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The stars above swirl and twist, and the sky itself cracks.
Itcracks.
But then the cracks move, and I realize that they aren’t cracks at all, but branches, stretching downwards.
Am I hallucinating, or are the trees really moving? The winter-stripped branches stretch downwards, long and thick like limbs, the twigs at the end forming fingerlike projections that twist and writhe, no longer angular sticks; now sinuous and reaching, grasping, extending toward me.
Twigs have turned into tendrils.
The branch extends toward Kinnivar and wraps itself around his neck like a snake, yanking him backwards with brutal violence. He doesn’t even have time to shout.
I hear a sickening crunch. Then a thud. In horrified fascination I dare to take a look.
Kinnivar’s severed head is lying on the snow, several feet away from his decapitated corpse. The branch hangs down, fingerlike twigs brushing against the snow, as if it were a willow tree.
The voices in my mind grow louder and louder; an intolerable cacophony.
I pull myself into a sitting position and look around wildly. The guards are just standing there, staring at their fallen leader in silence.
At first, it’s as if they don’t even notice me.
Then one of them—the largest of the three—turns, and his eyes are glowing that same eerie shade of green.
He doesn’t speak. He just starts to shuffle toward me, his movements stiff and mechanical, as if he’s a machine.
Why do I get the feeling he isn’t entirely sentient?
With the cacophony in my head, I can barely bring myself to move, but I force myself to anyway, rising shakily to my feet. The tree sways and reaches for the guard, wrapping its fluid branches around him. The tendrils slip beneath his leather armor.
I stare, frozen in horrified fascination as a whispering sentient tree squeezes a fully grown man from the inside, turning him into a limp ragdoll.
And yet he still moves, and his eyes are glowing, and his expression is terrifyingly blank, as if he feels no pain at all.
I rise to my feet, clumsy and disoriented, stumbling as I struggle to regain my balance.
I try to run, but I can’t because the trees are reaching for me too, and the branches are wrapping themselves around me like snakes, restraining me.
I scream.
Hush, child. We only seek to protect you. Do not fight. Do not despair. Wait a moment while we eliminate these undead aberrations from our land. Come here, Finley, daughter of Aralya, who was hidden from us for so long.
I’m utterly helpless as the trees wrap their fluid branches around my arms and legs; as they slip around my waist, drawing me away from the bodies and the guards.
Behind me, they close in on the remaining two guards, forming an inescapable net.
And the guards are destroyed.
And then they go after the unmoving horses, who’ve done nothing wrong apart from just standing there.
The sounds that reach me through the chatter of a thousand voices are sickening.
The crunching of bones. The crushing of soft flesh. A foul stench permeates the air. And the trees have me now, and they’re pulling me up into their dark canopy, and it’s cold and terrifying, as if I’m being sucked into a vortex.
What just happened? I accidentally tasted Kinnivar’s blood, and then my world turned to insanity, the same as when I drank Corvan’s blood and melted that chair, only this is a hundred times worse, because the trees have me, and I can’t escape.
Did… Kinnivar’s blood do that? Is it because I accidentally drank magic?
I try break free, but I can’t move at all. The trees feel stronger than steel, and my arms are still bound behind me.
