Page 139 of Song of the Dark Wood

She turned back to face Finn. “Finn, please just go. I do care for you. Maybe not in the way you want me to, but I still don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I know you tried to save Aeoife. I know that you’re a good person at your core, even if you lack imagination.”

“You want to destroy our world. Our way of life!” Finn barked.

“I do.” She nodded.

“But this is my city—my life, Row.”

“Yes,” Rowan started, “a whole city of people who were happy to have me hold up their world on my back. I’ve tired of doing so, and I’d like to make a world where that responsibility is shared among all instead of those born unlucky enough to become a sacrifice. I refuse to go willingly to my death for those who wouldn’t give me a second thought. I will be the last Red Maiden.”

“Rowan, I know you were unhappy, but this—” Finn looked around at the flaming buildings and overgrown forest. “This isn’t you.”

Her laughter turned bitter. “And who am I, Finn? Do you even know? My whole life has been struggle to crush the largeness in me down so that it could fit into the shadow of my responsibilities. You can’t pretend to understand that. You got to choose your path. You had the privilege of money, access, training, time. I only had the ability to see and talk to the dead. I was ripped away from my family and treated as an object my whole life.”

“I never treated you that way,” Finn insisted.

“You didn’t?” she asked. “Did you ever even ask me if Iwantedto marry you? You just assumed that I was a poor littlecurse girl who would be would be delighted with your charity. You didn’t care about what I wanted and you only liked me weak.”

Finn looked stricken. “That’s not true.”

“Then fight for me now. Trust me to know my own mind. Trust that I don’t want to be saved. I only ever wanted an opportunity to save myself.”

“But you had one!” Finn shouted. “You could have killed him. It’s all you had to do, Rowan.”

She shook her head. Apparently the Mother had shared her plans with Finn. “And then what? The world requires balance, Finn. You can’t just have no god of death. There would be a new god of death—one who killed Orla and tried to kill me twice, so I killed him instead. But now there isn’t a good option. Thanks to the Mother.”

Finn paled at her words. “He tried to kill you?”

“Not Conor. The vampire, Valen, whom she wanted to take my power and Orla’s so he could overthrow Conor. The Mother is not who she wants us all to believe. She’s losing power, and she’s just trying to find a way to steal it from the Wolf. The Mother is causing the blight in your orchards. It’s just a way for her to cultivate your alliance and influence in town.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Finn said, though she saw the hint of doubt in his eyes.

“Doesn’t it? The new religion in the north is affecting both of them. Gods get their power from faith. The fewer people that believe in them, the less power they have. The less they can control, the less people believe in them. It’s a vicious cycle. So she’s been stealing from the Wolf. He’s held his power, because what does everyone believe in and fear more than death? She’s found small ways to siphon off his power through the monsters in his Dark Wood, who give some of it back to her. Now she’s floundering because I killed her little minion.”

Finn shook his head in disbelief, but Rowan could see the cracks in his resolve.

“Think about it, Finn. You’re smart. You’ve always been a believer, and I know how hard it is. Trust me. No one was more disappointed than I was to find out her promise of salvation was just a twisted game,” Rowan said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

A bright flash of light burst in front of them, blinding Rowan temporarily. When her eyes adjusted, the Mother stood between her and Finn with Cade at her side. She wore a golden gown with a shiny gold breastplate and sword at her hip, her blonde hair pinned on top of her head in a crown of curls.

“My dear, it seems you’ve failed us again,” the Mother chided. She shook her head as if Rowan refusing to kill the Wolf was terribly naughty.

“I couldn’t do it,” Rowan said. “And I’m not sorry. Maybe I should have, but there has to be another way.”

“Oh, you sweet, foolish, sheltered girl, there is no other way,” the Mother said. “I really thought you were the one, Rowan. I could tell the first time I laid eyes on you that you had a tenacity, a fortitude that all the others lacked. Beyond that, I knew you were a bitter little thing.”

Rowan’s anger flared like a bonfire in her chest. Her gaze flicked to Finn, who stood to the Mother’s right, before landing on Cade, who stood to her left.

“You know, I expected it of Finn, but not you, Cade,” Rowan said bitterly.

“Sorry, Row. You have multiple shots at redemption, and I only have one,” Cade sighed.

Rowan tried not to be disappointed, but that was the thing about letting people close; you gave them the means with which to wound you. She had to take the bitter with the sweet.

Finn shifted beside the Mother. Rowan could practically see the gears turning in his head. He was clearly uncomfortable with the Mother befriending a demon and even more uncomfortable that he could now see said demon.

Rowan almost laughed. All she’d wanted most of her life was for others to see Cade so she didn’t have to constantly pretend she didn’t see or hear him. Now she wished he’d go away.

Instead, Cade stepped forward and grabbed her. She tried to pry her arm from his grip, but it was no use. She was stuck. She prayed that what she’d passed of her power to Conor would be enough. She wasn’t certain where her prayers floated off to, but she hoped Conor would somehow hear them.

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