Chapter 174: Return to Nature


    She spread like a noxious weed once the Lich released her from the dark garden in that dead city. She hadn’t wanted to. Not initially, but now the Queen of Thorns gloried in what she was doing as she spread her blight in an everrger radius.


    Part of her might hate herself for it, but that small, sad voice could only be heard when she was at peace. That was almost never anymore, though, since she lived two lives now.


    By day, she was a blight. And she spread across the world an acre at a time. One day, she would wipe out a farmer’s field with molds and rusts that made wheat stalks droop so low that their heavy grain dragged on the ground. The next, an ill wind might sweep through a forest, and parasitic vines that had never been seen there before would climb old-growth trunks and begin to suck out vitality.


    Her goal was not to despoil the entire world, at least not immediately. Instead, she was probing for the presence of small gods and nature spirits. She was looking for the children of the forest and their sweet blood by forcing those prideful beings to defend their turf. Once they did so, well, all she had to do was wait for the sun to set.


    Because of all the changes the Lich had inflicted on her, she could really only emerge into the world once it was fully dark. It was then the hunt would begin. Sometimes, she was a six-armed woman with weapons of wood and magic and other times, she was an eight-legged hunting cat made of twining vines. In either form, she was forever bleeding dark red sap from the thorns that pierced her skin.


    Once she found her prey, it would not escape her. If it was a spirit, she would devour it whole and add its domain to her ever-growing dominion over the world. Ironically, though, if it was something closer to mortal, then she had to be more careful. She had been punished before for ruining valuable corpses of the rare specimens that she hunted down.


    The Lich could not harvest their souls or build something new and abominable from their parts if she tore them to shreds. So, instead, shepped up the fresh blood of mythological creatures and the elder blood of the forest children while it was still warm, then nted herself near the piles of bodies she gathered and feasted on the spilled blood that stained the earth until her master sent drudges to collect the necromantic treasure trove.


    It often asked her questions like, “Who are the Children of the Forest? Where do theye from? Where do they flee to?”


    The Queen of Thrones couldn’t answer those questions, though. If she’d ever known, then those answers had been lost in the course of being remade. That wouldn’t surprise her. She’d lost so much to get what she had now, but she didn’t regret it. “Ask the souls yourselves!” she growled, but apparently, they didn’t have the answers that it sought either. They were too fine a structure and fell apart at the smallest amount of coercion or torment, like a sculpture of spun ss.


    The most she could do was describe the moonlit portals that small fae beings opened and repeat the words they told each other before they sensed her presence. They were not her focus, though; the elder beings were just a delicious treat that she sometimes found. Her real priority was the spirits that were so like the women she’d once been, and every time she ate one of them, she got stronger.


    At this point, it was hard to imagine being the Goddess of one pine forest or a single valley. She was not yet strong enough topete with Niama, the Goddess of the natural world, but she would be. She knew that with a certainty. She would face off against her old mistress someday soon, no matter how many of her sisters she had to feast on between here and there.


    Of course, even devouring an acre a day made this a very slow process. The world was a huge ce, and there were a thousand tiny ces for the light to hide among the darkening world, and so little of it was held bymunities loyal enough to the Lich that she was forced to leave them in peace. Those she had to take time out of her hunt to bless, and ensure that their crops thrived against the darkness and the rot. Those duties always chafed at her.


    Even in this new, mutted form, she had no love for humanity and the idea that she must make the fields of the loyal blossom even while other fields had to wither annoyed her. So, the Queen of Thorns was very pleased when she found a tinymunity that had been missed by all the other armies and abominations that had rampaged through the area.


    It wasn’t the first human she’d found to feast on, of course. Even after all the Lich’s efforts, the world was not yet the dead ce it desired for it to be. There were still mountain men tucked away, checking their traps and keeping their heads down, and hunters who stayed alive by always being on the move. asionally, one of them got it into their heads to do something heroic, like try to sack one of the Lich’s many dungeons or scavenge through the ruins of some city or temple in search of treasure that no longer had meaning.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    The first time she’de across one of these increasingly endangered loners, she’d asked the Lich what she should do since she had such clear orders regarding beasts she’d probably never find and spirits with very difficult-to-decipher descriptions. The answer she received was an intense jolt of pain that echoed through her limbs and the words, “Do not waste my time with such trivialities. Expunge those mortals and then focus on your true purpose!”


    The Lich was only kind to her when she brought down some new creature it had never seen before, so when it came to everything else, she no longer even mentioned it to the Lich. Instead, she toyed with it, like a cat hunting a mouse.


    She sent those rare hunters in circles for days, never able to escape from a fog-shrouded forest as they slowly ran out of hope and supplies. It was an enjoyable game that she never tired of. She would let them go slowly mad and fully give into despair before she would personally hunt them down and rip them to bloody shreds.


    An entire hamlet, though, would have to be handled differently. The queen of Thorns gave it a lot of thought as she lurked into weedy groves nearby before she decided that the right way to go was to make the children go missing first. They often yed near the edges of the forest when they weren’t needed for chores, and after seeing just how thin and scrawny they were, the dark Goddess decided it was the easiest thing in the world to lure them in with glimpses of sweet red berries that started at the edge of the tree line, with more easily visible further on.


    The kids flocked to bushes to gorge themselves on the fruits, and it was only when they’d eaten their fill of the rare treat that they started to gather them. The Queen of Thorns could have poisoned them, of course, but that wouldn’t have been nearly cruel enough. Instead, she gave them all they wanted and more. Soon, the band of almost a dozen boys and girls was arguing about what to do next.


    “Well, of course, we have to get the rest of them!” one boy announced boldly. “What we don’t pick will just be taken by the birds anyway.”


    “But Mama says we ain’t supposed to go in there,” one of the girls said staunchly, even as some of the braver kids started to move toward bushes deeper in. “There are wild animals and monsters and—”


    “There ain’t no monsters,” the first boyughed. “If you’re scared, then you don’t have toe. We’ll be right back.”


    “But the rules,” she pouted, stomping her foot. “We have to…”


    Other childrenughed at that, which tipped the bnce. No one wanted to be called scared, after all. Where once most of the kids had been content to stand at the edge of the forest and follow the rules, now most of them crossed that imaginary line that separated safety from danger.


    It was a lie, though. That had been erased as soon as the Queen of Thorns had found this sheltered enve, eking out its quiet existence. Still, the meadow that the few remaining children would be enough to save them for now. Slowly, though, a few minutes at a time, each child decided to throw caution to the wind and give in to the peer pressure. In the end, there was only one ten-year-old girl left, pouting and fuming as she held her dolly, waiting for everyone toe back.


    They’d never be back, though. The lone little girl waited, calling the names of her friends, but they ventured deeper and deeper down the primrose path that The Queen of Thorns had created to tempt them. By the time she went back home shortly before sunset to tell her parents what had happened, she’d long since lost sight of thempletely, and had been left alone for hours.


    Of course, a search party was formed, but they’d only ever find pieces of those that had wandered off, and the red stains on the trail they followed hadn’t been caused by crushed berries alone. Few of the men that ventured into the woods that night made it back, and the ones that did were dark-eyed and broken.


    She devoured all of the strong warriors herself and left only the weaker sort who could spread fear to their neighbors free. They had seen what such a goddess could do to defenseless young children, and though most would not speak of it, they didn’t have to. The horror of such things had poisoned their souls, and all too soon, that poison would sink into the soil of the fields that sustained them.


    Calves sickened, and insects flourished that spring, but there was nothing for it. These people had avoided the troubles of the wider world in a tiny farmingmunity that the forest had hidden away, but the forest was hers now, and even if there was somece to flee to, there was no way that any of them would find a safe path through her darkening domain.


    All they could do was try to pretend that everything was normal as the trees encroached and unfamiliar blight worsened. It wouldn’tst. Day by day, things got worse, and good people died or went mad from the strain of trying to pretend their own tiny corner of the world wasn’t about to end.


    Though the dark nature Goddess couldn’t linger here for too long, lest she draw the wrath of her master for other reasons, she would still make the time for this. In a few weeks, it would be like the ce never existed. Trees would sprout in cultivated fields, weeds would overwhelm homes, and those that weren’t hunted down by her terrible cat form that hunted the woods each night would die of starvation and leave their bones to bleach in the sun.


    The Queen of Thorns realized that the Lich would probably want to be told of this ce if only to harvest the bodies, but she didn’t n to do anything of the sort. It had made its position very clear, and she had no wish to taint the memory of the fun she’d had unwinding the threads of family andmunity with a rebuke.


    <em>If it had wanted to be informed of ces like this, then it should have been more clear,</em> she thought to herself as she drifted on in search of other prey.