Chapter 3: Under the White Tree

The lord's smile is slow and cruel, and the whole court holds its breath. Cael's arm locks harder around my waist because he refuses to choose.

Cael growls, and the sound shakes the ice under my feet. He says, “I pick neither,” and his gold eyes burn because the court is pushing him to choose between me and Maya. My heart beats so fast it hurts because I know they want blood no matter what he says.

My mother steps between us and the lord, and her hands are up. She says, "There is a way," and her voice cracks because she is scared. She says, "The Severing can be done now at the First Tree."

The crowd sucks in air all at once because no one has tried the Severing in a hundred years, and the old wolves at the back step away from the throne because they remember the last pair that burned it. The air turns cold because everyone is holding their breath.

The lord laughs, but it is a thin sound, and he waves his hand. He says, "Let the tree decide then," because he thinks we will die. Guards shove me and Cael forward because the trial must be now.

They drag Maya too. Her chains rattle on the ice. She trips, and her knees hit hard. I lunge for her, but Cael holds me back because the guards have knives at her throat. I taste metal in my mouth because I am biting my cheek to keep myself from screaming.

We stop at the black throne, and its roots spread under the floor like thick veins. They pulse slowly and dark because they are thirsty. The air smells like wet earth, old blood, and pine. The ice around the roots is cracked because the tree has been growing under it for a thousand years.

My mother kneels by the biggest root, and she presses her palm to it. She whispers, "It takes joined blood to judge the bond," because she wants me to understand. She looks at me, and her eyes are wet because she is begging me to be brave, and I want to tell her I am not brave because I am eighteen and scared, but the words stick in my throat.

Cael lifts his left hand, and he slices his palm open with one claw without flinching. Blood wells up dark and hot, running down his wrist because his heart is pounding, and then he takes my shaking hand because I cannot do it myself. His fingers are warm.

He cuts a thin line across my palm, and it stings as our blood mixes right away because he presses his hand to mine. Heat shoots up my arm because his blood is still in me from before, and the mate bond tugs hard because it knows what we are doing.

The root under us shifts like it smells us, and Cael pulls me down with him. We slam our joined hands onto the cold trunk because the trial has started and the ice bites into my knees.

Pain rips up my wrist and into my chest because the tree is ice and fire at the same time, and the mate bond flares so bright I cannot breathe. Then I am inside Cael's head because the tree opens him up to me.

I am in a big empty room with stone walls where a small boy with black hair sits on a cold floor crying and calling "Mother" over and over because she is gone. He hugs his knees and rocks back and forth, and I know it is Cael because the ache in his chest becomes mine.

The vision snaps, and I am back on the ice, my hand still pressed to the root. The root glows red under our hands and then turns black because the tree is angry, and the whole hall goes dark except for the veins lighting up under the ice.

The tree rejects our blood, and the black glow crawls away from our hands down the root toward Maya because she is pure and unbonded. My stomach drops because I already know what that means.

A thorn vine shoots out of the floor like a snake and wraps around Maya's ankle, and she screams because the thorns bite deep. The vine drags her across the ice toward the trunk, and the whole hall watches in silence because the tree has made its choice.

My mother screams “No!” and lunges for Maya as Cael roars so loud the ice cracks under us. I throw myself forward, but the bond yanks me back toward Cael because it will not release me, and I am torn in two directions because my sister is bleeding and my brother is holding me.

Maya hits the root hard, and her chains snap as the vine pulls her up off the floor. She looks at me with tears running down her split lip, her hair hanging across her shaking face, because she thinks I let this happen.

"You promised," she whispers, her voice small and tired. "You said you would come for me, not choose him over me," and the words cut deeper than anything because I did promise her. I came here to die for her, and now she is hanging from a tree because of me.

The trunk splits open a little, and cold air pours out as a voice that is not a voice slides into my head. It says, “Brother blood is sour,” like it has already decided. It says, “I will take the pure heart at dawn.”

Cael hears it too, and his whole body jerks, his eyes going wide before they bleed from gold to black because his wolf is rising. “Then we let it take me,” he says, and his voice has dropped so low it no longer sounds like a man because his wolf is pushing through. He would rather die than watch Maya burn.

He rips his hand from mine, and blood sprays the root as he steps toward the trunk and closes both hands around the thorn vine wrapped around Maya. The muscles in his back lock tight because he is pouring everything he has into tearing it apart.

The vine tightens and the thorns dig deeper into Maya's skin, and she cries out as the tree drinks the drops of her blood because it is sweet. The black glow gets brighter because it is feeding, and the smell of her blood turns my stomach because I know this is my fault.

The bond in my chest pulls hard toward Cael because he is hurting and toward Maya because she is bleeding, and I am split in half because I cannot save both. The root pulses faster because dawn is coming and we are running out of time.

Cael looks back at me over his shoulder, and his face is all wolf now. “Tell me to stop, little brother,” he says, his voice rough and broken, because he will listen to me even if it kills him. Blood runs down his arms from where the thorns cut him, and he will not let go.

The trunk cracks wider, and something moves inside it, and it is not wood. It is a hand made of roots, and it reaches for Maya's chest because it wants her heart. The whole court falls to their knees. The air goes so cold my breath turns white, and the only sound is the tree breathing because it has already made its choice.

Maya closes her eyes.