I was a coward. I didn’t deserve to be a prince. I didn’t deserve to be human.
They were the words that kept repeating in my head, over and over again, as Seren screamed and fought—I was a coward. I didn’t deserve to be a prince. I didn’t deserve to be human.
I don’t deserve to be human.
I curled my fingers into my hair, my eyes burning with tears, and I tried to keep myself quiet as the ancient lifted Seren off the ground. Blood splattered across the leaves where his feet had been. I tried to keep my sobs in my chest.
I didn’t know how long I cowered there. It might have been minutes. Hours. An eternity.
I didn’t notice the fur sprouting from my skin, my nails blackening to claws, my teeth sharpening to points, until it was too late.
And by then, I didn’t remember my name at all.
But—I remembered it now, as I looked up at the flowering corpse, his long black hair tangled and wild, his leathers barely recognizable, ripped and punctured and too soft to protect him at all. He stared through the cell bars at me, waiting for me to see him—finally see him.
And I did.
“Seren.”
Something odd flickered across his face. Relief? Worry? “You . . . remember.”
Yes. I did.
The wood changed me. It turned me into a fox.
It protected me.
“You there! Turn around!” the guards cried behind me.
My hands tightened into fists, magic crackling at my fingertips. I swayed dizzily, but my head no longer hurt. It felt full and strange, memories lighting up in the dark parts of my head where I’d thought there was nothing. They came back to me slowly, like water through a siphon.
Seren leaned toward me, his eyes dark and gleaming. “Listen to me: Ancients are tearing through the gates. They’ll kill everyone—or turn them. You need to run.”
“But—Cerys—Daisy—”
Which was her name? Did I even deserve to call her anything?
“You couldn’t even save me—how do you think you’ll save her? Run. You’re best at that.”
Run.
He was right.
I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled down the corridor of prison cells. She would hate me—I hated myself.
I had to get out of here. I had to leave—
The guards followed me.
“Run, little princeling,” Seren’s voice echoed after me long after I’d torn into a sprint. I was faster than I’d been as a child, my legs longer, my body stronger—but I still felt like I couldn’t run fast enough.
35
Siege of the Ancients
Cerys
A SIREN SCREECHED across the city, followed by another and another. I watched as lights flared on in the windows of Voryn, families and children poking their heads out of their doors, as guards rushed down the many stairways toward the entrance.
There wasn’t just one ancient—there were many of them. All twisted forms of the old gods—a horse-sized hawk with bone wings, a wolf with poison ivy in its fur, all dark and twisted creatures that weren’t gods anymore, but monsters. And with them came bone-eaters that scaled the sides of the ramparts. Screams came from all over the city; I heard them from the top of the Grandmaster’s fortress. The creatures swarmed in like ants, and there was no stopping them. A black seed drifted down from the night sky and landed on the back of my hand. It shriveled and turned to ash.
The woodcurse. I could smell the seeds in the air—the bitterness like biting into an apple seed.
I stumbled to my feet.
“Petra!” I cried, racing off the rooftop and down into the fortress proper again. I found her in the next hallway, and she caught me quickly by the shoulders.
“Why are the sirens going?” she asked, fear furrowing her brow.
“Ancients—they’re at the gates. I think when Seren put on the crown, he called them,” I said, now realizing what he meant when he said they were coming.
They weren’t guards or Fox or the Grandmaster.
They were the nightmares.
Petra’s shoulders stiffened, and her hand went quickly to the dragon-hilted sword at her belt. “Do you know where it is?”
I nodded.
“Is it safe?”
“I think so—but I need to find Fox,” I added, and she followed me back to my room. The fortress had erupted into chaos, servants rushing toward a safe vault. Petra met Briath in the stairwell. She was crying.
“Bone-eaters are in the fortress!” the girl cried. “They’re going to kill us! One tried to—one came into my room! It—it tried to—it—”
“Shh, shh, you’re safe now,” Petra consoled her. She couldn’t both help me find Fox and get out of the city and protect her sister, and I didn’t want her to have to choose.
I fisted my hands and made the decision for her. “Go with her and make sure she’s safe—protect everyone else. I’ll go find Fox. And whatever you do, if you see black seeds, do not let them touch you.”
“Are you sure you can . . . ?” She hesitated.
I pulled a smile over my lips. “I’ll be fine.”
She didn’t look convinced at first, but then she nodded, took her sister by the hand, and followed the other evacuees. There was a stone door toward the back of the fortress—the kind that you trapped yourself behind when you had no other choice. They would be safe there. I had to find Fox, and we would get the crown and Vala and leave—and hopefully draw the ancients away with us.
I flew down the next flight of stairs and rushed back to my room, stumbling through the curtain, gasping for breath. “Fox! We need to get the crown and leave! The ancients—” My voice stopped in my throat. I stared around at the empty room. “. . . Fox?”
But he wasn’t here. His coat was gone, as were his shoes.
Oh, no.
I inched toward the bed and pulled up the edge of the mattress. The firelight caught the golden leaves of the crown. The anxiety wound tight in my middle loosened. It was still there, thank the old gods.
I took my old sash from the bottom of the wardrobe, tied it around my waist with the crown, like I had done in the wood, and ran out of my room. Fox wouldn’t have left without a reason—good or bad.
But I had a feeling I knew where he might have gone.
“Where is he?” I asked as I rounded the stairs down into the prison.
There were no guards anywhere in sight, but Seren was waiting in his cell. Dark eyes and long face and sunken cheekbones, pale skin accented with his midnight hair. He sat leaning against the bars, his hands still bound behind his back. “Why would I know?” he asked, but then his eyes strayed to my sash. “You brought the crown? Do you have a death wish? All the ancients will be coming for it!”
“Then you’d better talk fast, I guess,” I replied patiently. It still made me shiver how much he hadn’t changed since he’d disappeared in the wood. It was like time had stopped for him. “I know he came down here—he must have.”
“He did. And then he left.”
I breathed out through my nose and pressed my forehead against the bars of the cell. If he wasn’t here, then where was he? Think, Cerys. The ancients had already infiltrated the city. We had to stop them, but to do that I had to leave with the crown, but I didn’t want to leave without him. “Damn it, Fox,” I muttered under my breath.