Page 65 of The Iron Raven

The Mother Tree wailed again, her voice scraping like bark against my ears, and turned a furious gaze on us. “Insects,” she almost snarled. “Parasites. You will not touch me with your rotten flesh digits, your tainted glamour.” Her trunk shook, and her voice seemed to echo through the forest, reverberating through the trees. “Leave my grove,” she ordered. “I give you this one chance to depart peacefully, flesh pods. Leave my forest, or we will crush your bones, rend your disgusting flesh, and let the earth drink your poisoned blood.”

Meghan ignored her. Stepping forward, she stretched out her hand again, and glamour began rising once more. I felt the pull of magic, as she seemed to call on the forest itself to aid her, and the Summer glamour was quick to respond, flowing into the Iron Queen and filling her with power.

The Mother Tree hissed, her voice turning ugly and guttural. “I gave you the chance to leave, insects!” she snarled. “But you never listen, you continue to consume and slaughter and destroy. Very well, we will not stand for it a moment longer. The forest will tear your blight from the earth, and your bones will be food for the saplings for years to come.”

A rumble went through the earth. Overhead and all around us, the Mother Tree’s huge branches rattled, hissing with the sound of a million shaking leaves. And then I noticedallthe plants—grass, brambles, bushes, toadstools—were shaking and writhing madly, causing a chill to slide up my back.

“Uh, princess? I think we’re about to be assaulted by the entire freaking forest. Perhaps a tactical retreat is in order?”

“No.” Meghan’s voice was strained but unyielding. The Iron Queen hadn’t moved, though a furrow creased her brow as she struggled to draw glamour against the very forest fighting against her. “This has to be done. Try to keep everything back. I just need a few seconds—”

With a crack and a piercing groan, a huge branch swung toward Meghan, moving with unnatural speed. Instantly, Ash snatched the queen around the waist and yanked her back, and the branch barely missed them both as it swept by. Meghan winced, losing hold of her glamour for a moment, but she didn’t even open her eyes. Ash drew his sword and stepped in front of her, placing himself between the Iron Queen and the giant trunk of the Mother Tree.

“Protect the queen,” he snapped at the rest of us, as with eerie hisses, creaks, groans, and scrapes, the forest floor rose up and started reaching for us. Grass covered my boots, vines tried slithering around my ankles, brambles clawed at me with spiky talons. I cut myself free of vegetation and had to duck as a branch swooped by with the groan of splitting wood.

“Dammit, ice-boy!” I sprang toward Meghan and Ash, trying to get to Meghan’s other side, but the surging roots and vines clawed at my feet, slowing me down. “Do you know how hard it’s going to be to fight the entire forest?”

A trio of spinning light crescents flew by my ear, slicing into a tangle of bramble rearing up to impale me, and cutting the shrub into pieces. I glanced back to see Nyx cut a sapling in two as Coaleater reared up and stomped a log into charred, smoking pieces, then blasted a coiling vine into a withered husk. Nyx sprang onto Coaleater’s back, then leaped gracefully off the Iron faery, soared over my head, and landed next to Meghan, cutting through a root reaching up to grab her. Together, the four of us surrounded the Iron Queen, a living barrier between her and the madness swirling around us.

“Insects!” the Mother Tree cried, making my ears ring. “Blight bringers! Destroyers! Crush them! Impale their diseased flesh! Grind their bones to dust! Rise up, my children, and swallow them whole.”

Around us, beyond our protective ring, the forest was crawling toward us like a steady, unstoppable tide. A sea of brambles, thorns, vines, and roots, seeking to bury us beneath a flood of angry plants.

Nyx hurled light blades into the approaching wall, and Coaleater blasted nearby offending plants with flame, but the sea of vegetation continued to creep closer, a constant hiss in our ears.

“Puck!” Slashing through a swiping branch, Ash turned to glare at me. “Slow it down, Goodfellow,” he ordered, jerking his head toward the wall of plants. “Meghan has to concentrate. She can’t do anything right now, but you can. Put that Summer magic to work before it’s too late.”

“Don’t ask for much, do you, ice-boy?” I snapped, but dropped to a knee in the writhing grass and pressed a palm into the ground. Sending my own glamour into the forest around me, I could feel the anger pulsing beneath my skin, the rage and loathing for all of us fleshy creatures who continuously destroyed the forest. The Mother Tree’s despair pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating.

Gritting my teeth, I extended my will into the thrashing forest, into the roots and branches spread through the dirt. Sweat beaded on my forehead, running into my eyes as I fought the ancient and supremely powerful will of the Mother Tree and tried to hold back the entire forest.

The crawling plants slowed, and a headache began pounding behind my eyes with the effort. I clenched my jaw and kept pouring will and glamour into the forest around me, silently begging the Iron Queen to hurry up. I could feel her glamour suddenly, the alien sensation of Iron mixed with Summer magic, descending into the earth, into the roots of the Mother Tree herself.

A bramble curled around my arm, digging spiny thorns into my flesh as it tried yanking me away. I winced, but there was the flash of a blade that severed the branch, and Nyx stepped in front of me with her light blades out. From the corner of my eyes, I saw the forest reaching for us, twiggy hands, coiling vines, thorny claws just a few breaths away. Despite my attempts to slow it down, another few heartbeats and we’d be buried.

Another thorny vine coiled around my arm, leaving threads of blood against my skin. A root slithered into my pant leg, and something sharp and twiggy touched my neck. At that moment, I felt the strange, steely glamour of the Iron Queen yank on the roots of the Mother Tree, pulling them up, up, and out, spreading them to different corners of the forest.

The Mother Tree screamed, and the forest went wild. The wall of vegetation recoiled, writhing and thrashing, roots and branches flailing about like the ends of whips. Gradually, however, they stilled, sinking back and returning to normal.

Panting, I slumped, letting my glamour drop as around us, the vicious sounds of branches, grass, and leaves faded away, and all was quiet once more.

Lowering her arms, Meghan swayed on her feet, then collapsed into Ash’s arms.

The Ice Prince scooped her up, holding her close, as overhead, the Mother Tree gave a final wail and collapsed into herself. Her eyes shut, and her lined, wrinkled face disappeared, seeming to melt into the bark of the trunk, until a huge but nonsentient-looking tree sat in the center of the now silent grove.

“I did...as much as I could,” Meghan whispered between breaths. “I pulled up the roots...sent them in different directions. They won’t stay that way for long but...at least for now...they’re out of that thing’s influence. This is a temporary fix at best. I wish I could have done more.”

“It is all you could have done, Iron Queen,” said Grimalkin’s voice, as the cat looked up from where he sat on a root. He curled his whiskers, gazing up at the Mother Tree’s empty trunk. “This is the root of the treant’s corruption. Had you not acted, they and all the other sentient plants would continue to attack the fey and perhaps all living creatures in the Briars. But you are correct. Though the treants’ hostility will fade and they will eventually revert to their former selves, it is likely not permanent. Unless you sever the corruption at the source.”

“You did everything you could,” Ash told Meghan gently. “Rest now. We’re getting out of here. Goodfellow...” He shot a glance at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or annoyed that I was still there. “Can you stand?”

I forced a tired smirk. “Sure, everyone, go check on the Iron Queen. Pay no attention to the guy that actually slowed down the entire forest.” I pushed myself upright, and Nyx stepped forward, letting me lean on her for support. I would’ve told her not to worry, but my legs were shaking, my arms felt like they were made of noodles, and I was feeling unreasonably cranky at the moment. “Don’t pretend that you care, ice-boy,” I told him. “Let’s get out of here. Right now, I don’t feel like fighting anything meaner than a butterfly.”

Meghan sighed. Leaning her head on Ash’s shoulder, she gazed up tiredly at the Mother Tree, her features pinched with concern. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I hope we’ve at least brought you some measure of peace.”

There was no reply from the Mother Tree. The trunk remained blank, empty of face or expression.

Grimalkin hopped down from the root, waved his tail once, and padded out of the clearing without making any comments. With Ash still carrying Meghan, we followed, and the grove of the Mother Tree faded behind us.

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