Holly Black - The Darkest Part of the Forest

Ben tried to move toward him, clawing at the bars of the cage, but a gleaming knight held him back. “You’re insane,” Ben shouted, and Severin started to laugh.

Hazel crossed the floor in front of the throne. She wasn’t sure if the other knights recognized what she held or if they just weren’t paying enough attention to her.

The Alderking whirled, eyes widening in surprise. Then he decided on amusement. “What are you thinking, little knight? Do you even remember how to hold a sword? Do you think you’re being honorable? He won’t be able to save you.”

“No,” Hazel said. “I’m the one who’s supposed to save him.”

He swung at her, but she’d had time to think about this. She didn’t bother aiming to block him. She aimed Heartsworn not at him, but at his sword and swung with all her might.

Heartsworn cut the blade of Heartseeker in half with a terrible crack, like that of shattering glass. The Alderking looked at her, as though he couldn’t believe what she had done. Then his gaze went to something she couldn’t see and he managed a smile.

Sorrow had come.

Courtiers had their hands pressed against their mouths, smothering small shrieks. Behind her, Hazel heard the heavy, thudding tread of the monster, heard the shiver of her branches. Hazel shuddered, taking a deep breath.

She pressed the edge of Heartsworn against the Alderking’s throat. It nicked his skin, blood beading like a single garnet where the point touched him.

“She’s coming closer, ever closer,” the Alderking said, swallowing, holding out the broken blade in one hand, as though in surrender, as though he meant to drop it. Hazel was fairly sure he wouldn’t, though. “Remember that I have the bone ring. Remember that with it, I can influence her.”

Hazel swallowed, coming to a decision.

“If you turn, you’ll have a chance,” he said. “All you have to do is turn. You have the sword. But if you don’t strike now, you’ll be hers. She’ll make you cough up dirt and vine, make you sleep in a bed of your own tears.”

There was a rush of air, like something moving very fast. Maybe the monster was pulling back to strike. Hazel knew what it was like to lose, knew it so well that it had washed the taste of winning from her mouth, so that she wasn’t sure she even remembered the savor of it.

She might be about to lose again.

Hazel thought of the creature she’d seen in the school, of the creature she’d seen the day before in Jack’s house. She thought of the strange, shambling beauty of her treelike shape, the impossibility of her. She thought of the way Ben had sang and the way the monster had let Severin touch her face.

Was Sorrow still under the Alderking’s influence? Or was she awake, conscious, no longer able to be fooled by a bit of bone?

“Go ahead,” he said. “Quick now, trust me or trust a monster?”

“Don’t—” Jack yelled, but Hazel couldn’t wait until he finished what he was going to say.

Quickly, she moved, slicing down fast, so that the very tip of Heartsworn sliced the grim bone ring in two. “I swore I would defeat the monster at the heart of the forest—and I have. It was never her. It was always you.”

It was then that the monster’s twig fingers grasped the Alderking. Astonished, his eyes went wide and he howled, calling for his knights, screaming curses. She held him and kept on holding him until his body went slack, broken sword sliding from his grasp.

Hazel bent down to take the what was left of Heartseeker away. As her hand closed on the hilt, the Alderking touched her cheek and sneered, “Remember, Sir Hazel. Remember, my disloyal knight. I curse you to remember. I curse you to remember everything.”

“No!” Hazel cried out, shaking her head back and forth. “I don’t want to. I won’t!”

The Alderking’s eyes closed, his face smoothing out into sleep.

But Hazel kept on screaming.

CHAPTER 21

Once, there was a girl who found a sword in the woods.

Once, there was a girl who made a bargain with the Folk.

Once, there was a girl who’d been a knight in the service of a monster.

Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself.

Once, there was a girl…

Hazel remembered everything at once, all the locks come undone, all the memories rising up from the deep, murky place where she’d buried them, all of herself crashing into herself. Not just the memories that the Alderking had taken from her. Faerie curses were more powerful than that. She got back every memory she ever tried to lock away.

The night after Hazel had slain the hag, her parents hosted a party. It went on until late, growing more and more boisterous as the evening wore on. A loud argument about the artistic value of illustration versus fine art turned into a fight about someone cheating on somebody else.

Ben and Hazel sat outside beside their dog’s fresh-dug grave and listened to the distant sound of a bottle smashing.

“I’m tired and hungry,” Ben said. “And it’s cold.”

He didn’t say and we can’t go back in there , but Hazel understood that part anyway.

“Let’s do something,” she said.

Ben looked up at the stars. The night was bright and cold. They’d both had an exhausting and terrifying day, and he looked wary of any more excitement. “Like what?”

“In your book, there’s a ceremony you have to go through to be ready for knighthood. A vigil. We should do that. To prove ourselves.”

The book was on the porch where they’d left it. Her sword was hidden in the shed where the machete used to be. She went and got them both.

“What does it say we’re supposed to do?” Ben asked, breath clouding in the air and rising like specters.

According to the book, first they had to fast. Since they hadn’t had dinner, Hazel thought that counted. Then they were supposed to bathe to purify themselves, dress in robes, and stay up all night praying on their knees in a chapel. Then they’d be ready to be knighted.

“We don’t have a chapel,” Ben said. “But we could make an altar.”

And so they did, using a big rock. They found a couple of old citronella candles and lit them, giving the yard an eerie glow. Then they undressed and washed in the ice-cold water from the garden hose. Shivering, they wrapped themselves in tablecloths swiped out of the laundry area.

“Okay,” Ben said. “So now we pray?”

They weren’t a particularly religious family. Hazel couldn’t even remember being to church, although there were pictures of her being baptized, so she must have been. She didn’t know exactly what praying entailed, but she knew what it looked like. She tugged Ben down to his knees next to her.

The ground was icy, but the sword slid into the earth easily. Hazel gripped the hilt and tried to concentrate on knightly thoughts. Thoughts about bravery and honor and trueness and rightness. She rocked back and forth on her knees, murmuring under her breath, and after a moment Ben copied her movements. Hazel felt as though she was falling into a dream. Soon she could almost ignore how cold she was, could almost not feel the heavy weight of her hair clumping as it froze, could almost control her shivering.

At some point, she was conscious of Ben getting up, of telling her it was too cold and urging her to come inside. She’d just shaken her head.

At some point, people had left the house. She’d heard cars starting, tense words exchanged, and the sound of someone noisily puking in the bushes. But no one noticed her kneeling in the back garden.