a tst tst tst reminiscent of cicada wings .

The Stag Man took all he could withstand, panting from the exertion necessary to control the influx. His gemstones recharged—not that they needed much after one of Graham’s snakes. While his antlers did not regrow those tips that had been broken off, the copper stag hair that covered his lower half receded until sleek hipbones peaked beneath bronze skin. Any further, and the Stag Man would have to wear buckskin trousers for real instead of just for show. I looked away as perfectly sculpted butt cheeks began to take shape, loathing fate for creating a monster who was so beautiful.

And it wasn’t even against the natural order of things. There were beautiful creatures all over the world that were just as deadly as him by their very natures.

I didn’t have to like it, though.

Full, but not sated, the fae king backed away from the elm tree. His gaze was lifted towards its wide-sweeping branches in wonder. It was a selfish awe, his thoughts directed only on what this wild magic could provide for him rather than marveling at its sheer magnificence.

Turning, he beamed a smile and rejoined me on the other side of the pear-colored flames.

“A fantastic day,” he repeated, gripping my shoulders.

“I’ll echo that if I’m successful at mastering water.”

“Your sullen skepticism will not dampen my mood, love.” Bending down, he ravaged my mouth again.

He seemed to delight in forcing his affection on me, and while part of me considered telling him to soften up, the majority of me would not tolerate the suggestion. Every bruise (which healed fast, anyway) and every aggressive touch only reminded me that Ossian was everything Arthur wasn’t, despite what the stolen fated mate bond tried to tell me.

The fae king hummed as he broke the kiss, running his thumbs across my cheeks. “I still can’t get over how you taste like it. If only your grandmother hadn’t cursed your memories.”

My eyes dropped so I wouldn’t glare my disgust at him. If only my grandmother wasn’t locked up in your dungeon.

“She is behind us, Meadow Ní Violet, further today after you master water. Come.”

The ride back to the sawmill was faster, even though the land tracked uphill. Gnawing on the corner of my bottom lip, I wondered, even if I mastered every element, if I would be strong enough to challenge him. Everything would be easier if I just let him go home to Elfame, but I couldn’t let his crimes against the witches of this realm go unpunished.

Perhaps I would regret that decision, but the souls of the women I’d seen in the portal’s memories, the lives of my family, my friends, my Arthur, and the people of Redbud deserved their justice.

I would be enough to overcome him. I had to be.

Ossian hadn’t come to a full stop before I wiggled off him, straightening my clothes with a few purposeful tugs. “I’m ready.”

With a close-lipped smile, Ossian gestured to Alec. “Bring the bags.”

Alec, gritting his teeth after being demoted to pack mule, slung a burlap bag over each shoulder. Holding my hand, Ossian led the way down the river’s edge. It was one of the only parts of the river that had a bank, this one populated by small pale river rocks and shaded by cedars. One intrepid sycamore stretched near horizontal in its fight to gain the sunlight over the river, and upon its bench-like trunk, Ossian sat.

The leader of the Brotherhood deposited both burlap bags on the pine needles at the Stag Man’s feet, sent me a glower, and joined the other Brothers seated at the top of the bank.

“Head into the water,” Ossian instructed. “Your fire element will keep you warm.”

The pebbles crunched as I sat down to remove my boots and woolen socks. Then I tucked the hem of my dress into my belt, revealing legs that had lost a little of their color from not seeing much of the sun these last few weeks. With slow, sure-footed strides, I waded into the brisk water up to my calves.

Fire element or not, this water was cold .

The heart of the oak tree ignited red, flooding me with heat.

I shivered, this time with relief, and shifted my stance so I could keep one eye on the fae king and one on the coursing river.

“Water is power,” Ossian instructed. With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the boulders and the path of the river. “It cuts its own course, and when it can’t do that, it changes.” He lifted his eyes to the spray launching off the rocks and the trees that had fallen into the river. “It is willpower at its core, always driven to complete its purpose—a river reaching an ocean, a thunderstorm releasing its rain, blood infusing life into the body.

“As a green witch, you have some affinity for water already. It’s in the very cells of the plants you grow, though you rarely tap into it as the source of its growth. It pulls nutrients through stalks, makes vines supple.

“Imagine this river as a capillary in a tree,” Ossian said, rubbing his palm against a smooth gray patch of bark. “Command its flow. Become its willpower. You will achieve mastery when you can extract pure water from this muck and direct it wherever you wish.”

Bending down, he fished an apple out of the open burlap bag and crunched down. “Begin.”

“You’re not going to get the key out? ”

He shook his head, smirking past the bite of apple. “You won’t succeed so quickly, love, no offense. Do you know why it was easy for you to master earth and fire, besides ,” he added quickly, “your affinity for them because of your heritage?”

I shook my head.

“Because you can cooperate with them. The true essence of water has no master other than itself. Because of that, you must dominate it. Such an aggressive trait is against the natures of green and hearth witches. You rely on harmony, working with the earth to grow at your command, with fire to bake your little breads.”

No Hawthorne ever makes little bread , I bristled. Except for rolls and biscuits, but those were in a different category altogether.

“Don’t pout, love.”

Oh, that wasn’t a pout on my face. Not by a long shot.

“And don’t fret. You will succeed, and not because you must. You will because you are a primal witch. The potential is there—you need only unlock it.”

As much of an abusive, narcissistic tyrant as Ossian was, he did know how to inspire. It was easy to be seduced by his charismatic fervor and encouragement, to be pulled along by his unflappable confidence.

My gaze shifted to the river. To be seduced and pulled along to your death .

The rubies dangling from my ears jingled as I shook my head to clear my thoughts and scattered flickers of red light that disappeared in the muddy water. Closing my eyes, I grounded myself through my feet.

It was a joy to do that again, a sense of both freedom and connection that would’ve swept me away from my purpose had I let it.

Dragging my senses from my feet squishing into the silty soft riverbed, I focused instead on the water swirling around my legs. Eyes still closed, I adjusted my stance so I stood parallel to the flow and felt a uniform drag against my shins. A pull.

My magical perception slid into the water.

It diffused in both directions, following the twists and turns downstream easily and navigating the upstream like a salmon. In each, I felt the power Ossian had spoken of. The brutal force necessary to fight against it and the incredible drive it possessed to rush along its path.

It was . . . infinite.

My thoughts turned to the Atlantic Ocean I’d sometimes visit during the summer on Grandmother-approved outings. The tow of its tides. The depths of its seas. The sheer unfathomable vastness of it all.

I couldn’t master that vastness. I couldn’t even comprehend it. How could I understand the true essence of water if I could barely wrap my mind around it?

“Narrow it down,” I whispered. “Make it manageable.”

I was Violet’s heir. Violet, the sister to Mother Nature herself. Who knew primal magic better than them? Their knowledge was in my veins, waiting to be tapped.

And we obeyed one rule, the only rule governing Nature itself: growth.

Bending down, I cupped some water in my hands. It looked less like beer and more like the weakest of teas. Growth . This water was rich in nutrients. Even without them, it was important for every living thing on this planet.

It was nourishment. The power of life in every drop. Every molecule.

I thought back to the time in this very same forest when I’d battled the silver mallaithe tree. I had been protecting life by taking its. I had summoned the trees to absorb what water they could hold and for the rest to drain. How were my hands, my will, any different than that of a tree’s roots who drew the water out of the ground? Surely it wasn’t the water’s will to divert from whatever it was doing in the soil to be sucked up into a bean shoot or an olive tree.

Unless the power of life was its essence. Those scientists declaring life on Earth began in the water were probably doing so for a very good reason.

The water in my hands shivered, a response to the echo of the power I’d once commanded in desperation.

“Yes,” Ossian whispered.

Brow furrowed, I sought connection to the water. To that life. But it was slippery, as elusive as a fish. It didn’t manifest as something as concrete as a tree or a flame serpent. I supposed that was its nature—to evade capture and restraint and just grow —but thistle thorns if it wasn’t aggravating.

My magical perception slid around in the little pool created by my cupped palms, chasing after something I couldn’t even see. A handful of times I thought I’d grasped it, the water bubbling or rippling, but the control quickly slipped.

“C’mon,” I muttered. “C’mon.”

Life. Power. How hard were these two concepts to understand?

“I need a break,” I huffed, dropping my hands and opening my eyes.

I started when I realized the change in the angle of the sunlight. We’d been out here for hours; the sun was directly overhead. Behind me, at the top of the bank, three Brothers were asleep while Shane kept watch.

On his sycamore bench, Ossian seemed to be in the same position as when I’d closed my eyes. His large hands caged his knees, his back straight as if he were meditating. An expression of masked calm hid his disappointment.

Well, he wasn’t the only one .

“A break,” he asked, “or incentive?”

Rolling my eyes, I slogged out of the water. “I have plenty of incentive, Ossian. That portal won’t open without a charged key, and there’s that whole deadline of opening it three days before the winter solstice.”

“Perhaps it’s not enough.”

Tensing, I tracked the movement of his hand as he reached for his belt. It dipped into a smaller pouch this time and extracted a vial. Inside were what looked like immature strobili—tight cone-shaped seed pods, though these were a purplish gray in color. Unscrewing the top, he tapped three into his palm, reconsidered the count, and wiggled one back into the vial before returning it to his pouch. The two remaining strobili he threw into the water.

Then Ossian gave me a small smile that revealed nothing. Even when I lifted my eyebrows at him in a silent prompt for him to explain himself, he didn’t. Instead he bent down and retrieved one of the burlap sacks.

Well, at least this I understood. I planted my hands on my hips, mildly annoyed. “Withholding lunch won’t do it.”

“I didn’t think it would.” He stalked to the river’s edge and looked out over the churning water. “But perhaps this will.”

Ossian unknotted the ties and stuck his hand inside. With one fluid motion, he shucked the bag.

Gripped in his fist was the neck and scruff of a striped tomcat.

Between one blink and the next, the little cat came alive as some kind of paralytic spell lifted. With a yowl, eighteen claws unleashed themselves and slashed through the air. Fur bristled and amber eyes blazed, but the Stag Man’s grip was iron. He held the thrashing cat aloft as if he weighed no more than a pea.

Sawyer!

Magic rooted me to the ground even as my heart drove me forward. My fingers dug into my hips where they were perched to keep from shaking. Magic boiled beneath my skin, waiting to be unleashed. To protect what was mine.

Say something! I shouted at Sawyer. A spell. Anything!

But of course, without us bonded as true familiar and witch, he couldn’t hear my thoughts.

Wetting my lips, I cocked my head to the side and feigned indifference.

“A cat?” Misty Fields asked. “Why would a creature forbidden in your court spur me to do better?”

“You don’t know this cat?” The Stag Man’s jewel-bright eyes drilled into me, willing me to crack.

Only a perfect lie could protect both of us now. “Should I?”

“Caught him sneaking about this morning.”

“And should I know something about that too?” I asked, bored. “Ossian, whatever this is, wrap it up. I’m going to have lunch and then try again, okay?”

Frown lines appeared below his copper curls, his eyebrows bunching. “You really don’t know him.”

“I really don’t see why I need to repeat myself.”

“Huh,” he mused, lowering his hand. “Then you won’t care if I do this.”

The Stag Man hurled the cat into the river, the brown waters swallowing him like a stone.

“ Sawyer! ” I screamed.