Chapter 7
Chapter seven
They moved with practiced efficiency, some securing the perimeter while others tended to the wounded. Their captain, a severe-looking fae with bark-textured skin, surveyed the destruction—the shattered gates, the withered vegetation, the golden vines still twitching with residual magic.
"My lord," he addressed Arion, though his eyes kept returning to Briar. "The wards are compromised. We need to—"
"Secure the grounds, tend the wounded," Arion said curtly. "We'll discuss the breach later."
Briar stood frozen against the wall, watching the organized chaos unfold.
Her mind felt fractured, unable to process what had just happened.
Malus had come for her. Had called her Eliam's queen in front of everyone.
Had spoken of taking her apart to find what was hidden inside her.
The warmth in her chest pulsed erratically, still agitated from the threat, from the violence, from the way everyone had fought over her like she was a prize to be won.
Arion crossed the courtyard to her, concern etched across his features. His light magic still flickered faintly around his hands, and she could see exhaustion in the way he moved. He'd fought for her. They all had.
"Briar," he said softly, already moving toward her. His hands went to her arms first, fingers gentle as they traced where her sleeve had crumbled to dust, checking the exposed skin. Finding no wounds there, his hands moved to her shoulders, then carefully tilted her head to examine her neck.
She stood frozen, letting him inspect her like she was made of glass.
His touch was careful, clinical almost, but she could feel the tremor in his fingers.
The concern in every movement. When his hands finally came up to cup her face, turning it gently to check for injuries, something twisted in her chest. She didn't deserve this tenderness, not after what she'd done, not after the chaos she'd brought to his court.
"Are you hurt?" His thumbs brushed across her cheekbones, and she had to close her eyes against the gentleness of it.
She shook her head, not trusting her voice. Frederick shifted against her neck, hidden beneath her hair, a small cool comfort against skin that felt too hot under Arion's careful attention.
"Malus says things," Arion finally said, his voice carefully neutral. "Twists words to hurt. To manipulate."
She opened her eyes to find him watching her with something desperate in his expression. He was giving her an out. A way to dismiss what Malus had said as lies, as cruelty designed to cause chaos. Part of her wanted to take it, to let him believe whatever story would make this easier.
"When he said—" Arion stopped, swallowed, started again. "The things he claimed about you and Eliam. About you being..." The word wouldn't come. He couldn't say it.
"His queen?" she finished quietly.
Pain, or maybe disappointment, flickered across Arion's face. As if by saying it aloud she'd made real what he'd been hoping would remain unspoken.
"Eliam was going to name me his consort," she continued, the words scraping her throat raw. "Before. Before everything fell apart."
Arion's expression shifted through several emotions. First surprise, followed by confusion, then something that looked like pity. "Briar… it's alright. You don't have to feel ashamed. You were trapped, doing what you had to in order to survive. Agreeing to whatever he wanted—"
"Stop." The word came out sharper than she intended. She pulled away and watched as his arms sank slowly to his sides. "Just, please, stop."
"I'm only saying you don't have to—"
"You're wrong." Her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms. The warmth in her chest flared. "You think it was about survival but… I wanted to stay. I was going to stay."
The silence that followed felt suffocating. Arion stared at her, clearly struggling to reconcile this with whatever image he'd built of her—the trapped human, the victim needing rescue.
"I chose him," she said, her voice rising despite the shake in it. "Not because I had to. Not because I was afraid. I wanted to be his queen. I wanted—" For a moment she couldn’t breathe let alone speak. She had spent days running, hoping, and it wasn’t until she had to speak the words out loud that she realized just how foolish she had truly been. Eliam had only ever been honest with her, told her that it wasn’t about love.
She was the one who had chosen to believe otherwise.
"In the end he threw me away, cast me out like I was nothing… like none of it mattered."
"Briar—" Arion reached for her again.
She jerked back, slapping his hand away. "Don't. Don't comfort me. Don't tell me it's okay or that I'm confused or that I don't know what I really wanted. I know what I wanted."
"And this," Thaine interjected from where he leaned against the fountain, his tone matter-of-fact, "is why we're returning to the Forest Court at dawn. My lord may have been hasty, but his claim—"
She turned on Thaine, the rage that had been simmering for days beneath the pain and grief finally boiling over.
"His claim? The one he forfeited when he threw me to the wolves?
What about it?" She pushed off from the wall, her exhaustion forgotten in the face of pure fury.
"I’m tired of being discussed and debated and fought over like I'm not even here!
Like I don't have thoughts or feelings or wants of my own. "
“No one thinks—” Sain began only to stop when Briar cut her off.
"No, Sian, everyone thinks it. I'm not a prize.
I'm not property. I'm not a victim to be saved or a problem to be solved.
I'm a person who made a choice and had it ripped away because I made a mistake.
" Her voice cracked on the last word, but it was from fury, not sorrow.
"And now every single one of you stands here telling me what's going to happen next, where I'm going, what's best for me. "
Briar laughed, the sound sharp and bitter. "You know what? Figure it out amongst yourselves. That's what you're going to do anyway."
She pushed past Arion, who stood frozen by her outburst. Past Thaine, who for once had no sarcastic comment. Past the guards who parted automatically.
"Briar, wait—" Arion started.
"No." She didn't turn around. "I'm done being told what to do. When you've all decided my fate, you can let me know. I'll be in my room. Or wherever you've decided I should be."
She strode toward the palace entrance, Frederick still hidden in her hair, the only one who hadn't tried to claim or save or fix her.
Behind her, the courtyard remained silent, five powerful beings left standing in the wreckage, none of them sure what to do with a human woman who refused to be what any of them needed her to be.
The garden terrace existed in that strange space between wild and cultivated that the Star Court favored—roses that bloomed in impossible colors but grew however they pleased, fountains whose water sang but followed no predictable pattern.
Briar stood at the stone railing, gripping it hard enough that the cold bit into her palms, trying to let the familiar-unfamiliar beauty calm the storm in her chest.
It wasn't working.
"That was quite the performance."
She didn't turn. She'd felt him arrive, that particular heaviness in the air that came with his presence. Like smoke before a fire.
"Go away, Karse."
"No." He moved closer, and she could hear the lazy satisfaction in his voice. "I particularly enjoyed the part where you told them all to figure it out themselves. The princeling looked like you'd slapped him. Which you did, technically."
"I'm not in the mood for—"
"For what? Truth?" He was beside her now, leaning against the railing with casual disregard for the drop below. "You're magnificent when you're angry. All that suppressed fury finally given voice. Much better than the cowering thing you've been doing."
She turned on him, ready to unleash that fury he claimed to admire. "Cowering? I've been—"
"Letting them shuffle you around like a chess piece.
" His reptilian eyes caught the moonlight, reflecting it back in golds and greens.
"The Forest Lord cast you out, the princeling carried you here, the huntsman plans to drag you back.
Even I claimed you as mine. And you've just.. . accepted it all."
"I haven't accepted anything!"
"Haven't you?" He tilted his head, studying her with that unnerving intensity. "Until five minutes ago, you were letting them debate your future without you. Like a good, obedient human."
The rage that had started to cool flared white-hot again. "Don't you dare—"
"I dare whatever I want." He pushed off the railing, moving into her space with predatory grace. "That's the difference between us. I take what I want. You wait for permission that never comes."
"I don't wait for—"
"You wanted to stay with him. The Forest Lord. You chose it. But the moment he cast you out, did you fight? Did you refuse to leave? No. You ran like frightened prey."
"He would have killed me!"
"So?" Karse stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the unnatural heat radiating from his skin.
"At least it would have been on your terms. Instead, you're here, letting everyone else decide whether you go back to someone who discarded you or stay with people who see you as something to protect.
Never as something with teeth of its own. "
"I have teeth," she snarled.
His smile was slow, appreciative. "Then use them."
Something in his tone, in the way his eyes tracked over her face, made her realize how close they were. When had he gotten so close? She could see the scales along his throat catch the light, could smell something like smoke and copper on his skin.
"You're angry," he observed, voice dropping lower. "Furious at them. At him. At yourself. Good. Anger is so much more interesting than despair."
"Stop psychoanalyzing me."