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In order to be reborn, first you must die.

—S ELKOLLA

C ASSIA BLINKED IN THE FRIGID DARK. S HE WAS ON her back on a cold, hard surface. The skin on her face and hands felt tight, as if coated with dirt. The earthy scents of soil and moss mixed with the pungency of animal smells. She tried to sit up, but something held her fast. She looked down to see violet bands of light across her chest. Fury surged through her, burning away the sadness.

She turned her head to the side to assess her surroundings. Candles lit the room, some of them melting onto a long table covered in bottles, bowls, and vials. Next to her was a stone slab much like an altar, the kind she’d seen in drawings about sacrifices made to the Ancients. Wooden crates sat against one wall, some of them broken and spilling vegetables. It came to her in a rush of memory—picking up turnips and throwing them at Zeru.

She was in Selkolla’s workroom.

Her blood pumped with the need to fight her way free. She could try calling Zeru with the ring, but that would put him in danger.

“Awake? Your face must hurt.” Selkolla moved into view, staring down at her with eyes the green-gray of fog. “I had to pull you through the earth to avoid the tunnels. I would say I’m sorry for the scratches, but to my surprise, lies still stick in my throat. It seems I am still more Sylvan than I’d like to believe.”

Cassia could hardly think. She struggled against her bonds, but when she moved, shocks like bolts of lightning ran over her skin.

“Calm yourself,” Selkolla said. “My moss folk become excited by signs of fear. All that pumping blood. Their spirits have recently been cast into these new bodies, and some of them crave the life force they once had.”

A rustle of leaves and the scraping of twigs drew Cassia’s eyes to a dark corner. One of the moss creatures emerged from the shadows, staring at her with its cold pebble eyes. Its stick limbs made restless movements like branches touched by wind, its appearance so eerie, an icy chill inched up her neck. Her body trembled, overwhelmed by loss and terror. Voz was gone.

And her father had banished her. Pain arrowed through her as she imagined her future. A future without her family. The world suddenly felt too vast, her place in it insignificant.

But she had no future at all if she didn’t find a way out of here.

She took a breath and forced herself to think. “Selkolla, whatever you want, this isn’t the way to get it. Free me, and then we can talk.”

The Seer’s eyes held amused tolerance. “I have anticipated this moment for many years. I will not risk setting you free until we come to terms.” Her eyes fell on the ring, and she smiled.

“You want the Solis Gemma?” Cassia tried to stay calm. “But you were the one who said it can’t be taken by force without damaging its power.”

Selkolla moved to her worktable. “Correct. That is why I hoped the Dracu would be able to freely take the ring from you in Welkincaster.” She picked up a stone mortar, holding it with one hand while she gathered herbs. “It seemed a perfect opportunity. The two of you, once bonded by friendship, later connected by mutual hatred, alone in a place steeped in the lush magic of ancient revels.” She picked up a pestle and began crushing the herbs.

Cassia stared, almost forgetting the pain tearing through her body. The Seer didn’t seem to know her plan had worked, though it had taken her connection to Aril for her to see Zeru in a different light.

“At any rate,” the Seer went on matter-of-factly, as if they were having a pleasant conversation over tea and honey cakes, “if all had gone as planned, the Dracu would have been able to take back the ring. However, now that the ring has decided to give you its magic fully, I must adapt. You are part of my plans now, daughter of the forest. As perhaps fate intended for us all along.”

Cassia gave her a scornful look. “It’s easy to call things destined if you want them badly enough.”

Selkolla smiled, putting a sharp fingernail to Cassia’s chin. “Sometimes fate needs a push in the right direction. Your transformation had already begun when I found you. Don’t you feel it?” Her eyes shone with excitement. “You are becoming what you were meant to be from the moment you received the Solis Gemma.” She regarded Cassia with a soft look. “With my help, you will become something more than a mere steward of a forgotten realm.”

“Curse your help!” Strength pulsed through her limbs, a need to strike out that was only held in check by the stinging bonds around her chest and arms. Every part of her jolted with the need to smash her way free.

“The ring’s power is merging with your own, a gift given to one who wears it for long enough,” the Seer said.

Cassia recalled Gutel saying the ring would bond with her completely if she was strong enough to bear the magic. But she had no time to consider what that meant. The witch continued, watching Cassia’s face with a satisfaction that made her sick to her stomach.

“Even now, you grow stronger,” Selkolla said, “your ears keener, your eyes sharper. These are the stages of the transformation. Soon, your mind will become sluggish with the change, and you will be like a newborn babe, impressionable in every way.” She added something to her bowl, which made a spark fly into the air. “And I will make you my creature.”

Her creature? Cassia struggled, gasping as the bonds stung her. “Let me go, you Ancients-cursed witch!”

Selkolla continued stirring as she stared into the shadows. “In Welkincaster, the ring showed you its true nature. But it was not until you refused to let your father control you that you came into your power. How bitter for Silvanus that only by denouncing you has he made you into what he always wanted you to be.”

“And now you want to control me!” Cassia said through gritted teeth. “What do you want? There must be something.”

“There is no bargain you can offer.” The moon-orb eyes shone with a burning significance. “Your father took something so precious to me, I can only restore what I lost with what is most precious to him.”

“You heard my father banish me,” Cassia said sharply. “How precious could I be to him?”

Selkolla’s expression became almost sad. “I speak of the ring. When its magic broke your father, it was lost to our kind.”

“What do you mean?” Cassia whispered, unable to stem her curiosity even now.

“In wielding it as a weapon, he took too much from himself. It was killing him.” Selkolla leaned forward. “I wish it had.”

Cassia stopped struggling, struck by memories of Gutel’s account of the Deathringer. A horned champion who had wielded the ring in the Ancient Wars. She had told herself that meant it hadn’t been a Sylvan. But she knew that the word for “antlers” and “horns” was the same in Old Sylvan. “You mean…?”

“You didn’t know?” Selkolla asked softly. “Silvanus has tried to bury that history. Your father and I were both young, both eager to prove ourselves to the Ancients. Silvanus was the Deathringer, Solis’s champion. I fought for Noctua, using the power of the forest. Silvanus saw that he needed the forest on his side. He slew my moss folk to strengthen the hostile spirits he had trapped in the trees.” The Seer’s eyes were dark with pain. “The moss folk were my children. And he wiped them from this land. I have worked all this time to find a way to bring them back. It is not revenge I seek. It is restitution.”

Cassia’s stomach roiled. She wanted to refute the Seer’s claims. Her father had saved the Sylvans from certain extinction, and he protected every forest creature and the forest itself. That was his role and identity. Not a murderer of innocents.

But she remembered the way his eyes glowed with anticipation when he’d first seen the ring on her finger. The certainty he’d had that it was a weapon. How angry he’d been when she hadn’t immediately mastered its use, as if it should have been obvious. Perhaps it had been obvious to him.

“When it was done, he controlled the forest,” Selkolla went on. “But it nearly cost him his life. Perhaps the ring took too much from him in the end.” She stared into the distance as if remembering. “I never knew who took the Solis Gemma from him, only that it came here, to the Cryptlands. I followed but was unable to trace its exact location. A faint hum of energy, but no more. On the night Zeru gave you the ring, I felt the moment it was on your hand. I told the queen, and we followed the trail of magic to find you. But too late. Silvanus must have felt the same surge of power, reaching you before the queen’s vassals could kill you and take the ring. All these years, I have maintained a connection to Zeru, knowing he would turn to me for help in the ring’s retrieval. And he did.” She smiled. “Now you will use the same artifact that killed my children to bring them back and make them whole.”

Cassia breathed heavily, wishing more than ever that she was free, craving time and space to think about everything she’d learned. “The ring can make plants grow,” she tried to say calmly. “It can’t… bring people back from the dead. You want something impossible.”

“Why impossible?” Selkolla asked, her eyes glowing with a yellow light. “I’ve created bodies from the forest and tethered those bodies to spirits. The ring will merge plant and spirit together to make them truly awake. I’m giving you a chance to create life!”

Cassia hadn’t forgotten what the elder Huntsman had said about scuccas. They were abominations that stole life force from the forest to trap spirits in material objects. She wondered if Selkolla had used the spirits of trees to create her “moss folk.” These sticks and pebbles with no roots to take up water, no leaves to soak up sun. Xoden had said that trapped spirits craved blood because they didn’t have enough life force of their own. They were not alive and couldn’t be brought to life.

But she was losing hope that she was dealing with a rational being. Selkolla had a mother’s grief and a fanatic’s determination. And while Cassia might wish she could fix her father’s past atrocities, she knew she could not do this.

“If I could help you bring them back, I would,” Cassia said, meaning every word. “But the spirits you’ve harnessed… they aren’t moss folk spirits. Are they? Which means they don’t belong in those bodies. You can’t bring them back because it’s not them .”

That seemed to hit a nerve. The Seer drew up taller, her nostrils flaring. “Enough. I had hoped you would share my vision, but I should have known better. You are your father’s daughter. I have given you a choice, and you have chosen wrongly. I will have to take control.”

The Seer moved to a metal cage in one corner and grasped a squealing rat by its tail. With deft movements, she placed it on her worktable and picked up a knife, stabbing the animal through the heart. Cassia’s gorge rose as the Seer poured the rat’s blood into a copper bowl, making violaceous smoke spiral from the brew.

“Wait,” Cassia said. “Selkolla, we haven’t discussed a bargain.”

Ignoring her, Selkolla moved back toward her with the bowl, pouring the foul mixture over Cassia’s neck and down to her abdomen. With a few chanted words, she sprinkled something on top. Numbness spread from where the potion touched her. In a few moments, Cassia couldn’t feel her limbs.

Her heart struck wildly against her ribs, every impulse begging her to fight, to run. But she was as trapped as if she were dead and buried. Desperation made her reach out with all her will. Zeru!

She felt no response. She had no way of knowing if he’d heard her silent cry.

“If I die,” Cassia said, feeling the numbness creep up her neck, “the gemstone’s power will be broken.” She stared into Selkolla’s eyes, trying to find some vestige of the Sylvan she must have been before grief had twisted her into what she was now.

“If your death were permanent, perhaps,” the Seer replied. “But I will give you new life before your last breath leaves your mouth.”

As her intentions became clear, Cassia’s heart slammed so hard, she thought it might burst. Selkolla planned to make her a scucca, one of those puppets with lifeless eyes. Her body would be alive, but her spirit, her self , would be gone.

“Don’t do this! Sel—” The numbness reached her throat, freezing her words. There was only one thing she had left, and that was the ring. She tried to summon images of growth and life despite the scents of death all around her.

“You will obey me in all things,” the Seer chanted. “As devoted as you were to the Sylvan king, now you will be dutiful to me.”

Though Cassia couldn’t see her hand, there was no sense of power from the Solis Gemma. Maybe the Seer was preventing her from using it. Or maybe she was too scared, too grieved to feel what she needed to power the ring. Her eyes filled with frustrated tears as a tingling covered her body. Every drop of blood rushed headlong through her veins, chasing something elusively out of reach. She no longer felt in control of herself.

Selkolla leaned over and chanted, “I order you to forget. Forget your home, your family, your past, your very name.”

Cassia struggled in her mind. No! She wanted to put her hands over her ears, but she couldn’t move. She listed the names of her sisters as a defense. Enora—

“Obey me,” the Seer said, her voice drowning out all thought. “Dutiful girl, do as you’re told. Safety lies in obedience. Obey me, and you will be safe.”

Thea—

“Empty your mind of all things but this: I am your master, and you must obey.”

Rozie—

Selkolla waved a burning herb above Cassia’s forehead. “I purify your mind. I claim your thoughts. Your very self. You will pledge yourself to me, think only the thoughts I give you, and revel in my orders. Forget all others.”

Zeru! Zeru!

“Forget all but me.”

She couldn’t help but obey. Cassia’s last memory was an image of green eyes.

Without warning, Selkolla lifted a knife and plunged it into Cassia’s heart. Her body became pain. Shock made her rise from the table against the sizzling bonds. Her heart slowed, each beat a last, desperate bid for life. Her thoughts narrowed to one: This Seer’s face was the last face she would see.

She closed her eyes.

Her mind emptied.

“And now you are one of my obedient children,” the woman said. “I release you from your bonds. Show me your obedience now, Sylvan girl, and call me what I am: Mother .”

Opening her eyes, she found she could see every corner, every crack in the stone walls. She sat up and looked at her hands. Her skin was dotted with tiny gold specks. Her fingers were tipped with short claws. She felt something against her back and reached a hand to touch her shoulder.

Feathers. She flexed and felt the feathers move. Wings.

“You are not what I intended,” Selkolla said, “but perhaps you will do. Girl, tell me your name. Who are you?”

She searched her thoughts. My name… She shook her head.

“From this moment, you have no name,” the woman said. “I am Selkolla, your mother and the Seer who is your master. Look at my face.”

The Seer’s eyes were like twin moons above a cloud as she said, “You will obey me in all things. My enemies seek to kill me and my children. You must destroy everyone who tries to hurt us. Do you understand?”

She nodded to show she understood.

Mother smiled. “Good.”