Page 44 of Into the Heartless Wood

by

one.

Agony bursts

behind my eyes.

I cradle my hands

to my chest.

She will kill me,

if I do not sing.

I

do

not

want

to

die.

I have no soul.

When I am gone,

there will be no part of me

left to remember

that I lived,

that I looked at the stars

with Owen

on a hill.

But I will not sing.

I will not be the monster

my mother made me.

Not even to fight the Soul Eater.

My sister sings.

Her song coils through the wood

and the men drop their hammers.

They turn to her.

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