Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Time seemed to stop.
Arion's eyes went wide, looking down at the blade protruding from his ribs. Light began to leak from the wound. No blood, only pure radiance, his very essence escaping.
"No!" Briar's voice cracked across the clearing.
Another cry had echoed alongside hers and she looked to see Eliam on his hands and knees, clutching his chest as though he himself had been stabbed.
Arion stumbled back from Malus, his hand going to the blade. When he pulled it free, more light poured out, and Briar could feel it, his essence, flowing toward her with nowhere else to go.
He dropped to his knees beside her, one hand pressed to his chest, the other reaching for her face. She caught him when he tumbled forward, his body limp in her arms.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, light already fading from his eyes.
“No, no, not like this, it’s not supposed to be like this,” she gasped, gripping him tightly even as she felt his body beginning to fade in her arms.
“I’m not really…” he coughed. “I’m not leaving. Just… going home.”
“Please,” Briar begged, tears streaming from her eyes.
Arion smiled, closing his eyes. “I’ll say it…because—” a groan escaped him, “—because he—he can’t…I love you.”
The magic rolled over her, not violent this time, but inevitable. Arion's essence, everything he was, flowed from his dying body into hers. The warmth in her chest recognized it, welcomed it, even as it burned through her.
And then she felt it, the pull toward Eliam. The two halves yearning to reunite after so long apart. The star metal pendant couldn't stop this, this natural flow of magic returning to where it belonged.
She could have fought it. Could have tried to contain it, to keep Arion's essence with her.
Instead, she let go.
The relief was immediate. The magic flowed through her like she was nothing more than a conduit, Arion's light streaming from her chest toward Eliam.
She could feel every moment of it—memories that weren't hers, emotions she'd never experienced, the weight of centuries flowing through her in seconds.
It should have killed her. She could feel her body failing, her heart struggling under the strain, her bones feeling like they might shatter from containing so much power even temporarily.
But she didn't care. Arion was dying in front of her, and if reuniting him with Eliam was the last thing she did, then at least his death would have meaning.
Golden light erupted from her chest, arcing across the seal toward Eliam like lightning seeking ground. When it hit him, he gasped, doubling over as his other half returned home after centuries of separation.
Briar collapsed forward onto her hands, gasping. Copper filled her mouth. Blood ran warm from her nose, dripping onto the carved stone. Every nerve was on fire but she held onto consciousness through sheer will.
Arion's body was fading, becoming translucent as his essence completed its journey. His fingers twitched, reaching for her. His lips moved: "Remember me."
Then nothing. Empty air where he'd been.
"No!" Malus roared, autumn decay already pooling around his hands. "The power was supposed to come to me!"
Eliam straightened slowly from where he'd collapsed.
The movement should have been labored, should have shown weakness after centuries of being fractured.
Instead, he rose with fluid grace, his body humming with power that radiated outward in visible waves.
The shadows beneath his feet spread across the stone, and where they touched, new growth erupted.
Silver-edged thorns pushed through cracks in the ancient seal, gleaming with cold starlight.
His eyes burned with impossible patterns. Shadow and light swirled together in his irises, darkness and radiance fighting for dominance and somehow coexisting. When he spoke, his voice carried doubled harmonics, as if two people spoke in perfect unison.
"Hello, brother."
Malus raised his hands defensively, autumn decay gathering in poisonous clouds between his fingers. "You're still adjusting to being whole again. You can barely control it."
"Are you so sure?"
Eliam moved.
One moment he stood across the seal. The next he was there, directly in front of Malus, crossing the distance faster than Briar's eyes could track.
His fist connected with Malus's jaw with enough force to send him stumbling backward.
Thorned vines erupted from the seal beneath Malus's feet, forcing him to leap away or be impaled.
The chanting guards broke formation, scattering as the brothers collided again in the center of the seal. The ritual was forgotten. Whatever they'd been building dissolved into chaos.
Malus sent autumn wind howling across the clearing, leaves that aged flesh on contact, decay that withered everything it touched.
Eliam dodged with speed and precision that hadn't existed before while striking with the same brutal efficiency he'd always possessed.
Where Malus brought death, Eliam brought violent growth.
Vines moved with purpose, thorns sought flesh with clear intent, and all of it gleamed with that silver-starlight edge that refused to succumb to decay.
"Impossible," Malus gasped, twisting sideways as silver-edged thorns whistled past his ear. One caught his cheek, tearing a line from temple to jaw that immediately welled crimson.
"I'm whole." Eliam's movements had changed—where before he'd been predictable, now he flowed between fighting styles. A brutal downward strike shifted mid-swing into a graceful arc that opened a gash across Malus's ribs. "For the first time in centuries, I'm whole."
Malus stumbled over a crack in the seal, his elegant coat now torn in a dozen places, blood seeping through autumn-gold fabric.
He raised his hands, decay billowing out, but Eliam walked through it.
The rot that should have aged him to dust slid off like water, repelled by silver light that danced just beneath his skin.
"You're finished," Eliam said, thorns erupting from the ground at Malus's feet, forcing him to leap back. More thorns, from the left, the right, above—a cage of silver-edged death closing in. "Surrender."
"Never." Malus spat blood, crimson stark against his pale face. His perfectly styled hair hung in sweat-soaked strands. "This is my court. My forest. You were just keeping it warm for me."
"Your court?" Eliam raised his hand, fingers splaying wide.
The air changed. Pressure built, the kind that comes before lightning strikes. Briar felt it in her bones—Eliam reaching for something ancient, something that had slept in roots and soil since before the courts existed. The deep magic. The forest's own will.
The clearing went silent. Not even breath disturbed the air.
Eliam's fingers curled, pulling at invisible threads. Veins stood out on his neck from the strain. A muscle in his jaw twitched, jumped, twitched again.
Nothing happened.
His hand trembled. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold. He pulled harder, she could see it in the way his shoulders hunched, the way his other hand clenched into a fist so tight his knuckles went white.
The forest didn't answer.
"Oh no." Malus's laugh came out wet, breathless, but genuine delight lit his bloodied face. "Oh, this is perfect."
He straightened despite his injuries, autumn magic flowing back around him like a cloak. The decay that had seemed weak moments ago now pulsed with renewed strength.
"Did you really think," Malus said, taking a step forward, and now it was Eliam who stepped back, "that the forest would choose you? You, who abandoned it? Who left it kingless while you played at being the hero for a human?"
The trees around the clearing creaked, leaning toward Malus. Roots surfaced from the earth, reaching for him not as threats but as subjects greeting their king.
"The forest remembers who ruled it first," Malus continued, autumn wind picking up around him, lifting his bloodied coat like wings. "Who ruled it longest. Who never abandoned it for some misguided attempt at love."
Eliam tried again, both hands raised now, pulling so hard at the forest's magic that his whole body shook with effort.
Nothing. Worse than nothing. The forest actively resisted, pulling away from his call.
"This is delicious," Malus said, and with a gesture, the ground beneath Eliam's feet turned to rot. Eliam stumbled, his leg sinking into suddenly soft earth that reeked of decay. "The great Forest King, whole at last, rejected by his own domain."
"You see, brother?" Malus advanced now, autumn decay gathering strength with each step. The forest fed him power freely, eagerly, answering his call without hesitation. "You were always just a placeholder. A temporary king sitting on a throne that was never truly yours."
Leaves swirled around Malus, sharp with decay magic. They cut through the air toward Eliam, hitting him hard and sending him stumbling backward. More leaves followed, razor-sharp, cutting across his chest and arms. Blood bloomed through the tears in his clothing.
Briar watched through vision that kept blurring and clearing.
Her body had gone numb in places, hot in others.
She could taste copper constantly now, blood running from her nose down the back of her throat.
The star metal pendant still hung cold and heavy, but something else stirred beneath it.
That hollow space where the warmth had been, where Arion’s essence had flowed through her on its way home.
She should have been dying, probably was dying. Her heart beat irregularly, sometimes racing, sometimes nearly stopping. Her breathing came in shallow gasps that never quite satisfied her lungs' demands. But her mind remained viciously, painfully aware.
Aware enough to feel something she shouldn't be able to feel.
The forest.