Page 44 of These Vile Hearts

Yeah, well, I think I would have figured that out for myself after they killed both of my parents in front of me.

Stalking the paths around the circular wall of mammoth trees, I look for a weak spot, a place void of protection. I find none. Guards dot the perimeter like mushrooms in a fairy ring. The only way inside is through the twisted iron front gate. All those ridiculous stories of fae being burned by iron are clearly bullshit. Perhaps the talltales were started by the ironfae themselves, just them trolling one another through mortal folklore.

I approach the dryads guarding the gates, pretending to be lost and hungover from a night of masked debauchery. The guards eye me closely as I try to discreetly survey the home of the dryad king I’m meant to kill.

Built in dark red wood around the Sovereign Tree’s trunk is the throne room, its doors flung open to let out the straggling partygoers. Beyond that is a sprawling palace made of stone, wood, and stained glass.

That’s where King Castor is. A thousand impossible miles away.

“The masque is over, mortal,” one of the guards tells me as I take a step closer. “No new visitors are permitted entry.”

Avoiding further interrogation, I nod to the golden guard and breeze away with an overexaggerated smile to play my ensorcelled role. I follow a twisting wooden road I assume will lead me back around the citadel. An incorrect assumption.

Because now I find myself rooted in place, standing before a tree gruesomely ornamented with a thousand dryad skeletons wrapped in silken cocoons.

14

Castor

Tamarind and I find the redheaded murderess standing on the viewing dock of the gallows tree. Not a surprise that someone of her ilk would end up here; I’m sure the stench of decaying dryads called to her like a siren’s song.

The flaming hair tied atop her head in an organized nest looks like the beginning of a forest fire in the middle of this dead-filled wood. She grips the railing, gaping at the skeletons of the dryads who dared rebel against Redwood Law. Like a spider’s prey, they’re spun in vines and silk, sucked dry by the tree until all that remains are their frames. And there they stay, bones wrapped in pendulous coffins. A decorative warning.

With a sick twist.

“We call this the gallows tree,” I tell her. “But some refer to it as the hanging gardens.”

Maddox startles, and a thrill of dark satisfaction runs through me. I don’t typically enjoy people being afraid of me—but her lack of emotion and fear in general is unnerving for someone who is ruled by emotions and afraid of most everything. It isparticularlyunnerving to think she may have no heart at all. It would certainly be my luck to pick the one human incapable of love to break this curse.

She fixes me with a shrewd glare before noting Tamarind standing at the ready behind me. Her wall of defense rises. “Thisis how you bury your dead?”

Thisis one of the ways Durian punishes those who openly defy him or Redwood Law. It’s a practice nearly as old as the Sovereign Tree, though King Cyperus let much more slide than Durian.

“And that’s why our brother found himself with a felled heartwood,”Durian once told me when I mentioned all the new skeletons in the gallows tree.“If you wish for a garden to thrive, you must first kill the weeds and pests that threaten it, mustn’t you?”

I see the logic, I guess. But I find it difficult to distinguish a weed from a poisonous plant.

But obviously I can’t say any of this to Maddox becauseIam the king, and I doubt that would convince her to fall in love with me.

I’m beginning to see some downsides to this impersonation.

“Not quite” is all I offer. Kings have no business telling mortals about their execution practices anyhow.

The mortal’s eyes narrow as she turns her focus back to the tree, eyes scanning each of the silk-wrapped bodies. Then they freeze on the bones of a small dryad sapling, no older than ten. I look, too, for a moment, until I can’t anymore. That old familiar lump rises in my throat, tears threatening to make an appearance, but I swallow them down. Now isnotthe time. Showing any form of weakness around this mortal has already proven to be a near-fatal mistake.

“Children?” The single word is soaked through with judgment.

Though I am just as disgusted as she is, I feel the bizarre need to defend myself—the fake king. “Dryad saplings aren’t shown mercy the way mortal children are.”

A muscle twitches along her jawline. “I wouldn’t say mortal children are shownmercy.”

Her eyes rake up and down my body, lingering on my horns. I made sure to dress in my most kingly of clothes—olive-green breeches, a midnight velvet doublet sewn through with strands of golden spider silk, and of course, my golden crown—a minuscule version of Durian’s, but a crown, nonetheless.

Maddox’s attention moves to the citadel. “Whose heartwood is that?”

I already know which tree she means, but I look anyway. A curving trunk like an elder’s back, dark twisted branches void of leaves, bark charred and wounded.

I force my words to come out impassive rather than ashamed. “Which?”