The Will and the Wilds(76)

I swing around the corner of the house and burst through the front door, startled by the cool evening air. I stop, straining to find that tug over the hammering of my heart. It pulls me toward the wildwood. I’d sworn never to return to it, but I break that promise without a second thought.

My boots pound ungracefully against the tamed earth of my father’s land. I pass the first trees, shoulders tense, searching, searching. A tug. I follow its lead. Two mice scurry from my path. I duck under a tree branch, swipe away a cloud of gnats. I focus on that feathery pull, on the heat stirring inside me, stronger and stronger and stronger, guiding me south, close to the tree line. It fuels my legs, and I run faster than I ever have before. It’s as if the wildwood were no longer there, just a straight, even path ahead of me, and I must reach its end. I must.

I sprint, stepping through a dried stream, picking my way over rocks. A beehive sings above me but allows me to pass. A breeze pushes against my back, urging me faster, stirring the debris around my footfalls. I’m pulled deeper into the wood, then closer to civilization.

I stop ten paces from the tree line, gasping for air, sweat dancing across my hairline. I lean on a young oak for support and stare, heart pounding over that blossom of heat. A cry rises up my throat and dies at my lips.

He looks up at me, hair red as the changing maple, eyes amber as topaz. His feet, his human feet, are bare and muddy. His shortened horn extends a hand’s breadth from his forehead before ending at a flat break. Its point radiates in my chest.

“Enna,” he says. That edge is gone from his voice. I’ve never heard a more beautiful sound. His expression droops. Lines etch his forehead. His gaze drops to the earth. “You should never forgive me.”

Tears frame my vision. I shake my head. “How?” I whisper. “How are you . . . ?”

A soft smile warms his eyes. He pulls back the edge of his cloak until he bares the center of his chest, the flesh over his heart. There are strange markings there. At first I think them corruption, but as I take a staggering step forward, I see the color is wrong. It’s the color of old blood, or perhaps wet rust. Shaped like droplets of ink splattered on parchment.

The Will Stone. The drops that melded with my tears and fell through the floorboards.

“There I was, sitting at the edge of the immortal waters, and it started to rain.” He drops his cloak. “It doesn’t rain in the Deep. Just a few drops, right here”—he points to his chest—“and suddenly . . .” The corner of his lip quirks up, but the half smile is mournful. “Enna, I’m so sorry.”

A tear escapes my eye and traces the edge of my cheek. “But . . . ,” I choke out.

I recall what Maekallus said the Will Stone was—the petrified heart of the god who first created the mystings. And if Grandmother taught me anything, it is that the heart and soul are forever intertwined.

The Will Stone heeded me to the last.

It gave Maekallus a soul. It gave him its soul.

“I’m not asking anything of you.” His voice is warm and lovely and draws me toward him like a baited snare. “I only wanted to . . . see you once more. To tell you that. Don’t forgive me. Ever, Enna. I hurt you.”

I shake my head, moving closer, closer. “You didn’t.”

He lifts a hand. He’s close enough to touch my face, to wipe away a tear, but his fingers hover in the air. “Now you’re the one lying to me.”

I laugh. It’s a pitiful laugh, half-chuckle and half-sob. He smiles at it nevertheless, that wicked grin I’ve grown to adore. I’m glad to see his transformation has not dulled the sharpness of his canines.

“I promise to only speak the truth,” I whisper, leaning into his hand.

“You should never make a promise to a mysting.”

“I did before. It worked out, in the end.”

He cocks an eyebrow. His voice is even smaller than mine when he asks, “Did it?”

I take his hand in both of mine. Step around him. Pull him toward the tree line. Toward my world. “It did.”

He hesitates. It’s so slight I almost don’t feel it. Drawing a thumb across the skin where horn meets head, he says, “I’m not one of them, Enna.”

Reaching up, I measure his horn with my hand. He could cut off what remains of it close to the skin, claim it as a birthmark, but this protrusion is part of him. I don’t want him to lose it, and I doubt he wants that, either. “No, you’re not,” I whisper. “But neither am I.” I squeeze his hands. “You and I, we’ll always be different. There will always be something wild in us. Others will see what they want. It’s always been that way. But for now”—I can’t help the smile that pulls on my mouth—“it’s short enough to hide with a wrap. You’re obviously not from Amaranda, and who knows what your native customs dictate?”

He grins and reaches for me. I leap into his arms, taking his jaw into my hands. His skin is warm and blissful beneath my touch. He holds me tight against him, and I seize his mouth, kissing him with all my hurt and all my glee. He is almost savage with the kiss, claiming me and parting my lips, seeking permission with the tip of his tongue. I wholly give it to him.

I kiss him, my tears wetting his skin, my laugh dancing across his lips.

Beneath my singing heart, the horn burns a brilliant heat.

And so does my soul.