Page 93 of These Vile Hearts

A cackle erupts from the siren’s throat, both rows of teeth on brilliant display. “Oh, what fun! Youdon’tknow. Tell him, my love. Tell the king what you plan to do.”

“Why do you keep calling him the king?” I snap, clinging to something that isn’t her spilling the details of my pact. “He’s the prince.”

Lorelai’s laughter doubles in volume. “You foolish mortal! Why do you believe every dryad you cross? This man is King DurianSempervirens. Do you not see his crown? See how big? Howgolden?”

“I—”

No. No, that can’t be right…

But there isn’t time to process her words because the siren’s laugh begins to morph into another song and suddenly vines are barreling toward her. In the next breath I unholster my throwing axe and send it tumbling through the air.

An agonized scream pierces the clearing just before I realize I’ve hit my mark. The throwing axe protrudes from the siren’s forehead like a macabre unicorn horn. Her screams grow louder rather than fading with death, and she begins to thrash and stumble toward me, black blood streaming down her face. Durian’s vines travel up her legs, wrapping around her torso and arms. When they reach her neck, she looks like she’s being prepared for mummification.

The sounds erupting from her mouth now are otherworldly. A cacophony of demons escaping hell. Her black eyes turn up, retreating into her skull as Durian’s vines squeeze her tighter and tighter. Inky blood pours from her mouth, her nose, her ears, her eyes. I swear I can hear her bones snapping and crunching. The screams stop.

An eternal moment passes, and Durian lowers his hands, the vines slithering back into the branches. We stand in the suspended meadow, chests heaving, regarding each other, ignoring the crushed form of the siren with the throwing axe horn.

Durian approaches the body, wrenching the axe out of her skull. A sick squelching sound fills the silence. The blood spilling from the cuts along my arm, cheek, and collarbone fill my head with stars as he approaches, weapon in hand. I don’t back up this time. He offers the axe to me, handle first.

I take it with trembling fingers, fixing Durian with new eyes. There’s always been something odd about him. He reminds me of those mortal men who believe they deserve to own the world.Because they want it. Because they were born into the privilege of being able to buy it. I note the signet ring on his pinkie finger. A swirling letterS.

My breaths come faster as a million moments tumble through my mind. Things that I’d overlooked or dismissed as dryad oddities suddenly turn into dozens of white flags soaked in crimson blood. Castor’s bemused expression when I first addressed him as king, Evodia’s hurried whispers to Fern in her room, the courtiers at that feast giggling and murmuring behind cupped hands, Castor’s nerves at the dinner table, Archer bringing me to Durian’s room when I asked him to take me to the king. Castor’s words at the masquerade.

You should not believe everything you hear.

The siren’s maniacal laughter when she learned of my foolishness.

Never trust a dryad.Written all over my father’s journal. Over and over and over.

“Why?” is all I can say. My blood is pounding in my ears, my eyes, pumping from my wounds. Without the siren’s song, the sting of it intensifies.

“It’s best you knew sooner rather than later, Maddox,” he says in a mockery of a placating voice. “I fear you were getting dreadfully close to falling for the cursed prince.”

“But Castor is…he’s…” Everything is starting to spin. “At the feast…you said—”

He looks up, grinning like a devil. “Apologies for the ruse, dear one. I confess there is little I love more than playing games.”

Gravity presses on my skull, and blackness seeps into my vision like slow-rolling fog. Durian says something else, but I can’t hear him. Then his hands are beneath me, and I’m being carried away.

29

Castor

Time is a cruel and unrelenting thing.

I’ve had so much of it. So much time to lure Maddox in like a starved arachnid that’s woven the perfect web for catching prey. So much time to wrap her in spider-silk words meant to charm and dazzle her. Every moment the threat of the Bloodwood Tree hangs over my head, the promise of a year spent in misery, juxtaposed with the image of me surrounded by people who care about me. Tamarind and Evodia and faceless friends I’ve never allowed myself to make.

Living with my curse has been like having a hole in the center of my chest. A hole that I stuffed with meaningless things to make it feel full. Nepenthe, wine, nights at Magesté in the arms of different orchids in between my brief dalliances with mortals. Those things patched it up, almost. Made me feel a bit less hollow. But, somehow, over the past several days, it feels like the hole has grown and stretched, and all the things I try to jam inside merely vanish into the blackness. And the one thing that could fill it is the one thing that can’t.

I make my way back to the citadel in a daze. A missing plank in the pathway nearly trips me, and I make a mental note to get that fixed so Maddox doesn’t accidentally fall through. Not that she will be traversing these planks much longer.

Tamarind never returned to my Nightshade home last night. Probably got roped into helping with the Sylveris Solstice. Maybe he saw Maddox leaving and decided to shadow her instead. Or maybe, after what I did at Magesté, he’s gone to beg Durian for a different job. Any job but guarding the malevolent cursed prince who gets drunk on tieg wine and sucks the life from a crowd of dryads.

I make it to my branch, enchant a fire in the grate, and collapse into my wingback chair, lost in a fog of thoughts.

Staring at the fire, I smoke a roll of nepenthe down to the very end, but I don’t even see the flames. All I see are silver eyes and hair the color of embers, speckled spots across a dimpled cheek, lips in an ever-present pout. One sentence echoing in my head like a heartbeat.

Is it still worth it?