“That’s the point,” replied Ren. “We have no idea how they change. I don’t want them waking up tomorrow and then we have to kill them again.”
There were too many strzygi these days, and she couldn’t run the risk of adding three more to a forest already boiling over.
Ry? looked doubtful.
“Very well,” said Czarn at last, getting to his feet. “I will help you.”
“Thank you,” said Ren, moving aside as he passed her.
Ry? made an annoyed sound but grudgingly joined them.
They dug in silence. Czarn helped Ren tip the bodies into graves. The dense branches trapped the late-afternoon sun, and the work was punishingly hot. Now that the strzygi were dead and her panic had faded, Ren was acutely aware of the heavy warmth in the air.
There were more monsters every day, every night. And not just strzygi. Other, terrible things. Zmara, who hung around throats in the night and throttled their victims into a permanent slumber. Rusalki, who dragged humans under the water and wore their skins above it. Nocnica, who drank up any foolish souls sleeping too near their webs. Psotniki, who collected eyeballs in their high-up nests.
And of course, the humans.
They came rarely, probably because what had happened to Czarn—and to the hunter—had lit the fires of fear in their hearts. If the occasional hunters ventured in, someone else usually got to them before Ren did. They died at the claws of strzygi, rusalki, nocnica, psotniki . . . they died at the whims of the forest itself. Tangled in roots, hemmed in by walls of trunks. Captured on trails that circled for miles, yielded no secrets, and eventually, without warning, closed in forever.
Despite everything, this was Ren’s forest, and she loved it. But even if she had wanted to leave it, she wasn’t sure whether it would let her.
Czarn finished kicking the dirt over the bodies. His black fur was drying into sticky points, and when Ren ran a paw over her own face, she found it was crusted and sticky with blood. The strzygi had left their mark on the surrounding forest, too: bloody scratches in weeping tree trunks, bits of rotting flesh strewn around the perimeter. The trees themselves bent a little lower, the grass a little slimier, the horseflies a little hungrier. The smell of blood was overwhelming in the clearing. It smelled like fury. Anguish. Evil.
It smelled like monsters.
Sweat broke over her shoulders. Suddenly, she didn’t want to be in the clearing. Didn’t want to be covered in blood. Her power rippled away, and she was human once more.
“Hoping to get eaten, I see,” observed Czarn in his lazy voice.
“I’m going for a swim,” she said. Blood coated every inch of her body like a second skin. “I need to get this off.”
Ry? was already using a dampened paw to wash behind his ears. He gave her a look of supreme disdain.
“Or”—he sniffed—“you could just be normal and lick it off.”
“Be careful,” called Czarn as Ren disappeared into the trees. “There are rusalki in the river!”
“I’ll be fine,” she called back, already deep in the trees. “Wodnik will be there!”
As Ren got farther from the clearing, the forest changed. Trees unbent, dark trunks lightening to golden brown. Overhead, boughs untangled and welcomed in the sun. Rot yielded to grass and the hushed voices of the last animals brave enough to stay in the forest.
She breathed in the clean, woody air, and with it came a sense of relief. She hadn’t realized how tightly wound she was—hadn’t noticed the sense of dread hanging over her. It was so constant that she often forgot how heavily it weighed on her. How much longer? she asked herself, never daring to speak the words out loud. How much longer could she keep her animals holed up in the castle, keep these last parts of the forest sunny and bright?
She didn’t know. The forest had already driven out most of the humans. Now it was coming for them.
The river roared into view. The trees were smooth and straight, covered with thick green moss. Cool light filtered through the treetops, and everything smelled fresh and clean and alive. No claw marks on trees. No blood spattering the ground.
No monsters.
Ren glanced over her shoulder, frowning. Nothing had followed her, and the trees were silent. Somewhere, crickets were chirping. But all the same . . .
She hadn’t noticed that this part of the forest lay so close to the strzygi’s clearing . . . hadn’t realized that the