Chapter 89: Widow’s Bloom
"He is right, my lord. Ayla will die if we let her remain this way." Miranda, the priestess intoned.
It was just her, Soren, Alpha Kieran and the three princes now. Celeste had been carted off to the dungeons pending the arrival of her father who had had word sent to him.
"What can be done?" Soren asked. "She cannot die. She is yet to complete the mating..."
"That is what is important to you?" Damon’s voice cut through the room. He pushed off the wall, his eyes fixed on Soren with cold fury. "Who she has and has not mated with?"
"Damon." Alpha Kieran’s voice carried a warning.
Damon said nothing. His jaw tightened and his hands curled at his sides.
The priestess was quiet for a long moment.
"There is a plant," She said slowly. "One my mother spoke of when I was a child. Widow’s Bloom. It blooms only under the darkest phase of the moon, and its nectar can cure even the gravest of illnesses."
Damon straightened against the wall. "Then we go and get it."
"My lord, it is not that simple."
"How is that not simple?" Cassian stepped forward. "We know what it is and we know what it does. We send riders and we bring it back."
Miranda shook her head. "The widow’s bloom plant grows in only one place. Deep in the Forest of Death."
The room went silent.
Every wolf in the pack knew about the Forest of Death. It lay beyond the eastern ridge, a stretch of blackened trees and twisted thorn where nothing grew but poison. The condemned were banished there to die and no one came back.
"Plants do not grow there," Soren said. "Nothing grows there."
"The widow’s bloom does," Miranda answered. "It alone thrives in that soil. But the forest does not yield its treasures to just anyone."
Ares stepped forward. "I will go."
"No." Soren cut him off before the word had fully left his mouth. "That is not wise, Prince Ares. We should send someone dispensable. A scout or a soldier. Someone whose loss would not be missed."
Miranda raised a hand, silencing the room. "The Forest of Death will only accommodate the worthy, my lords. You cannot simply send anyone in. Only the worthy will be able to retrieve the plant, and the forest itself will present it to them or it will consume them."
"Then I am going," Ares said.
"Ares." Alpha Kieran turned to his eldest son. "I cannot send you there."
"Father..."
"It is not up for discussion." The Alpha’s voice brooked no argument. "I cannot send my heir into that forest. I will not. We will figure this out another way."
"Figure it out?" Damon let out a bitter laugh. "Figure it out while Ayla dies in the process? Fuck that."
He turned and walked out, ignoring his father calling after him.
He walked through the corridors, not stopping until he reached the healing chambers. When he pushed the door open, Ayla’s mother raised her head to regard him through red rimmed eyes.
Her hand still clutched her daughter’s, but she rose when she saw him.
"Prince Damon."
"I am just here to see her."
Brenna hesitated, then nodded. She stepped back, giving him space.
Damon crossed to the bed and looked down at Ayla.
She was paler than when he had last seen her. The color had deserted her cheeks, leaving them ashen. Her lips were dry and cracked, tinged faintly blue at the corners. The rise and fall of her chest was so shallow he had to watch for a long moment to be sure she was still breathing at all.
He had spent years tormenting her, making her life a living hell. And now, when he had finally begun to understand what she meant to him, when he had finally begun to change, she was slipping away.
Now he would never get the chance to prove her wrong about him.
Unless...
The thought settled itself so fast in his head that he jolted.
Unless he went to the Forest of Death himself.
He could retrieve this widow’s bloom.
"Excuse me," he muttered, turning away and heading toward the door.
His room was dark when he entered. He did not bother with a candle. He moved by memory, pulling a leather satchel from beneath his bed, stuffing it with dried meat, a water skin, a coil of rope. He packed some blades too then he flung the satchel across his back and walked out of the princes’ quarters.
At the gates, a guard stepped forward.
"My prince, we have orders to not let anyone out."
Damon did not break stride.
"My prince..."
He brushed past the guard and out the gate.
He walked until he reached the edge of the packlands. He could feel the forest of death even without seeing it yet.
There was just this smell in the air
Damon stopped and climbed out of his clothes, then placed the satchel across his back and closed his eyes, letting the shift take him.
His bones cracked and reformed. His spine lengthened and his hands became paws, his skin giving way to fur the color of burnished gold. The pain was brief and then it was done.
Damon lifted his head and sniffed the air then he ran.
The trees blurred past him. His paws ate up the ground, his breath coming in measured pants. The wind rushed through his fur, carrying the scent of rot and something that made the wolf in him want to turn and flee.
He did not.
He ran until the trees around him grew twisted and black, their branches reaching toward him like grasping fingers.
He was close to the boundary around the forest of death. The line between the world of the living and dead.
Damon did not slow. He crossed the boundary, and the Forest of Death swallowed him whole.
...
"We should think about sending a scouting party first," Soren was saying. "Assess the terrain. Determine what we are dealing with before..."
The door to the study burst open.
A guard stood in the doorway, his chest heaving and his face pale with terror.
Ares turned on him. "What do you want?"
"My lord." The guard’s voice shook. "It is Prince Damon. He is headed in the direction of the Forest of Death!"