Page 100 of Untethering Dark

They aimed a kick at the severed head, expression dark. “I didn’t intend to.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

The humans danced and chanted round and round the fire, drawing out the sacrifices. Making torture out of anticipation. If this was only about salvation and revival, it would be over by now.

Heldin hadn’t stepped closer to him since she emerged from the flames unscathed, but she openly examined him, tapping the tip of her blade against her lips. Every bit the butcher looking for the choicest cuts of meat.

Demise was inevitable, and while he didn’t enjoy the idea of dragging it out, he needed to know why. He understood her motivations now, at least some of them. That had been clear when each new sacrifice resurrected a fresh crop of her people. But what had turned her down this dark, bloody path in the first place? What drove her to this evil two thousand years ago? That he couldn’t figure out.

“Why?” he croaked, his voice a weak, wrecked thing. “All those millennia ago, why did you sacrifice those people, your neighbors?”

“Why indeed,” she drawled. “Was my offering too grand?”

Some of the bite returned to his growl. “You didn’t do that for me.” Not that he would’ve wanted her to.

Heldin threw back her head and laughed. “Of course not,AlmightyWald Vater.” If he was a god that cared about reverence and worship, he would’ve hated the mocking way she said his title, but insolence was the least of the crimes she needed to answer for. “I did it for me,” she purred, gesturing to the other Wiedergänger. “And for them.”

Rage simmered beneath the grief at the pointlessness of it all. “Was my protection not enough? The years the village prospered and knew peace were many...”

“Don’t you know?” She twirled her blade, eyes glinting in the firelight. “Our people were weak. Crushed underfoot again and again, and it was high time we demanded retribution from those who made us suffer or turned a blind eye. You employed your charity well, Wald Vater, and we were grateful for it, but still we bowed and scraped for that illusion of mercy and peace.”

A thin line of blood emerged from her hairline, trailing down the curve of her cheek. She swiped it away, leaving a red smear. She killed a stag for its crown, and its blood seeped from her scalp.

“Our memories are long, and our history shows that peace is a fragile thing.” One by one, she sucked her fingers clean. “It was only a matter of time before another conqueror came to take that which wasn’t theirs and our neighbors turned a blind eye yet again. There were already whispers of a great army marching up from the south.”

Invaders had come in their red-plumed helmets and shiny armor, but those who crossed his path did not leave.

“I would have protected you still.”

“You kept us weak,” she said softly, as if speaking to a small child with delicate feelings. “We relied on your protection and mercy overmuch, and I won’t deny I was your willing priestess, but we lost our own teeth and claws along the way. We needed to seize our fates and earn respect and fear in our own right. Not by proxy of our guardian. Our enemies needed to know we would not suffer their greed and that we’d give no quarter to those who dared enter our lands.”

“You didn’t just raise arms to survive, you eviscerated.” There was no end that justified these means. “You slew innocents from nearby villages, innocents who had nothing to do with the pastbetrayals of which you speak. They weren’t the soldiers of an invading army.”

Her jaw tensed, a flicker of unexpected doubt cracking her ruthless exterior. “No one is innocent. And besides, we had to make a name for ourselves.” A flimsy excuse, but maybe it had been just enough to allow her to sleep at night.

“All you would’ve given them was a monster to slay.”

A sick grin spread from ear to ear. Whatever remaining humanity he glimpsed was already smothered. “We learned from you. The way you ruthlessly slew our enemies.” She closed her eyes and sighed, pulling back her hair to show him the light pink brand of his visage on her breastbone, fingertips tracing the scarring. If it weren’t for ropes and magic keeping him weak, he’d swipe it from her skin. “I would’ve thought you’d be pleased we’d honor the memory.”

“I didn’t teach you senseless cruelty,” he spat, fury surmounting. “There has to be rules. Boundaries.”No trespassing after dark. An offering in exchange for clemency.

“And what have your rules bought you?” she scoffed, releasing her hair, covering the brand once more. The bonfire behind her roared higher as her anger flared. “For thousands of years, I’ve watched you from the beyond. And for thousands of years, I’ve watched how the world changed, and how you bowed to it. Not a king, not a god. Just pathetic and weak.”

Adapting, surviving, was not bowing. Better to bend than break in the face of great change and a modern world that outpaced him.

“Look what you’ve allowed others do to the forest you claim to protect.” She knifed a hand at the scarred tree line, ignoring how her own flames licked their branches black. Or how she used poachers to achieve her ends. “Caustic rains, metal creatures that gobble up the forest just to spit out its bones. Every day you let outsiders swarm and destroy our lands and call yournighttime hunts retribution, but it does nothing to keep them in check.”

For all Heldin watched, she knew nothing of his heart.

He may have planted some of this forest’s first seeds, nurturing and watching them grow, but they’d taken a life of their own, spreading their roots, and dropping future generations from their branches. Creatures both big and small came for the shade, for the food, and for the protection they offered. And it brought him joy to see his creation sustain so many.

This forest never belonged solely to him, and it never would.

“You were never the all-powerful being we worshipped.” Heldin whet her words to cut deep. Their religion was what they made of him. Not who he was, and yet he still accepted their devotion, once upon a time. “The way you ran sniveling to your den, tail tucked between your legs, after slaying your own people. You’d not even the decency to lord over your might.”

“What do you want, Heldin?”

“I want your power. What’s left of it anyway.” She stepped close, lifting his chin with the tip of her blade. Those haunting, fiery eyes scored him deeper than any weapon she might wield. Anything she wanted that she hadn’t taken already, she could seize for herself, and he was powerless to stop her. “I’ll do what you could not. Take back this forest and rule it as it should be ruled.”

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