“Ha,” said Rosalind. “That’d be a first.”

Gritting her teeth, Cordelia lowered herself carefully to the ground. The pain was good for one thing, at least. It distracted her from the annoyance of her triplets.

She’d thought that the wound had stopped bleeding by then, but once they unwound—and horribly unstuck—the makeshift bandage, it opened up and bled more, after all, into the cold, clear water that the other two splashed over her. They cleaned the ragged bandage, too, soaking it in the stream before squeezing it out and wrapping it back around her waist, then tightening it so much that she gasped. Between her wet, cold-pebbled skin and the deep burn of the wound, her balance swooped off and disappeared entirely. She staggered as she pushed herself upright, and when Rosalind grabbed her arm this time, she didn’t protest.

“Lie down, now,” said her sister. “Don’t you dare go animal on me! I’m not letting you ruin this bandage. And there’s no point going any farther with you stumbling like this.”

She wouldn’t have stumbled if they’d given her the sword-stick. But the soft grass beyond the muddy bank felt too good for her to argue as her triplets jointly pushed her down. The ground wrapped around her in a warm, comforting embrace, and her eyes fell closed with pure relief. The earth hummed contentedly beneath her head. Insects buzzed busily above her, while the stream splashed a steady, lulling tune nearby.

For the first time in her life, she fell into sleep on the unshielded ground in her own original form, with no thick stone floors between her body and the earth and no animal transformation to disguise her true self.

Her last defenses slipped silently away … and a new set of voices began to whisper in her head.

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Shhhhh, a hundred voices seemed to murmur as she drifted, unsure if she was dreaming or awake. Shhhhh, young one. We have you now, after all our years of waiting. We will heal you.

You are ours and always have been.

It was too much for her tired brain to untangle. Letting out a long, defeated sigh, Cordelia fell the rest of the way into deep sleep, cradled by the rustling green forest. In her dreams, the hundred voices kept on whispering to one another, but this time they were too low for her to make out any words. A giant heartbeat drummed deep in the soil underneath her, keeping perfect time with her own. Green grew up through her body, spreading rich, vibrant tendrils along her limbs. Birds kept watch in the trees, guarding her rest, while insect sentries buzzed through the air.

She was loved. She was safe. She was part of a whole. She was …

She woke with a sudden jerk of warning. The insects’ hum had halted.

Her eyes snapped open. “Something’s coming,” she said with flat certainty.