Status Updates From Into the Heartless Wood

My mother bares her teeth. She pulses with rage, and something else I do not understand: sorrow. "You did not think so, once.
There was a time when you were not ashamed to kiss a monster in the dark." <\3

“it was always going to end this way.
He will die
thinking
the monster in the wood
never lost her heart
to the boy
who is lost in the stars.”

“He has robbed me
of my voice,
as my mother has robbed me
of my will.
There is nothing left to me
that is my own.
There is no part of me
that does not belong to someone else.”

“For now I wait, and watch, and listen. For now I pretend that nothing will ever go amiss, that I am truly just a girl, waiting for a boy to come and find her in the twilight.”

"He's a monster," she says simply. Her voice wavers on that word.
My insides clench up. "I thought the only monsters were the ones in the wood."

Ah knew it!! Love it!!

The palace of the Soul Eater!!!

I love casual reveals like that haha

"We can change your form." The sunlight gilds the rowan berries in Criafol's crown a liquid gold. "We can make you appear human. Essentially, you would be human, in all aspects but one. But your choices, your actions—those are up to you, as they have always been."
Hope grips me once more.
Fierce.
Bright.

Poor Owen!
But very excited for the little mermaid-esque twist I see coming

Obsessed with the Pine Princes and their welsh names!!
Pren - wood & timber
Cangen - branch or bough
Criafol- rowan tree/mountain ash

Part Two: STARS

Yessss I want more of the stars mystery

Uh oh <\3

Also HUH?? How is she magical?? That seems like a major skip over haha

“the agony of the tree sirens song, blazing through me like a thousand stinging ants. And it is nothing compared to the feel of her body, pressed against mine, her lips on my lips, her power tethering me to the earth.
I am undone by her kiss.
I am undone by her.”

I can’t help being obsessed with THAT

“I go to find my tree siren under a wholly new sky.”

So magical I can’t stop!!

Yeah this has turned very quickly into insta obsession… everything Owen does I’m like “But WHY!!”

I would love for her to turn into a girl and Owen has to recognize her as the Tree Siren… but I doubt that’s gonna happen haha

Enchanting and eerie story but the pacing feels too quick now…

Oh <\3

"All living things deserve a name."
"Even monstrous ones?"
I find I don't quite fear her, in the light of day, the same as I did in the dark wood. There is the memory, still, of blood dripping from her silver-white fingers, the snap of bone, the litter of bodies.
But she saved Awela from her sister. She saved me. And that means something. It has to.

“He's their hero, their champion against the Gwydden and her wood.
If they thought he was seeking his future in the stars, they might whisper of magic; they might begin to think he was no different than the witch and her monstrous daughters. There is a thin line, after all, between magic and science.”

Upheavals in the woods.