Page 74 of Sweetling
She knew that silvery hair.
“Allarion!” she gasped, running for him.
Molly stared at his prone form, his eyes closed, as roots and vines crawled over him. Little brown and white tendrils slithered up his arms and legs, and clusters of mushrooms pushed through the dirt by his head and feet. Ivy reached green fingers from the forest beyond, wrapping around his fingers and hair, and three great tree roots had erupted from the ground to secure him in a wooden vice at the hip. Wherever they touched him, a faint blue glow emanated from him, and his black veins stood in even starker relief against his skin, gone bone white.
They’re eating him!
With a yelp, Molly fell on him, ripping at the roots and vines. She dug her nails into the dirt and pulled, plant matter snapping in her fists. The smell of sap and dirt filled the meadow as she frantically clawed at the plants, desperate to free him.
“Allarion! Allarion, wake up!” she cried.
Still the roots came, and Molly threw her weight behind pulling off one of the large woody roots. It clung to him tight, refusing to budge. She pulled and pulled, knees dragging through the dirt, but she couldn’t free him.
“No!” she cried, flinging off roots and leaves. “You can’t have him!”
Something curled around her wrist, and Molly screamed. Throwing herself backward, she struggled to free her arm, yanking with all her strength to get away, shoulder burning under the strain.
“Molly.”
She gasped at the sound of her name.
Only then did she look at what had taken hold of her.
A hand. With purple-gray skin and long, tapered fingers.
Panting, Molly looked up the macabre form of Allarion covered in wriggling roots to see his eyes open and focused on her.
A sound of alarm buzzing in her throat, Molly crawled toward him, putting her hands on his shoulders to try helping him sit up.
“What are they doing?” she demanded. “Help me get them off you!”
“Please, don’t worry for me, sweetling. This is all perfectly normal.”
Another sound, this time a shriek of utter disbelief, escaped her. “This isnot normal!”
He had the decency to wince. “I must ask for forgiveness again, my Molly. I’m afraid I failed to explain how it is I share my magic with the land.”
Molly fell back onto her bum gracelessly.
“They’reeatingyour magic?”
“Of a sort. They are certainly absorbing it. I come here to give over my excess magic.”
“To help strengthen the circuit,” she said, remembering how he explained the fae and their relationship to the magic inherent in the world.
Allarion smiled softly. “Just so.”
Ever so carefully, Molly laid her hand on his chest. “So…they aren’t hurting you?”
“No,” he said, his hand coming to lay atop hers. “The opposite, in fact. I rest and they take what the forest needs. It binds us together.”
Molly had a hard time swallowing back her gorge as it tried to rise in her throat—the sight of him there, roped to the ground by earthly bonds, was difficult to reconcile.
They lapsed into quiet, and before her eyes, the flora began to creep over him again. Her skin crawled and tingled when tendrils began to poke and flutter at her hand, and Molly bit her lips together, catching the scream in her mouth.
It was an odd feeling, but not…bad.
Strange. Not her favorite. But notbad.
