Crimson Bound

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Advance Reader’s e-proof

  courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers

  This is an advance reader’s e-proof made from digital files of the uncorrected proofs. Readers are reminded that changes may be made prior to publication, including to the type, design, layout, or content, that are not reflected in this e-proof, and that this e-pub may not reflect the final edition. Any material to be quoted or excerpted in a review should be checked against the final published edition. Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Dedication

  For my mother,

  who taught me one half of how to be brave,

  and my father,

  who taught me the other half.

  Contents

  Cover

  Disclaimer

  Title

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Rosamund Hodge

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  THIS STORY BEGINS WITH ENDLESS NIGHT AND infinite forest; with two orphaned children, and two swords made of broken bone.

  It has not ended yet.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Prologue

  “In all your life, your only choice,” Aunt Léonie said to her once, “is the path of needles or the path of pins.”

  Rachelle remembered that, the day that she killed her.

  When Rachelle was twelve years old, Aunt Léonie picked her to become the village’s next woodwife.

  Rachelle had been to her aunt’s cottage a hundred times before, but that morning she stood awkwardly straight and proper, her hands clasped in front of her. Aunt Léonie knelt before her, wearing the white dress and red mantle of a woodwife.

  “Child,” she said, and Rachelle’s spine stiffened because Aunt Léonie only called her that when she was in trouble, “do you know the purpose of a woodwife?”

  “To weave the charms that protect the village,” Rachelle said promptly. “And remember the ancient lore.”

  Rachelle thought she would like weaving the yarn through her fingers. She knew she would love learning the old tales. But she wished that woodwives still went on quests. She wanted to live the stories, not just tell them to the village children.

  “And who was the first woodwife?” asked Aunt Léonie.

  “Zisa,” said Rachelle. “Because she was the first person to protect anyone from the Great Forest, when she and Tyr killed the Devourer.”

  “And who is the Devourer?” asked Aunt Léonie.

  “The god of the forestborn,” said Rachelle. “Father Pierre says he doesn’t really exist, or anyway he’s not a god, because there is only one God. But whatever the Devourer was, he had the sun and the moon in his belly until Tyr and Zisa stole them and put them in the sky.”

  Father Pierre said that part of the story wasn’t true either, but Rachelle didn’t see how he could be so sure when he hadn’t been there three thousand years ago. And she liked that part of the story.

  “He is the everlasting hunger,” said Aunt Léonie in a voice of grim resignation. “And yes, once he held all the world in darkness, and once all mankind was ruled by the forestborn, who hunted us like rabbits.”

  A thread of uneasiness slid through her stomach. “Tyr and Zisa killed the Devourer,” she said. “Zisa died, and Tyr became king.”

  “No,” said Aunt Léonie. “Tyr and Zisa only bound him. And that binding is nearly worn out.”

  She said the words so simply, it was a moment before Rachelle understood them, before she felt the awful, sickening lurch of real fear.

  Quietly, relentlessly, Aunt Léonie went on, “One day soon he will open his eyes and yawn, and then he will swallow up the moon and the sun, and we shall live in darkness once again.” She met Rachelle’s eyes. “Do you believe me, child?”

  “Yes,” said Rachelle, as her heart beat, No, please, no, but when she met Aunt Léonie’s eyes, she had to think, Maybe.

  It’s all right, she told herself. Aunt Léonie will save us.

  But Aunt Léonie didn’t plan to save anyone.

  For three years, Rachelle sat obediently braiding charms in the cottage. She learned to ward off fever and keep mice out of grain, and to prevent woodspawn—the animals born in the Great Forest, suffused with its power—from wandering into the village and attacking people. But none of it mattered, because when the Devourer returned, no charm would be strong enough to protect anyone. Aunt Léonie told her so again and again.

  “What can we do?” Rachelle always asked.

  Aunt Léonie would only shrug. “Sometimes abiding is more important than doing.”

  Zisa hadn’t abided. Zisa had fought the Devourer and saved the whole world, but apparently woodwives weren’t supposed to save people anymore. They were supposed to sit in their cottages and braid insignificant charms and never, ever dream of changing the world.

  Rachelle clenched her teeth and furiously dreamed. Every day the cottage felt more like a prison.

  Until one day she was walking home from Aunt Léonie’s cottage and she realized that something had changed. The shadows had grown deeper; the blue flowers by the side of the path had begun to glow. The wind felt like fingertips tracing her neck. Shadowy, phantom mushrooms studded the ground; a deer made out of black cloud peered at her from between the trees, its eyes glowing red.

  She blinked and it was gone, but her heart was thudding and her veins buzzing. She had seen the Forest. Not just the woods around her village—she had seen a glimpse of the Great Forest, the Wood Behind the Wood. You could wander for days beneath the trees and never see it, because it was not part of the human world; it was a secret, hidden place that sat just a little to the side. Sometimes its power trickled and oozed out through the shadows of tree leaves or the hollows carved by tree roots.

  Usually it could only be seen on solstice nights. Aunt Léonie had told her that. But maybe all those rules were wearing down.

  And then she heard a voice, like butter and burned honey: “Good afternoon, little girl.”

  She turned around.

  Between two trees stood a man, shadowe
d against the glow of the setting sun behind him.

  Then he took a step forward, and she realized that he was not a man. He had a human face, pale and narrow. He wore a dark, rough cloak like any villager might wear. But she could sense the predatory, inhuman power beneath his skin. When she glanced away from him, she couldn’t remember anything about his face except that it was lovely.

  She looked back, and his eyes met hers, glittering and alien. He was a forestborn: one of the humans who pleased the Devourer, accepted him as their lord, and were remade by his power into something not quite human anymore.

  “Little girl,” he said, “where are you going?”

  Her heart was making desperate spasms, but Zisa hadn’t been afraid, or at any rate hadn’t let it stop her. They said Zisa had learned from the forestborn themselves how to defeat the Devourer.

  Maybe Rachelle could do the same thing.

  He was only a pace away from the path now, the path that was lined in little white stones to protect it.

  “Little girl,” he said, “what path are you taking?”

  “The path of needles,” she whispered. “Not the path of pins.”

  And she stepped toward him off the path. Her mind was a white-hot blur. She couldn’t even tell anymore if she was afraid. She only knew that he was part of the shadow that had lain across her world all her life, and she wouldn’t run from him, she wouldn’t. So she stared into fathomless, inhuman eyes and said, “You can kill me, but you can’t hunt me.”

  He laughed. “Maybe I won’t. What’s your name, little girl?”

  “Rachelle,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  “Nothing human anymore.” He circled her slowly, examining her, and Rachelle’s spine straightened, even though her skin prickled with fear.

  “They say you were human, once,” she said.

  “Then why do you dare speak to me, when you are human still?”

  “I’m the woodwife’s apprentice,” she said. “I was born to protect people from the Forest.”

  Again he laughed. “Oh, little girl. You were born to be prey for my kind. You were trained to sit plaiting charms against fever until you become a half-wit old woman. What you choose—is up to you.”

  “Why are you here?” she asked, but there was a sudden emptiness in the air, and she knew before she turned around that he was gone.

  Rachelle wondered if he had come to hunt her. But when he found her on the path the next day, he still didn’t even try to touch her.

  She met him again and again, and every time she stepped off the path. Always she kept a pace between them. Always she wore the charms embroidered on her cloak and woven into her belt.

  She could never remember his face. But she could remember that he answered her questions and never tried to hurt her.

  “Tell me about the Devourer,” she said. “What is he, really?”

  “The breath in our mouths and the hunger in our hearts,” said the forestborn. “Be patient, little girl. You’ll meet him yourself someday.”

  “Have you met him? Is that how you became a forestborn?”

  “What did your aunt tell you?” he asked.

  “A forestborn puts a mark on a human,” she said. “The human must kill somebody in three days or die. If he kills somebody, he becomes a bloodbound, which means the power of the Forest is growing in him, until finally he gives up the last of his human heart and becomes a forestborn.”

  “That’s true enough,” said the forestborn. “Would you like to try it?”

  “No,” said Rachelle, and tensed, wondering if he would finally kill her.

  But he only chuckled. “Then answer my question. What did you mean when you said the path of needles, not the path of pins?”

  He remembers what I said. The realization slid through her, terrifying and sweet at once. He thinks of me when we are apart.

  “Something my aunt told me once. She said that you always had to choose between the path of needles and the path of pins. When a dress is torn, you know, you can just pin it up, or you can take the time to sew it together. That’s what it means. The quick and easy way, or the painful way that works.”

  That’s what Aunt Léonie said, but really she had chosen the path of pins. All her aunt’s charms could do was pin the world together—keep people a little bit safer, give them a little more time.

  Rachelle wanted to sew the world back to safety, if she must use her own bones for needles.

  It ended on a moonless autumn night, when the wind was moaning in the trees. The forestborn stood on the opposite side of a little clearing, his breath frosting the air. He looked as remote and foreign as the stars, but Rachelle was determined to have his secrets before dawn.

  She asked, “Do you know how Zisa bound the Devourer?”

  “Maybe,” said the forestborn. “But why should I tell our secrets to one who doesn’t trust us?”

  “Would you tell them to somebody who did?” she asked.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  He had never hurt her. All these days they had met alone in the woods, and he had never even tried.

  “Yes,” she said, and looked into the eyes that she could never remember. “I trust you.”

  “Then prove it,” he said. “Take off your cloak. If you’re right, you won’t be needing it anymore.”

  Her red cloak was embroidered with charms to hold the power of the Great Forest away. She was never supposed to take it off in the woods, and her fingers trembled as she undid the pin, but she did not hesitate. The dark red wool slid off her shoulders and puddled at her feet.

  His teeth gleamed as he smiled and stepped toward her. “Little girl,” he said, “take off your belt. You won’t be needing it anymore.”

  She was shuddering now in the cold and her fingers were numb. She gripped the belt buckle, but she could barely feel it. Aunt Léonie had spent six months braiding and rebraiding the leather before she was satisfied that the belt was strong enough protection for her apprentice.

  It was too late to turn back. But she still said, “Tell me first. Is there a way to stop the Devourer?”

  He stepped closer. “Yes.”

  The metal bit at her fingers as she fumbled the clasp open. And then the belt fell to the ground, and she was standing without charms, with safety, and her blood was pounding hot and ready.

  “So tell me,” she said, and it felt like the world was whirling and creaking and falling apart around her. All her life she’d been traveling toward this moment where she wagered everything, and whatever happened, she would never be the same. “Tell me about the Devourer. All I need to know.”

  “All you need to know,” he whispered, and his hands gently cupped her shoulders.

  Then he slammed her against the nearest tree.

  For a moment the pain dazed her. Then his mouth was pressed over hers and his tongue was forcing her lips open and sliding inside. It was a bizarre, helpless sensation, nothing like she’d heard kisses were supposed to be. She choked and tried to push him away, but he had her pinned.

  Then he pulled back, and while she was still gasping for breath, he pressed his thumb to the base of her throat. From that one little point, fire seared throughout her body.

  When she was aware again, she was lying crumpled on the snow. The forestborn stood over her, tall and remote and terrible.

  “This is all you need to know,” he says. “You belong to our lord and master now. And you will kill for him before three days are up, or you will die.”

  Her body was numb except for the throbbing pain of the mark on her neck. She knew what it looked like: an eight-pointed black star. If she killed somebody and became a bloodbound, it would turn crimson.

  “You said,” she choked out, “that you would tell me how to stop him.”

  “Yes,” said her forestborn. “The only way to stop him is with Durendal and Joyeuse, the swords of Tyr and Zisa. And those swords are lost forever.”

  Then he was gone.

  She lasted for
nearly three days.

  On the first day, she hid the mark under a scarf and tried to be brave.

  On the second day, she crept into the village church, clutching her rosary, and begged the Dayspring for a miracle.

  On the third day, she gave up and ran for Aunt Léonie’s house. The mark hurt so badly she could barely breathe. She didn’t care anymore how ashamed she was; she just wanted Aunt Léonie to comfort her. Surely she could help. Aunt Léonie had always been able to make everything all right.

  Around her, the woods awoke. Shadows became deeper shadows, and eyes glimmered from their depths. Ghostly fawns leaped over tree roots and disappeared. The Great Forest was coming into being all around her, and soon she would be lost. Then she made the last turn, and she finally saw Aunt Léonie’s house. She sobbed in relief as she staggered to the door.

  But she was too late.

  The forestborn had gotten there first.

  ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE LIVED A PRINCE AND a princess named Tyr and Zisa.

  You have heard this. After a fashion, it is true. The people who lived before the sun and moon built no cities, crowned no kings, fought no wars. They stole from one darkened hollow to the next, listening to the wind, dreading the day when the lords of the forest would visit them.

  When the forestborn did visit their mewling human flocks, sometimes they would choose favorites. Tyr and Zisa’s father was one of these: he had danced to the forestborn’s music and offered them his kin. In return, they had made him ruler of the tribe that huddled beside an icy black lake.

  What it gained Tyr and Zisa was this: they knelt beside him when the forestborn came to visit. Every member of the tribe but their father watched them with silent fear. And when they were sixteen years old, they painted their faces with ocher and blood, and sat obediently as the forestborn came to decide which of them would become a forestborn, and which would be sacrificed to the Devourer.

  The forestborn stood in a ring about the twins and laid a sword between them. Whichever one first cut off the hand of the other would become the forestborn. Whichever was weak enough to be maimed would become the sacrifice. If neither fought, they both would die that instant.