THE FOREST LORD By Susan Krinard

“Eden! Are you well?”

“Aunt, what… I…” Words became all twisted in her head, impossible to force past the malaise. “He… he came after Donal…”

“You need not fear. He is gone. Dalziel frightened him away with his pistol.” Claudia’s voice remained calm and unafraid. “You are both safe—for now. But we must change our plans, Eden. He knows Donal is with you. He will pursue you if he can. We must separate.”

Hartley had gone away, but he would come back. “Change carriages,” Eden murmured through lips thick as sausages. “Donal and me… in the berline…”

“That is not enough. You must send Donal with me. I know of a place to go where he will be safe.”

Send Donal with Claudia? Let him go? Eden tried to shake her head, but even so small a motion made her faint.

“It is the only way,” Claudia continued. Her voice had begun to echo, as if at the end of a very long tunnel. “We will change coaches. Donal will come with me, and you will proceed to London. The monster will not believe that you would let Donal out of your sight. If he follows, he will follow you.”

It all made sense to her befogged brain, though her emotions cried out in violent protest. She could feel herself slipping close to unconsciousness. Soon she would be in no state to look after Donal in any capacity, let alone defend him. “Ill,” she whispered. “I am… ill.”

Claudia’s soft, bare palm pressed her forehead. “You do not feel feverish. You are overtired, and your strength has been taxed too far. You should stop at Ambleside. You must rest there until you feel able to continue, while I take Donal ahead. That will be even more sure to throw the monster off.”

Claudia’s face had become a blur. “Where? Where… take Donal?”

“It is best that you not know, in case he finds you and uses his enchantments upon you. Nancy will go with you. I will send word to London as soon as we are settled.”

She withdrew, and Eden felt herself being shifted about. Donal’s warmth left her side. “I’ll take her, your ladyship,” Dalziel’s distant voice said, and she was lifted into strong arms and carried from the post chaise and across the snow. The whole world was a mass of white streaked with black and red.

“Donal,” she whimpered.

“There, lass,” Dalziel said. “It’ll be well, you’ll see. You come with me, now.”

Struggle was beyond her. Her body came to rest amid blankets meant to cushion the berline’s hard seats, and more were tucked around her. A soft woman’s voice murmured above her. She could not get warm.

Donal was gone.

Tears came, at last—quiet tears that seemed to fall from someone else’s eyes. They dampened the blanket wrapped over her chest and shoulders, but she couldn’t lift her hand to blot them away.

After a time the berline lurched forward again. Eden had very little sense of movement, anything beyond the suffocating universe of the berline’s interior. She forgot where she was going and why. The more she labored to remember, the thicker grew the fog in her head.

In her dreams, Papa held out his blunt-fingered hand with a broad smile and called her name.

“Let go, my pet,” he said, as he’d once called her so long ago. “It’s not worth the candle.”

At last she stopped struggling and surrendered to peace.

Like any wounded creature of the forest, Hartley sought the darkest and most sheltered place he could find in which to battle death.

This enemy was no stranger to him. He had seen countless humans—mortals—come and go, though he had been close to few of them. He had seen great trees topple and mighty stags driven to their end by young, vigorous rivals. He knew that death was a part of life on this earth.

But never had he faced it himself, not like this.

The iron ball had worked its way deep into his body from the wound in his side, tracing a path of searing agony, it had come to lodge very near his heart, leaching its poison into his blood.

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