There was life out here. The moon. Trees. People. Adventure. Men who could make you nuts by holding fairies on their laps, and yet they somehow existed, and so it was an incredible gift to just know they lived in the world. I couldn’t go back in there. Never again. No.
My powers surged. This time, I could feel it from the way my mind stuttered, from the way my thoughts jumped from moment to moment. Vines shot from my hands, hitting him straight in his face. I jumped to my feet. He yelled out, the thorns striking his eyes, and I took that chance to run. My legs were weak, not at all as strong as I might wish they could be. I wanted to run faster, but this was the best I could do. Air came in and out of my lungs, but I refused to look behind me.
Bhaltair bellowed in pain. That much I could make out. But there were men upon men chasing after me, shooting power in my direction. Something scalding hit me right on the back. I struck the ground so hard I had no time to catch myself. Dirt shot into my mouth, and I choked on it. No. I had to get up. They were going to put me back in that cage.
Strong hands grabbed me from behind, pulling me to my feet. “He said we couldn’t kill you, but he didn’t say we couldn’t hurt you.”
The stranger flipped me around so that I faced him. He was a huge man, and I wondered if he had giant blood in him. His eyes were bloodshot. Was he on something? Drunk on power?
A surge of pain hit me, starting in my feet and traveling upwards. “Do you know the spells for pain? There are at least fifteen of them, maybe more. But I’m fluent in this one. I think of this one as the Wish for Death spell.”
It was an apt name. Soon I was shouting, crying, begging. I couldn’t control my responses. There was only pain. The rest of the world faded away. I only lived in the pain.
Endless. An absolute pit of despair I’d never escape. There was no beginning or end to this torture. I was in a constant cycle, begging for death like I begged for relief. If I could just stop existing, maybe I could be free.
And then like the switch of a light, it was off. I gasped in relief.
“Get your ass up, Princess,” a familiar deep voice commanded. How did he get here? I blinked away the tears that had gathered in my eyes and searched for Cypress. He was standing over me with his bow in hand. My attacker was barely cold on the ground, an arrow protruding from his eye socket.
“We have to go,” Cypress groaned.
I scrambled to my feet, ears peeled for sounds in the distance. I didn’t get very far. Bhaltair and the rest of his men were just steps away, hidden by the thick brush of the forest. I wrapped my arms around my stomach as nausea rolled through me like a thunderstorm. Everything hurt. The echoes of my torture pricked at every nerve in my body.
Cypress grabbed my arm and dragged me through the forest with the booming sounds of shouts at my back. “Find them!” Bhaltair screamed. I breathed in the smell of magic in the air. This was a battlefield of charms and wit. Cypress, so far, was winning.
“Shit. They’re too close.” I watched in a state of shock as he dug out something from his pocket. “I only use this in emergencies, but it seems I have no choice. Forgive me, Princess.”
I didn’t have time to process his words. I shook my head as he opened up a jar of what looked like clay. “What is—”
“Stop talking,” Cypress interrupted while rubbing it over my skin. His hands touched my cheeks. My arms. The exposed skin of my chest. I gasped at the contact. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’ll kick in soon…”
My skin began to…harden? Transform? It was a sensation I couldn’t quite describe. My feet rooted on the spot, as if deep vines burrowed me into the ground. “What have you done?” I asked. Cypress seemed to grow smaller and smaller. I was taller. My mind foggier. My eyes blurred.
My dress ripped on the spot as branches shot out from my fingers. Oh my gods. I was turning into a tree. “I’ll come back for you,” Cypress whispered, running his hand along my trunk before he disappeared.
Chapter Eight
I was a tree. People shouted around me, but it felt distant, unimportant. The irony that I had never even really seen a tree until two days ago—was it two days ago? what did time matter for a tree?—was not lost on me. I let the rush of the winds move my branches as I swayed back and forth. I knew my place in the universe, understood my role in this lifetime. I was a bringer of air, one with the ground, with the elements.
Yes...it was possible to live happily like this for eternity. I closed my eyes.
Pain struck me hard. My branches disappeared, everything faded into blurred agony again as my roots dissipated. I heard screaming. Was it my own? I wasn’t even really sure anymore.
I was once again flat on the ground, my face in the dirt. But the sunlight was gone. How much time had passed since he’d turned me into a tree? One day? Hours? Weeks? I had no idea. I pounded on the ground before strong hands hauled me to my feet.
“You okay?” Cypress stared at me, one eyebrow lifted as he regarded me. He had a gash on his left cheek. It looked red, raw, painful.
I’d never know what prompted me to do what I did next. Maybe it was because I had actually sort of liked being that tree. For one brief moment in time, I had been one with the world.
