Page 11 of Song of the Dark Wood

“Row, what is it?” Finn asked. He reached for her arm, but she ducked away at the last second. Finn looked chastened by the reminder that he wasn’t supposed to touch her in public.

“You don’t hear it?” she asked, wincing.

“Hear what?” Finn asked.

“The screaming,” she whispered. Her eyes scanned the tree line in front of them.

Finn shook his head.

“It must be the spirits. Maybe she never made it to Wolf’s Keep. If that’s the case, the monsters of the Dark Wood could have stolen the wandering souls,” Cade said solemnly.

“What does that mean?” Rowan asked.

Finn looked startled by her conversation with someone invisible. She’d never fully explained to him about Cade, and she would not make time for it now. It was unlikely he’d approve of her friendship with a demon.

“It means that those souls won’t find peace unless they escape to town for the next ferrying. If they get lost in the woods, they’ll become wraiths—shadow creatures that lose their sense of identity and are cursed to haunt the woods eternally. There are also evil entities in the forest that gain power by devouring lost souls,” Cade whispered.

Rowan hurried to catch up with Finn as they approached a group of huntsmen waiting at the edge of the forest. The sea of huntsmen parted, and Rowan looked at the ground, allowing herself one more moment before her world fell apart.

“Red,” the men around her murmured, hands crossed over the heart before they opened cupped palms to her—a sign of reverence toward the new Red Maiden.

Finally, Rowan forced herself to look down the trail.

Only about fifty feet into the forest, Orla’s crumpled body lay in the center of the trail. Rowan blinked the tears from her eyes, quickly swiping away any that escaped with her fingers. The screaming was even louder as she moved closer, but the sight of her dead friend blotted out everything else.

“If it’s too much,” Finn started, “we can?—”

“No, I can do it. She deserves the honor of a burial,” Rowan said. She took a step over the border into the Dark Wood and waited. Nothing happened. She continued with Cade beside her.

“Anything unusual?” she asked him.

He gave her a half-hearted smile. “Other than the screeching, you mean?”

“Yes, other than that.”

“Not that I can tell,” Cade said.

Rowan closed the distance to Orla’s body and paused, studying her friend. Orla’s blonde hair was spread out around her like a perfect golden halo, and her arms were crossed over her chest with a rose trapped beneath them. Her red cloak was noticeably absent. The pallor of her skin was disturbingly ghostly. Rowan had heard people say that those who’d recently passed just looked like they were sleeping, but Orla didn’t look like she was sleeping. She looked empty in a way that opened up a well of grief in Rowan’s chest.

She tried to turn down the volume on her emotions and just focus on the scene. There was no blood on the ground around Orla, but when Rowan bent low, she spotted a bite mark on her neck. It wasn’t large and deep, as if from the jaws of a wolf, but small and human. Blood crusted the mark, but there was no other sign of violence. Rowan was relieved that she hadn’t beentorn apart by one of the monsters that lurked off the main trail. Orla knew better than to wander from the trail. It was one of the first things they were taught when they were young Maidens.

It had to have been the work of the Wolf. Orla was just a few months from the end of her service. It seemed he wasn’t content to let her live beyond it.

Rowan knelt and checked her friend’s pulse, confirming what she already knew—Orla was gone.

“What happened to you, Orla?” Rowan rasped.

She crossed her hands over her heart and said a prayer to the Mother, then a prayer to the Wolf. Although they weren’t popular, prayers to the Wolf existed, and Rowan figured if she wanted to pray for the repose of the soul of her friend, it made sense to pray to the god of death. She opened her hands in front of her heart, offering her sorrow up to whatever god or goddess might take it, but it brought her no peace.

She pulled Orla’s body up to a sitting position.

“Mother help me. She’s heavy,” Rowan grunted.

“I can help,” Cade said.

“Okay, but you have to make it look smooth, like I’m doing it. I just need to get her onto my back, and then I should be able to do the rest myself,” Rowan said.

Still on her knees, she turned and pulled Orla’s arms over her shoulders. Her body wasn’t even rigid yet, and her skin didn’t feel completely cold. Rowan tried to banish the thought that Orla could have been killed while Rowan was in her morning meditation or while she and Aeoife were walking to the bakery. She flicked her hands as though physically trying to shake off the thought.

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