King of the Woodlands

Chapter 18

It took him two days to approach Lilibeth, who sat on a windowsill, feeding some birds. Today, she had seafoam-white daisies in her hair, her simple tunic the color of a cardinal's feather. She wore trousers too, rolled up to the knees.

Light—pure sunlight, spilled through the windows, gold and thick as summer honey. Suddenly he was back in the Towering Timberlands, watching as his brother died. Disgust and longing roiled in his gut, but he made himself step closer. It hurt.

Accept accept accept

He couldn't, although every fiber of him wanted to. She tilted her head up, her eyes closed, fiery lashes fanned over her cheeks as she breathed in the fresh air laced with the earthen, crisp scents of dandelions and oak leaves.

"Oh, it's you," she said, and she smiled, smiled so deeply and prettily he wondered if the birds and flowers and trees saw it and sighed in unison. She spilled some breadcrumbs into her hand from a glass jar tied with a bit of twine. "What have you been doing?"

Looking for an excuse to talk to you. He opened his mouth to tell her something. Tell her what? That she was better than anything someone crooked and wrong like him deserved. Tell her that her mint eyes could swallow stars and oceans and worlds.

And there was so much more. He wanted to tell her that he needed her friendship, that every night, it felt wrong that they watched the same stars in what felt like worlds apart.

Maybe he'd always hate humans, but perhaps she, this wild, gentle girl, was the only exception. She was making him see the things that he'd been blind to all along.

Lilibeth watched as a bluebird chirped, pecking at her hand with its stubby beak. She laughed, and he felt himself sink like a stone. What hope did he ever have?

Slowly, he made himself come closer, step into the light. He was in that forest again, soil and rain-washed grass beneath him. He was watching his brother die.

When the sun shone in his eyes, he saw red and white and lightning. He saw despair and sadness, the waters of grief drowning him, gripping him with cold hands and pulling him under.

"Please," Lilibeth began. He wanted to squeeze the life from her throat, wanted her to suffer and beg him for her life just like Kolzryrth had begged for his own.

Rivers of fire exploded within his veins, igniting a long-kindling spark of rage. Some monster dwelling deep inside his blackened soul roared and clawed its way to the surface.

I am the monster you created, it snarled. The monster had ember-red eyes and scales the color of hot coals. It was Kolzryrth. Brother, did you think I would stop tormenting you? In the shadows of your wings I take refuge, waiting. Why do you hide from me?

He was drowning again, drowning in not just his demons, but the great blue sea, the sea he'd almost died in, trying to escape the humans who had killed his brother and enslaved his entire family—

Are you haunted by the fact that you are wasting your life? Are you afraid to walk this world alone?

Yes, he was very much afraid. He was afraid of many things, but he feared loneliness the most. Always, he'd had someone by his side to explore the skies with, someone to laugh and scrap with.

Your time on this earth melts like sugar, brother.

If he didn't live to see everything righted, never again would he smell the oak trees and misty mountains and morning rain.

"Please," Lilibeth whispered. She spoke as if he were a cornered animal—enraged, frightened. Flames danced in his vision, dancing to a dark waltz or a crazed circus march. Was he going mad?

"Don't you dare," she spat as he snapped his teeth, shuddering violently. He could've taken off her hand or her arm.

He fought past the inferno blazing across his eyes, pushed it away, reaching toward that scent of blue summer skies and sun-kissed daisies, grappling for the voice that had become his lifeline.

"Come back to me," Lilibeth said.

He snarled and growled, his nostrils flaring. He wanted so badly to hurt her, to kill her—

Human scum. They were never meant to exist. They probably sent your family to the pyre, burned them at the stake like witches in the Black Islands.

There were tears in her dark mint eyes, and rage once again coursed through him. What right did she have to tears, to pity? She knew nothing of what went on inside him, the storms contained beneath his skin.

"Hands off me," she warned as he prowled closer, a wolf circling a sheep. But the sheep refused to back down. The sheep held her chin high and looked him in the eye.

Kill Lilibeth. Kill Lilibeth. The voice in his head was not his. He didn't know who it belonged to. A djinn of the Mourradan sands? A demon straight from Death's Mouth, come to punish him for his sins?

He tried to fight it, tried to reach deep inside him, where the shattered remnants of his soul floated, where the last glowing kernels of his light, his goodness, shone. But the darkness was stronger. He lunged toward her, his polished claws out, black as dead moons.

Lilibeth looked away from him, her eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking out. Slowly, almost carefully, she extended a hand toward him.

He halted, his heart thrumming wildly, a growl burning low in his throat. Going closer to her meant going closer to the light, and that meant—

The Woodland King shook his head, trying to gather his thoughts, but they refused to line up inside his head. Instead, a new question arose: what would become of him?

He growled, shaking his head, that fire guttering and flickering, but not going out.

If he managed to save himself, Lilibeth would owe him nothing, and there would be no reason for her to stay. But even if he saved himself, could he ever save his light? Or was it too late? Would he stay alive, but be a shell, a mockery of a once-ferocious dragon?

He thought of Lilibeth and he hated her. He thought of Kolzryrth and he missed him. There was a saying among the Fire-Dancers: hope is the ability for seedlings to survive beneath a blanket of snow. His mother had liked to recite this during hunting missions, days where the tension was high.

That felt like a hundred years ago, back to the days when he'd sit beside a misty cliff and watch the sea unravel between his claws.

Oh hope, he had wounds only it could mend.

He didn't need to come towards the light. She was already coming towards him, keeping her tear-filled eyes on the ground, her arm outstretched, fingers curling like paper left too close to a fire.

As if he could be tamed like some mongrel pup, like he was no better than a savage thing—

I'm stronger than this, he told himself. The ache in his lungs was unbearable.

No. He wasn't strong, not at all. If he were strong, he'd saved his family.

The fire in his eyes perished to ash, and through his cleared vision, he saw Lilibeth, her eyes still closed, her breathing steadier.

Being the weakling that he was, he bowed his head and pressed his forehead to Lilibeth's palm, huffing into her hand.

And deep inside him, those kernels of light began to glow.