King of the Woodlands

Chapter 26

Lilibeth dropped the mirror, and the vision was gone. Her heart jackrabbited in her chest, and all she could think of was Father's red-rimmed eyes and the despair and rage in his voice. He was trying to save her, but in doing so, he was risking his life.

And he wanted the Woodland King dead.

If Lilibeth hadn't carried this hope inside her heart, if she hadn't believed that there was still light in him, she would've agreed wholeheartedly about killing him. But she'd learned that the Woodland King wasn't a monster. Somehow, he was human after all. The name he'd written into his bones with angry claws was all a perfect disguise, and beneath it all was someone worth saving again and again.

But she had to tell them that he wasn't the paper villain everyone thought he was, wasn't a perfect storybook dragon with eyes like hot coals and fresh claws. All of Llewellenar had fallen into a spool of spinning thread fed by whispered tales spoken with shivering tongues, and she intended to cut off the string with some good old scissors of truth.

Finally, the stubborn, impossible words pried themselves from her trembling lips, pouring into the grass. "Take me home."

The Woodland King lifted his raw, pained eyes to her. "If I do, I won't ever be the same."

"They'll kill you," Lilibeth said. "Please."

"They won't even make it past the Eoghan Mountains."

"They will," Lilibeth said. "Father knows the Dwarf Lord—once, he had to travel to a large market town to sell his wooden carvings and had to pass the Eoghan Mountains to get there. Dwarves wouldn't let him go, but with him being my father and all, he charmed his way out, and the Dwarf Lord is in his favor."

"And what about the Tuath Dur?"

"It's nothing," Lilibeth said desperately. "Just give the Faerie Queen a few offerings, and she'll let you pass. Nothing is stopping my father from coming here, not even if the sky broke down in front of him. They're going to kill you, and I'm going to stop them. They have to listen to me."

The Woodland King's eyes were bleak. If he let her go home, something bad would happen to him. But she'd rather see him injured than see him dead.

"The journey here takes days."

"But without the burden of dwarves, they can make it. Father knows dangerous shortcuts that I didn't. And he's willing to take those shortcuts to get here, to kill you."

The Woodland King turned away.

"Let me go," she begged. "I'll come back for you."

The Woodland King's charcoal eyes darkened as he turned back around to face her. "Would you have come for me," he said, "when I was too scared to come into the light? When I pushed you away and stayed silent? Would you have come for me then, when I was still a monster? Oh, cruel fate."

Lilibeth stumbled. The grandfather clock had mused the same thing, saying it with amusement and wistfulness. She never wanted to see that thing again.

Would you have come for me? She'd asked the same of him once, her eyes bright with anger and hurt as she demanded an answer from him. And he'd told her that no matter where she was, he'd come for her.

"I would have come for you," Lilibeth said. "And no matter how broken I was, I would've fought for you, and I wouldn't stop. Truly, I'm sorry as the hills, a thousand times sorry, that I didn't see you earlier. But I see you now, and I want you to know that I'd ruin myself to fix you." (Dearest reader, she would also want you to know that she isn't being dramatic this time.)

She then thought of the bean sídhe and their wrinkled grey faces, their black mourning veils and whispers of death. And she didn't care. She was numb now, clinging to her wild, reckless hope, refusing to believe that she'd die and instead believing that she'd conquer Death rather than succumb to it.

"I'll go back unafraid," she promised. "And I'll fight unafraid."

"Have you been happy here with us?"

Of course she had. Birgit had given her all the candies and cakes she'd ever wanted. Albion was a bit smitten with her, but Lilibeth didn't mind. She'd made so many friends among the black-eyed servants. She wouldn't just fight for herself and the Woodland King. She'd fight for them too.

"I was very happy."

"Whatever happens," he said, "promise you'll come back."

Lilibeth blinked, a thousand different emotions twisting and surging into her all at once. "I—"

He smiled, a cold, clever smile. "Am I wrong," he said, "for wanting us to make it?"

Her amusement vanished, rain on a summer day. "I didn't mean it like that. I—"

"You're the one who's supposed to have hope, Lilibeth. Not me."

He reached for the mirror lying on the ground. From the handle's tip he pulled out a ring of silver with his claws. "Turn it thrice around your finger," he said, "and you'll be home. Turn it thrice again, and you'll be back to this cave. And take the mirror, so you can always see what's going on back . . . here."

Lilibeth dragged her hands through her hair, losing steam. "You know, I admire you more than you could ever imagine," she admitted. "Well, um, at first, I didn't, not really. But now I've opened my eyes to something I've been blind to all along."

"A monster like me?" He shook his head bitterly. "You want me to be a better person. But that can never happen, not after everything I've been put through. I can never steal from the rich to give to the poor. I'm a monster who plucks fear from skulls and weaves sin into shadow, and even now, the dark can't set me free—not entirely, not ever. I can find myself peace, find comfort, if that's what you want. But I'm not worth admiring."

"No," Lilibeth said. "I admire you because you surpassed giant mountains. Through your starless skies, unanswered prayers, and silent battles, you were able to become your own hero."

"I'm not meant to be a hero." He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he stopped himself.

Lilibeth flung out a hand, encompassing the cave, the servants, the world. "They don't need a hero," she said. "They need you."

The Woodland King huffed, curls of smoke twisting and slithering their way out of his slitted nostrils like steam floating from a hot bowl of soup. "The fate of this entire cave in the hands of a twelve-year-old girl and a broken dragon." He laughed sadly. "What a mess."

"I'm not letting you die," Lilibeth said.

"And for that I don't know how I should thank you."

"The first words I hear from your mouth better be Thank you, O great Lilibeth, for saving my life." She pitched her voice lower in a scarily accurate attempt to match his low, raspy baritone.

A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth, forcing it upward. But it was gone the next second when he said, "I was a wyrmling—a child, if you will, thrust into war."

War—between dragon and man. The Woodland King was a child of war and chaos, the result of raised swords and a world reeking of hate.

"And if these villagers reach your lands, what will you do?" Lilibeth asked, toying with the ring he'd given her but not slipping it on her finger. Don't you dare give up, she silently said. Tell me that you'll fight, that you'll die trying. Don't let my friendship go to waste. Don't let everything go to waste. Fight for me, for the servants, and most importantly, fight for yourself.

His answer was spoken with such conviction it surprised her.

"I will rise."