Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
The word had barely left his mouth when they emerged from the trees.
Drak warriors in traditional battle garb—leather and bone armor, weapons that looked primitive but hummed with old magic, their scales painted with symbols that seemed to shift and writhe in the firelight.
They moved with coordinated precision, surrounding the group before anyone could properly react.
"Nobody move," Karse said sharply, his hands carefully visible and away from his weapons. "These are Ka'tar Drak. Elite warriors. If they wanted us dead, we'd already be bleeding out."
One of the warriors stepped forward, and Briar's breath caught.
This Drak was massive, scales so dark they seemed to absorb light, eyes that burning gold of molten metal.
Scars crossed his chest in deliberate patterns, ritual markings that spoke of battles won and blood spilled.
When he spoke, his voice carried the rumble of distant thunder.
"Karse Isragan," the warrior said, and the name sounded like both greeting and condemnation. "The Exile returns."
"Veroc," Karse replied, inclining his head slightly. Not quite a bow, but acknowledgment. "It's been a long time."
"One hundred and eighty two years." Veroc's gaze swept over the group, lingering on each face with calculating intensity. "You return now, at the corruption's peak, bringing fae to our sacred lands." He bared teeth that were too sharp, too many. "The Council will want to know why."
"I come to fulfill my purpose," Karse said carefully. "To see the seal reinforced, the corruption contained."
Veroc laughed, the sound like grinding stone. "Your purpose? You abandoned your purpose when you chose comfort over duty. When you left us to rot while you played pet to fae lords."
The temperature dropped as Eliam's temper flared, shadows spreading across the ground like spilled ink. "Watch your tongue, lizard."
Three spears were immediately pointed at his throat, the warriors moving so fast Briar barely saw them. The metal points glowed with heat that made the air shimmer.
"No!" Karse stepped between them, hands raised. "Nobody fight. Please." He turned to Veroc. "They're with me. They're necessary. The seal can't be reinforced without them."
"That remains to be seen." Veroc made a gesture, and more warriors emerged from the trees. Twenty. Thirty. Too many to fight even if they weren't exhausted and grief-worn. "You'll come with us. The Council will determine your fate."
"We don't have time for politics," Arion said, his light brightening in warning. "The corruption is spreading. Every hour we waste—"
"Is another hour you're alive at our sufferance," Veroc cut him off. "You entered Drak lands without permission, without tribute, without respect. The fact that you're breathing is already more mercy than you deserve."
Briar felt the warmth in her chest pulse, responding to the threat, wanting to manifest. She pressed her hand against it, trying to keep it contained. The last thing they needed was her accidentally revealing what she could do, accidentally starting a fight they couldn't win.
But Veroc's eyes tracked the movement, noticed the way she was holding herself. His nostrils flared, and his expression shifted to something speculative.
"That one," he said, pointing at her. "She carries something. Power that doesn't belong to her."
Eliam moved to step in front of her, but three warriors blocked him, spears pressing against his chest hard enough to draw drops of blood through his shirt.
"Don't," Thaine warned quietly, his own weapon half-drawn but frozen as two warriors held blades to his throat.
"Bind them," Veroc ordered. "All of them."
The warriors moved with practiced efficiency, producing restraints that looked like twisted metal but felt alive against Briar's skin when they closed around her wrists.
The moment they locked, her connection to the warmth dimmed, like trying to reach something through thick glass.
Magic-suppressing restraints, designed to hold even powerful fae.
Eliam fought when they tried to bind him, shadows lashing out, thorns erupting from the ground. It took six warriors to subdue him, and even then only when one pressed a blade to Briar's throat, using her as leverage.
"Stop," she said, meeting his eyes across the chaos. "Please."
The please did what violence couldn't. He went still, allowing them to lock the restraints around his wrists, though his expression promised retribution. The shadows retreated reluctantly, coiling around his feet like angry cats.
Arion submitted more peacefully, though his light flickered in dangerous patterns.
Sian and Halian were bound without resistance, Halian still too deep in grief to care what happened.
Thaine required four warriors and took two down before they managed to restrain him, leaving one warrior with a broken nose and another clutching a dislocated shoulder.
Only Karse remained unbound, Veroc studying him with disappointment.
"You won't fight for them?" Veroc asked.
"Fighting you would only get them killed," Karse replied. "I know better than to challenge Ka'tar warriors on their own ground."
"You've grown soft." Veroc's contempt was palpable. "The Karse I knew would have fought anyway, just for the glory of it."
"The Karse you knew was young and stupid."
"And now you're old and weak." Veroc gestured to the warriors. "Bind him too. The Council will decide if he's even still Drak enough to stand trial."
They bound Karse without resistance, though Briar saw the way his claws extended slightly, the way his muscles coiled with suppressed violence. He was choosing not to fight, choosing to submit, and she wondered what that cost him.
"The weapons," Veroc ordered.
The warriors stripped them of everything—swords, daggers, even the small knife Briar had hidden in her boot. They were particularly interested in Thaine's blade, passing it between them with reverent touches, speaking in their own language with tones of recognition.
"Star-metal," one said in accented common. "Old. Blooded."
They handled the weapons with respect at least, wrapping them carefully rather than tossing them aside. Small comfort, but Briar would take what she could get.
"Move," Veroc commanded, and the warriors formed up around them in a pattern that was both escort and cage.
They were force-marched through the corrupted forest at a pace that had Briar stumbling within minutes.
Her body still hadn't recovered from the confrontation with Ferria, from the expenditure of power that had killed her.
Every step sent pain shooting through her skull, the concussion Ferria had given her making the world swim in and out of focus.
She tripped over a root that seemed to move deliberately into her path, would have fallen if not for the warrior assigned to her. He caught her arm, steadying her with surprising gentleness, though his expression remained stone.
"Keep up," he said, not unkindly. "It's three hours to the settlement. Four if you slow us down."
Three hours. Briar's legs already felt like water, her breath coming too fast, too shallow. The magic-suppressing restraints seemed to be draining more than just her connection to the warmth—they were sapping her physical strength too, making every movement feel like swimming through mud.
The forest grew worse as they traveled. Trees wept black sap that smelled of rot. Flowers bloomed in colors that hurt to look at directly. The air felt wrong, too thick, too warm, carrying whispers on wind that felt both cold and hot at the same time.
And through it all, Veroc's warriors moved without hesitation, following paths invisible to outsider eyes.
They knew this corrupted land, had been living alongside it for centuries.
The thought of what that must have been like, watching your territory slowly consumed by wrongness you couldn't stop, made Briar's chest tight with unexpected sympathy.
An hour in, Halian collapsed.
He went down hard, knees hitting the corrupted earth with a sound that made Briar wince. The grief and exhaustion had finally overwhelmed him, leaving him unable to continue.
"Get up," the warrior assigned to him said, prodding him with a spear butt.
Halian didn't move, didn't even try. He knelt there in the wrong-colored grass, head bowed, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
"He just burned his sister," Sian said sharply. "Give him a moment."
"We don't have moments," Veroc said, but he gestured to two of his warriors. "Carry him if necessary."
They hauled Halian to his feet, supporting him between them when his legs wouldn't hold his weight. The sight of proud, cheerful Halian being practically dragged through corrupted wilderness made Briar's eyes burn with tears she refused to shed.
This was her fault. All of it. If she hadn't killed Ferria—but no, that thinking led nowhere good. Ferria had made her choices. They all had.
Another hour passed in misery. Briar's world narrowed to the next step, the next breath, the constant effort of not falling. The warmth in her chest pulsed weakly, trying to reach through the restraints, trying to help, but the magic suppression was too strong.
She was so focused on walking that she almost missed when the forest began to change.
The corruption faded gradually, wrong colors shifting back toward normal, twisted growth straightening into proper trees. The air grew cleaner, easier to breathe. And then, between one step and the next, they crossed some invisible boundary and the corruption was simply gone.
Before them rose a settlement unlike anything Briar had expected.