Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ash
It took me days to reach the northern-most point of the forest.
I’d realised after a while out here, once I’d started leaving Nua and Gillie’s sidhe, that time moved strangely in the forest. It was huge—so massive it ringed both court lands, with a gigantic expanse separating them. But it was like it knew where you wanted to go, and let you get there far quicker than you should have been able.
I had both courts’ guards looking for me now. I didn’t know why the Carlin still had her guards scouring the woods if she thought I was on seelie land. I killed them as I always had, but for some reason tried not to kill the seelie ones. I shot them in the knees and feet and arms, rendering them useless so they limped back to seelie land.
Maybe it was because I’d seen how frivolous the Brid was with seelie lives. There were more of them than unseelie, and she saw them all as worthless and expendable.
I knew it didn’t make much sense. I knew they weren’t really any different to the Carlin’s guards—and I knew that the Carlin’s guards were just doing what they had to. What they’d been ordered to. But all the seelie Folk seemed scared—even the guards. Terrified of what their ruler would do, and I knew it was fear—not duty—that drove them to search for me in the forest.
I was completely alone as I stood on the pebbled shore, staring at the island just barely visible through the thick grey fog out at sea. The Tiraglas tower I’d read about rose from its centre, a tall pillar of gleaming emerald that winked in the weak morning sun. Thick, lush forest visible even from here surrounded its base, and the speck of beach opposite me seemed to sparkle.
It was really far away.
I swallowed, my eyes drifting to the thick, rounded boulders that rose from the sea between me and the island, creating stepping stones. The fingerstones, the book had called them. They did look a bit like fingertips—impossibly huge fingertips of a monstrous hand hidden in the water. I tried to imagine the size of a creature with hands that big and couldn’t even picture it.
The fingerstones began emerging from the sea a fair distance from the shore. I’d have to swim to reach the first one, and fear tightened my throat as I stared at it. At least they didn’t rise too far from the water. If I slipped off one, I’d be able to heave myself back up.
I forced my trembling legs to start walking until the water lapped around my boots. The sea was unnervingly still, the tide barely moving. The forest rustled peacefully behind me, and part of me wanted to turn around and go right back in. Give up this ridiculous quest that already seemed impossible. I didn’t even know what I was going to do if I actually reached Hybra. How I was going to find the serpent Gadleg, or what I would do if I did. I supposed I’d have to kill it to get its venom, but the thought made my gut clench with unease and guilt. How many creatures was I going to kill?
Was I already turning into my mother? I didn’t feel bloodthirsty, but my conversation with Nua and Gillie before I’d left still burned in my mind.‘What about the Carlin and her sons?’Gillie had asked.‘I thought you wanted to killthem.’
I was promising death to a lot of Folk. I was here to try and kill my birth mother, for fuck’s sake.
But the queens were evil. Both of them. The Carlin deserved to die for what she had done to me. The Brid deserved to die for what she wanted to do to Nua—and for what she did to her own people.
And this was my way to do it. This was the only way I knew for sure would successfully kill the Brid. So I was going to try. Nua and Gillie were all I had left. I wasn’t going to let her take them from me.
The water was freezing when I started swimming to reach the first fingerstone, and my clothes and boots and satchel all tried to drag me down. My branch arm heaved me easily up onto the boulder, but I didn’t feel steady on its curved surface as I stood up.
My heart pounding, I took a running leap at the next one. I grinned when I landed easily, wobbling only for a second before I took off for the next.
I tried not to look up and see just how many stepping stones I had left to cross before I reached the island, instead focusing only on the one in front of me. When I did finally raise my head, after what felt like hours, my heart jolted as I realised how close I was. The tower loomed above me, and I could see the beach sparkling in a rainbow of colours.
I was nearly there.
Why had the book said this place was impossible to reach? This had been easy.Reallyeasy. I jumped for the next stone, my heart spasming when my boot slipped on its wet, curved edge. My branch hand scrambled, somehow managing to cling on as the toes of my boots dipped into the water.
I sucked in a panicked breath when the boulder moved, throwing my body to the side. I scrambled up and panted weakly, remaining on my hands and knees for a few moments before I rose on unsteady legs and eyed the next one. If this one was loose, I didn’t want to stay on it for too long.
The panic made my next jump sloppy. I slipped again, grunting when my body jerked down even as my branch hand managed to keep a grip on the boulder. Water lapped around my ankles, and this boulder moved too. It dipped to the right, throwing my body that way, almost causing my branch fingers to let go before I heaved myself up.
I was panting wildly, heart thudding hard in my chest. I looked up and saw there were only two stones left in front of me. The beach glimmered too brightly in the sun, making me wince. I glanced back over my shoulder fearfully, noting just how far I was from the mainland now. I froze when I realised—the first set of stepping stones, all the way back near the beach, were twitching.
Five of the stones kept curving in one direction, dipping into the water before straightening back up. Then they all seemed to… flex. Somehow. I was frozen as I watched—as I heard a deep, terrible rumbling from far below me, before those first five stones rose. And rose.
And a giant hand emerged from the water.
That was why they were called fingerstones. They were the actual fuckingfingersof some mind-bogglingly enormous creature in the water. The giant hand clenched into a fist, then plunged into the water impossibly fast, making my jump with fright. A huge wave rushed towards the mainland’s shore, the tide almost reaching the trees before retreating.
Then the next five boulders started twitching.
Oh god. Oh fuck. I forced myself to face forward again, staring with panic at the island’s beach. I was so close, but I could hear hand after hand rising from the water before plunging back beneath the surface, snatching up anything that might have been crossing its fingertips.
I ran and leapt as the stone beneath me twitched again, throwing me wildly off course and making me slam into the next boulder, smacking my chin. My mouth filled with blood, and it sprayed out over the stone with my panicked breaths as I scrambled up and ran without pausing for the next one. The last one.