Page 140 of Song of the Dark Wood

“Now Finn, my brave warrior. Tell me how the Wolf pulled from her,” the Mother said. “Short-sighted of me not to realize you could be a constant source of power.”

Horror squeezed the air from Rowan’s lungs. The Mother wanted to steal Rowan’s power. The goddess had always been driven by power. Rowan should have anticipated the move sooner and made herself scarce.

Finn hesitated, his eyes flashing from the Mother to Rowan. “He just took her hand and then…” He trailed off as his eyes met Rowan’s.

“This is your shot, Finn. You can make a difference. You want to save me so badly? Shut your stupid mouth,” Rowan said, gesturing to the surrounding chaos.

All around them, huntsmen were engaged in fights with Conor’s reapers. There was the clang of metal against metal and grunts of pain, and the air was thick with the smell of smoke and blood.

Finn stared at the ground.

“What’s a matter, lover boy?” Cade taunted. “All those proclamations. I guess it’s easy to make big promises when you think no one else is there to hear them. I heard you promiseto protect her, but actions speak louder than words. Especially when it comes to letting the woman you proclaim to love be sucked dry of her power by the Mother.”

The Mother grimaced at Cade. “What are you doing, you little devil?”

“I’m reminding this idiot that actions speak louder than words and past mistakes. He claims to want a chance to be a hero, but every time it’s handed to him on a platter, he tosses it away,” Cade quipped.

Rowan saw it—the moment that Finn decided to be who he always should have been. His eyes locked on hers and his throat bobbed. He didn’t need to say it for her to know he was sorry.

He swung his sword suddenly, but the Mother anticipated the move. Throwing out her hand, she blasted Finn back with a bright ball of light. He landed several yards away, unconscious.

Rowan turned to run, but the Mother appeared suddenly in front of her.

“I’m not a prisoner you want to take,” Rowan warned. She’d never felt such a sense of certainty. A new idea bloomed in her mind.

“We’ll just see about that, won’t we?” the Mother taunted. She tore the sleeve of Rowan’s dress and cloak, gripping her skin.

Rowan shoved at the Mother, trying to escape her loud cacophony of magic. The goddess’s hand burned into her forearm, scalding her skin. All around them, reapers fought off huntsmen, but Conor was nowhere in sight.

The vicious ache in her arm honed Rowan’s focus. She just needed to hold out a little longer until the Mother was distracted. She hoped that Sarai and the Crone were close.

Rowan stopped fighting the tug of the Mother’s magic. Instead, she let hers slip. She reached into the vibrant, angry chaos of the Mother’s magic and tugged—hard.

The Mother’s eyes went wide in shock as her magic rushed into Rowan. It burned all the way down like her body was full of a vicious poison, but she didn’t let go.

The Mother took a step back, but Rowan clamped her hand down, holding fast to the goddess.

A flurry of movement to her left drew her focus. Conor stepped out from the shadows like a dark knight in his hunter-green tunic and leather breastplate. The space between them was too great. There were dozens of huntsmen engaged with Conor’s reapers scattered throughout the square between them. He shouted something that she couldn’t hear but still knew what it was.Let go.

Rowan locked eyes with Conor over the melee—the pain on his face a mirror of her own. They were out of time, and they both knew it.

She had known the moment would come. She simply hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. Time had always been her most limited resource, and she’d desperately tried to fit as much as she could into what little she had. The rapid passage of it had stirred panic in her when she was younger, but now that she had even more to lose, a strange calm settled in her stomach.

Chaos reigned around them, but between Rowan and Conor, there was only the stillness of knowing something dreadful and imminent. A single moment stretched out between them, suspended by the weight of their desire. Perhaps loving someone so much made small moments larger. All the love and joy and loss—every sweet thing, every anger, every heartbreak—and a desperate longing for more filled that moment until it was bursting at the seams.

Rowan reminded herself it would never have felt like enough.Enoughwas a concept Conor lived outside the boundaries of.

She’d spent her life in the shadow of an hourglass, trying to grasp the moments as they slipped through her fingers like sand,so she’d filled what little time she had with small rebellions and little connection so it wouldn’t be too hard to disappear. All of that, and it still didn’t seem like enough.

It wasn’t that she wanted things to be fair.Fairwas a child’s word. The world was a cruel and inequitable place, and it didn’t owe her anything, and she wasn’t foolish enough to ever expect fairness. Still, she felt that she’d sacrificed more than most.

But magic was a thing that required balance, and she felt betrayed by that concept as every bit of favor seemed to land on the Mother’s side.

Perhaps it would have been easier if she hadn’t fallen for Conor, if she and Sarai were content to sit prettily in their roles, pawns for a society that was happy to trade them and their futures in exchange for peace of mind.

Conor nodded to Rowan, and she tried to smile but only succeeded in frowning as she let go of the Mother and stumbled back.

He charged toward Rowan, stepping between her and the Mother just as a shout stole Rowan’s attention.

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