Ah. There it was. Or rather, there it wasn’t. Aketa’s mind was the mental equivalent of a clay vase that had been shattered, the pieces hastily scooped up together in some semblance of order but unable to get back in their proper place.

  Taking one more fortifying breath, Jinua set it on fire.

  Aketa jolted, but once she realized there was no actual threat, she stayed put. The pieces of her mind very slowly began to mold themselves together, the cracks filling like mortar between stones.

  Jinua’s stomach gurgled. She ignored it, pressing harder. One of the smaller pieces completely molded back with the greater whole, but it was tiny compared to the rest of the mess she had to fix. She got to work, ignoring the growing weakness in her arms and light-headedness.

  She was maybe a fifth of the way done when the fire sputtered to sparks in her palms. Panting, Jinua drew back.

  “Well?” Ontiku asked.

  Aketa blinked her cat-like eyes. A fly buzzed between the two of them.

  She snatched it out of the air and ate it.

  Jinua shook her head, checking the potions on her belt. Only two. She’d need at least twice as much. “Uh… how much food do we have?”

  “Why do you ask?” Kirphis asked. Nysia crept closer to Hylas.

  “Her mind is so devolved it’s going to take a long time and a lot of energy to put back together. If I keep going as is, I’ll pass out or worse…”

  Nysia shook her head. “It’s decided then.”

  In the darkening twilight, Jinua didn’t even see the knife in Nyasia’s hand until it was buried in Hylas’s side.

  He gasped and tried to stagger back.

  Jinua jumped to her feet and almost dropped right back down with dizziness. The crow flew off, cawing. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I’m sorry, my children,” Nysia said, pulling out the bloody knife. “But you are my living sin. If the paladin can’t heal you, then I must dispose of you.”

  Six bone knives shot at her, weaving around Hylas to reach their mark. Nysia dove for the ground, narrowly avoiding getting skewered. Kirphis went after her, shielding her from Ontiku’s six knives. “Wait! Don’t! It’s not her fault!”

  “How is this not her fault?” Ontiku shouted, eyes burning blue.

  Hylas pressed his hand to the wound, fingers coming away red, surprise and shock on his young face. Jinua scrambled toward him, hand going to her belt and her imtiat potions.

  With a howl, Aketa went for her parents, claws out. Kirphis blocked her swipe with an arm, four slashes cutting deep into his flesh. He punched her. She jerked back with the blow, but did not back down, growling.

  The trees around them rustled, shook, and attacked. Branches flung themselves at Ontiku, who barely dodged in time. Hylas yelled as he was consumed by leaves. Kirphis called for his wife. Jinua instinctively covered her head, trying to find Hylas, only to get slammed by a large branch and knocked completely off her feet. She flew through the air and fell hard on the ground, vision whiting out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ONTIKU SCRAMBLED BACK, as close to the trunks as he could. Ironically, the slamming trees couldn’t reach him if he was this close. When they finally stopped smashing the ground, the clearing was gone. He didn’t know if he’d walked too far or if the trees had moved to disorient him.

  There was nobody around.

  No bird calls, no insects, no howls. Nothing to break the monotonous rumble of moving trees and only moon and starlight cutting through the darkness.

  Ontiku summoned his knives back, having lost his focus and control over them during the scuffle. It took them a few minutes to find him and return to his sheaths.

  “Hylas?” he called. “Jinua?”

  Nothing.

  Hylas was injured. Jinua may still be weakened. Aketa was definitely still insane and possibly in the middle of murdering her parents. Tracking any of them was impossible, thanks to the trees’ moving roots churning up any trail they’d have left behind.

  He didn’t sense any death. Yet.

  Ontiku picked a direction and started walking, calling out for Hylas and Jinua, hoping he didn’t find their corpses. He tripped on moving roots in the darkness more than once as the sun quickly slipped beneath the horizon, dying the sky indigo. He stumbled through the moving mass of darkness, hoping the shadows wouldn’t kill him.

  “This is why I don’t get involved in this hero nonsense,” he grumbled. “I should be on the coast, trying to figure out who corrupted Enejel and stopping them from doing it again. Maybe enjoying an exotic play from the islands. But noooo.”

  He’d always been terrible at being smart.

  Something rustled in the trees. Ontiku summoned his knives and pointed them at the sound.

  Hylas stumbled out of the underbrush, leaves and twigs stuck in his blond hair, his hand pressed hard against his bleeding side.

  Ontiku sheathed his knives and rushed to the boy, setting him on the ground. His skin was wet with sweat. “How bad is it?”

  “Um…” Hylas blinked blearily. “It hurts?”

  Ontiku rolled up Hylas’s shirt to get a better look. The wound bled sluggishly, but it didn’t look like it’d hit a lung. He’d feel much better if he had a paladin to heal it, but at the moment he was fairly confident he could keep Hylas alive long enough to get to her. “Your chances will be much better if we can wrap this.”

  “Uh…” Hylas hiked his shirt higher, revealing the chest bindings keeping his breasts wrapped. “Will this work?”

  “Perfectly.”

  It took a few minutes, unwrapping Hylas’s chest and then re-wrapping it farther down. The boy hissed, winced, and cried out in pain more than once. Ontiku muttered apologies whenever it happened, wishing he had poppy or even just wine to help with the pain.

  Hylas was uncomfortably pale in the moonlight, but nothing Ontiku was too concerned about yet. The boy swallowed. “She tried to kill me.”

  Ontiku nodded. “I know.”

  “And Father defended her.”

  “He did. Neither of them should have done either of those things.”

  Hylas’s chin wobbled with suppressed pain and an anguished sob. “I just…I don’t…I love them. Even though I’m a necromancer. Why don’t they love me back?”

  His voice broke. He was far from the only necromancer who’d been shunned by his family, and Ontiku still didn’t know what to say when it happened.

  So he said nothing and just hugged him while he cried.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JINUA CAME TO consciousness just as a tree began to crawl over her. Something wrapped around her feet, calves, thighs…

  She jolted to full awareness as the roots reached her lower back, pushing her body into the earth with its immense weight, and realized that it would suffocate her if it reached her face.

  She could barely see anything beyond the roots and trunk as it crawled over her, filling more and more of her vision. It must have been as tall as Iphis’s temple and just as heavy. She tried to buck the tree off, but it was too large and heavy. The fact that it hadn’t broken any of her bones yet was a minor miracle, keeping most of its weight on the other roots that crept over the earth.

  She couldn’t conjure a true fire, but perhaps she could trick the tree into thinking it was burning. Sucking in a deep breath, she pressed her hands against the wood and put as much heat into her palms as she could.

  A couple of pink sparks spat from her fingers. The tree continued to grow, pressing against her belly and up her chest. She couldn’t draw a full breath.

  Ice-cold panic shot down her spine. Jinua grabbed the nearing wiggling roots and yanked, ripping them in half.

  The tree stuttered. She didn’t know if it could feel pain, but it had definitely sensed something.

  Jinua wiggled her legs to her chest, underneath the tree and its roots, and kicked. The tree flew off of her, going at least ten feet up before crashing to the ground.

  Jinua panted, waiting for the next attack. The tree’s roots and branches righted itself so it was right-side up, and then it drifted away from her.

  She scrambled away and onto her feet, only to immediately face-plant on the ground, the world spinning around her. Her stomach clenched in hunger even as she felt nauseous. Scratches along her legs and hands burned with pain from her fall.

  Food, she thought blearily. Food and water.

  Of course, all of their food was still in the clearing. Which Jinua could not locate because of all the moving trees.

  She fumbled for her belt and pulled out an imtiat potion, downing it in one gulp. She didn’t even care about the mud and coffee taste. Her stomach filled, her head cleared, and she breathed easier.

  I hope the others are all right, she thought. Well, maybe not Kirphis and Nysia. If she thought it would truly help the siblings, she’d let Aketa kill those idiots: Nysia for her cruelty and Kirphis for his cowardice. But she was afraid that would cause more harm than good.

  Over the sound of her own ragged breathing, she heard trickling water.

  She almost fell into the stream when she found it, and drank and drank and drank.

  She sat on the bank and ran her soaking hands over her face. Her stomach was full and the little cuts and bruises she’d gathered from her misadventure were gone, thanks to the healing water. A thick layer of dirt caked her legs and lower torso, the only indication that her fight with a tree hadn’t been a hallucination brought on by hunger.

  But it must have been, she thought. No human can kick such a large, heavy tree off of them unless they’re a paladin drawing some sort of power. And I didn’t—I was cold, not hot.

  She hadn’t had the strength to draw upon any of her paladin powers. It must have been a hallucination.

  Just like punching your fist through one of Enejel’s soldiers without Jadiim’s heat was a hallucination?

  She told that part of her mind to shut up. They had bigger problems.

  A crow cawed at her from the branches. She dropped her hand and gave it a foul look. “I have no need of your omens, you damn bird. And if you want me to heal Aketa…I can’t.”

  It cawed at her again. She ignored it. Their plan to heal Aketa’s fractured mind wasn’t going to work. She didn’t have enough power. She was too weak.

  She got on her knees in the familiar prayer position. “Fiery Jadiim. I know you require paladins to prove their worth before granting them more power, but I can’t do this as I am. If I can’t heal Aketa’s mind, her family will remain fractured, and she’ll stay in this forest forever, alone and thrown away. I need…I need…” She watched the trees continue their crawl, many of them passing over the stream as they did.

  The stream that had revitalized her far better than regular water could. The stream that had healed her injuries, and Hylas’s, and so many others before them.

  She was praying to the wrong deity.

  Jinua pushed herself back to the stream, set her hand on holy fire, and plunged it into the water. “Spirits of the forest! Guardians of Aketa! I need to speak with you!”

  The half dozen trees closest to her stopped moving. Their roots and branches grew and twined together, wooden serpents that wove themselves until they formed a vaguely humanoid shape, which very clearly looked Jinua up and down. Wooden horns, some combination of elk and goat, sprouted from its head. When it spoke, it sounded like wind in the leaves, “You failed.”

  Jinua winced. “I know.”

  “We let you within to heal her. Instead, you bring people who wish to kill her.”

  “I did not know her mother would try to kill her. None of us knew. Nysia’s actions stunned all of us and they do not speak for me, Ontiku, or Hylas.” Jinua tried to study the spirit’s face, but it was all wood and roots. She couldn’t get a read on it. “You’ve noticed her mind deteriorate.”

  The spirit didn’t say anything for a while. The crow cawed.

  “Well?” she demanded. “She was sane when she came here. Sane enough to understand what was happening to her and avoid harming her loved ones. But not anymore.”

  “It is part of the reason she comes to us,” the spirit said. “Her mind slips. We hold it together. But then we must move, and we lose our grip on the stream. It takes time to rebuild the healing current, and the child’s mind slips again. She loses herself and is afraid. So are we.”

  Jinua’s heart melted for them. Aketa’s parents were shamefully lacking, but she clearly did have someone who cared for her. And they didn’t want to lose her. “I don’t think she has time, noble spirit. But perhaps, if we combine our powers, we can save her.”

  Disdain made its way on the spirit’s wooden face. “We do not take paladins. We have no need for human tools.”

  “I think you do,” she challenged. “Just this once. Use me as a vessel instead of the stream. I managed to heal her mind partway on my own. Together, we might be able to finish this.”

  The spirit tipped its head like a cat. “And the humans who try to hurt her?”

  “If they try again, I’ll execute them myself.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE SPIRIT SENT its crow to once again guide her. The bird perched on her shoulder and cawed “Aketa!”

  “They like you,” the forest spirit said before unraveling and vanishing back into the roots and trees.

  Jinua grimaced. The sacred animals of the god of war and destruction taking a liking to her was not something she celebrated.

  The crow sprang forward with another cry of “Aketa!” She jogged to follow it, moving fast now that she didn’t have civilians holding her back.

  She heard Kirphis and Nysia long before she saw them.

  “…didn’t even tell me!”

  “If I had, you would have said no!” Nysia yelled. “They’re my sin to purge!”

  “They are our chil—well, Hylas is my child.”

  “One is a mad demigod who’s given herself over to the wilds and chaos while the other is a filthy necromancer.”

  “Nysia, you know I love you. And this isn’t the type of family either of us wished for, but we could’ve at least let the paladin try again…”

  “No. It’s better to have no children at all than such stains on this family.”

  “We’re your family!” That was Hylas’ voice, a little farther away.

  The crow had led Jinua straight toward them, which meant Aketa was going in the same direction. She doubled her pace.

  “Hylas, are you all right?” Kirphis asked.

  “He got stabbed. What do you think?” Ontiku snapped.

  “Necromancers turned their backs on the gods,” Nysia declared. “They are godless, soulless, evil, and corrupt. It’s because of you that Eskir took this forest away, and if I don’t dispose of you, Mebew will withdraw her favor.”

  “Eskir doesn’t control this forest. We had to talk to the nature spirit to find Aketa,” Hylas argued. He sounded truly furious through his rasping gasps. “And you’re not going to hurt her, either!”

  “It is my duty!” she screamed, her voice tinged with madness.

  “Your duty was to love us! Raise us and protect us! You did none of that!”

  “Hylas, that’s not true,” Kirphis tried.

  “And you! You’re taking her side over us!”

  “There are no sides—”

  “Yes, there are!”

  “All right, fine! Yes, I took your mother’s side, because you were doomed to die the minute you became a necromancer! At least she can have a happy ending!”

  Jinua burst onto the scene at the same time Aketa did.

  The demigod went straight for her mother, claws out. Jinua tackled her before she could draw blood, having to dodge the claws swiping at her face. “I want her dead, too, but not like this,” she panted.

  The two pulled apart. Aketa shot to her feet, snarling. Against every battle instinct in her body, Jinua stayed down and crossed her legs, breathing hard. Oh, it had been a while since she’d had to jog like that.

  “Hylas, are you all right?” Jinua asked, keeping her eyes on Aketa.

  “I’m fine. Just heal her,” the boy gasped.

  “Ontiku?”

  “He’s fine for now, and so am I.” A flash of blue, and six bone knives went straight for Nysia and Kirphis.

  They hovered right in front of the cowering parents, forming a barrier between the two of them and everyone else.

  Aketa continued to give that low growl, watching everything. Jinua tried to get into meditation, but that was hard with a pounding heart and the death glare of Nysia.

  The nearest trees stopped moving. Their roots lowered the trunks to the ground and snaked over to Jinua, wrapping around her legs. She gulped at the odd sensation, but didn’t move, especially when she felt power thrum beneath her skin.

  Being a paladin, Jinua had grown used to the feeling of divine power flowing through her. Fire running through her veins and filling her with physical strength or passing through her to heal others.

  The nature spirit’s power felt nothing like that. Indeed, a primal strength surged through her, but it didn’t enhance her muscles. Instead, it was like viscerally feeling the same force that turns fresh dirt and growing things into energy. Renewal. Rebirth.

  Aketa stopped growling and cautiously approached. She purred, curiosity evident in every move. The tree roots continued to wind around Jinua’s legs, twisting up her torso, but leaving her arms free. By now she was practically vibrating with the forest’s power. She wanted to move, grow, chase, fuck, dance, do something.

  Inhale for four. Hold it. Exhale for four. Hold it.

  “Jinua?” Ontiku called. “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t worry, I asked the forest for help,” she said. “This is their answer.”

  It was the calmest Jinua had seen the demigod. Aketa gracefully sat in front of her, docile as a house cat, adjusting her legs to mirror Jinua.

  Jinua gave her an encouraging smile and held out her hands. “Ready?”

  Rather than put her head in them, Aketa took her calloused hands in her clawed ones.

 

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