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Chapter forty-eight

Riselda unstopped a tiny vial of thickened, gold liquid. She inhaled, filling her lungs with a smile. “Ahh. Jasmine is one of my favorite scents.” She held it from her.

The chain clanked loudly against the floor as Lux scrambled away. “Don’t bring that stuff near me!”

“Relax. You’ll ruin your disposition, and I don’t have all the ingredients here to clear it. This requires more than just a sniff or touch of your fingertips to activate the disease.” She replaced the stopper all the same. “My last vial. But it looks like it will go unused. Same for the rat. Though I suppose the howlers won’t mind its unleashing.”

“And here I thought they were some sort of pet.”

Riselda laughed. Truer to herself, low and melodic. “Hardly. They ingest the vial’s contents, I speak a carefully crafted incantation over it, and then release them into the streets. More so the alleys, if you’re truly interested. From there, nature’s way carries it on.” A drawn pause. Riselda must have sensed her confusion. “Fleas, darling. They love rats. And they love the filthy beds of Ghadra’s poor just as well.”

“It’s blood-borne?”

“At first. The boils, as I’ve told you, shouldn’t be touched either.”

“You harvested their lifeblood in the clearing. Before the trees claimed them.” Lux spoke more to herself than Riselda as her mind whirled with what lengths this woman had gone to.

“Indeed. You’ve been spying on my whereabouts for some time, haven’t you? I shouldn’t be surprised.” Riselda smiled, affectionately, despite the chain currently leading from Lux’s ankle and Lux having nearly killed her hours ago. She sighed, content. “I’m sincerely delighted I don’t have to argue with that doddering, old alchemist any longer. One well-placed knock to the head, and poof! Dead. Are you ready? We won’t want to disappoint. The main act simply wouldn’t be the same.”

Lux rubbed her temples, still unsure whether any of this was reality. “And why is that?”

“Let me show you.”

Beyond the cottage, the trunks of the trees were black as midnight, looming and petrifying in what they were capable of. Riselda caressed the bark, greeting an old friend, and it shuddered, its branches curling inward in welcome. It didn’t wrap invisible claws upon her wrist. It didn’t yawn wide, threatening to consume her.

“I was still very young when I transplanted that first seedling from my solarium. Can you believe Ghadra once had endless grasslands where this forest grew? It rose up quickly, that first tree, feeding off the buried dead and towering above the town within a year. And in another, a mate joined it. Well over a century later, and…” Riselda removed her hand, twirling in a slow circle, her face upturned. She paused, staring down her nose at Lux. “My sanctuary. I’m afraid they’ve become a little unhappy with me, though.” She drew a vial from the masses contained in the satchel at her side. “They yearn for this. And I’ve been withholding it. Have you noticed that the more discontent a soul is, the louder it shouts? Soon, my darlings. Soon.”

Crooning, Riselda stroked the black trunk again.

“You’re responsible for the wood? Riselda, how could you?”

“I’m growing tired of your judgement! Do you not realize how much the mayor values beauty? Pretty people, pretty things. It’s almost as much as he values power. You have both. I had both too. And when he forced me into a role I did not want nor understand, I swore I would be his end. Luckily for us both, I’ve endless patience, and tonight it will all come to fruition. Ghadra isn’t simply dying, Lucena. Ghadra is already dead.” Riselda unstopped the vial. “When the trees are content, they glow silver. Unfortunately for the mayor, and unfortunately for his dreadful town,” the vial tipped, “this forest glows black.”

Lifeblood splashed onto its surface, the shimmering substance stark against a dark backdrop. Then it melted away, revealing an inky festering wound, tendrils of grey twining forth. Lux felt sure her heart ceased to beat—until the soiled hand clawed forth.

She screamed, slipping in her haste to back away from the dirtied fingers, extending now out to the wrist, beckoning her forward. Her ankle caught, the chain held firm and clanking loudly as it pulled against the identical manacle around Riselda’s.

Riselda didn’t appear to notice, instead reaching with her own fingertips to brush those held within the belly of the tree. “It works. I can hardly believe it.” She turned eyes giddy with excitement onto Lux’s. “Did you know lifeblood can revive the dead, Necromancer? It is your opposite. You cannot revive those that have been drained.” She stepped around the grotesque trunk and the hand trembling violently within, to unstop another vial with her teeth. “And lifeblood cannot revive those who have not. Every black trunk of this forest holds unanchored bodies.” She emptied the vial’s contents. “Now it’s time to set them free.”

The satchel was empty. It’d been tossed onto the forest floor. And Lux and Riselda walked from the wood toward Ghadra’s walls.

“Come, come dear ones! What you seek awaits!” Riselda’s sing-song voice was followed by a high laugh, deranged and terrifying, and Lux shivered.

Blackened fingers had crawled forth from every trunk they met as they wandered through the heat-wrenching forest. Hundreds. It had taken hours. And though she hadn’t witnessed more than dirtied hands and wrists emerge, she had once seen what happened when the twisted soul was freed.

Riselda’s practice upon the crow was enough of an answer. Enough to fuse together the bits and pieces of the plan that she’d laid before Lux.

The revived would descend upon Ghadra, warped and hungry, and she was powerless to stop it. She hated the woman at her side and the chain at her ankle. She hated the carriage that waited outside their door, prepared to transport them to the Festival of Light and the unsuspecting victims. She hated that Shaw and his family were counted among them.

But what could she do? She’d already attempted to reason with Riselda in the wood, and when that had proven useless, to wrestle the collection of lifeblood from her grip. All it earned her was another thwack to the back of her head, leaving her dizzy and sick for long afterward. Riselda had threatened to knock her completely unconscious the next time. Lux knew she’d do it too and drag her body along for whatever length of time it took her to finish the job. Nothing, it seemed, would be allowed to thwart her plans.

She had met Riselda’s smiling gaze and watched her undo the clasp at her throat, sending her grey cloak fluttering to the dew-soaked grass beneath them. She watched her square her shoulders and breathe deeply. She was so sure. Of her victory. Of Ghadra’s collapse, the mayor’s demise, and Lux at her side. For eternity.

Maybe Riselda hadn’t always been a monster. But she was now.

Unfortunately for her, Lux was too.

“What will you do, Riselda, after the town falls?”

Her brow furrowed at the question. “When the mayor stole the knowledge of lifeblood and its harvest, how it could bring a body back from the brink of death, and sold that first crop to the outside world, I was furious. It was my knowledge. Gifted to me. And it is mine to wield.” She looped her arm through Lux’s, pulling her close as the carriage door opened. “We are going to travel all of Malgorm, my dear. Maybe even beyond. The Necromancer and the Healer. You will revive the dead, and I will heal those nearly so. The secrets of lifeblood will never be uttered. They will die with our mayor. And the substance itself will never pass the lips of another, save you and me.” She settled into the seat opposite, eyes glittering bright amongst the darkness.

“We will be the most powerful of this world.”

“But first, the mayor will die?”

“Yes, the mayor will die.”

Lux matched her, grin for grin. “Perfect.”

And the manacles clattered to the floor.