Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Dawn came and with it the sensation that something was watching her.
Not eyes, she'd learned the weight of those last night. This was different. The walls themselves seemed aware, tracking her breathing, noting the moment consciousness returned.
Pale light filtered through the windows. Not sunlight but something else, the forest's version of dawn. It made everything look submerged and strange.
The mark throbbed. She pushed back the covers and checked her arm.
It had spread while she slept. The thorned vines now wrapped past her elbow, delicate and terrible. When she traced one with her finger, it pulsed warm, almost pleased.
"Stop it," she muttered.
A knock at the door, firmer than last night's. Before she could respond, it opened.
Thaine leaned against the doorframe, taking in her sleep-mussed appearance with obvious amusement. "Morning, rabbit. Sleep well?"
She pulled the covers higher. "Get out."
"Such hostility. And here I brought breakfast." He gestured, and the bark-skinned woman from last night entered with a tray. "Well, I supervised while she brought breakfast. Same thing."
The woman set the tray on the table, eyes downcast, and fled.
"His lordship expects you in an hour," Thaine continued. "Bathed, dressed, and marginally more pleasant than you are now."
"For what?"
"Your education, of course. Can't have you stumbling around court offending everyone with your human ignorance." He smiled. "Well, we could. It would be entertaining. But he seems to want you intact."
"How kind."
"Isn't it?" He pushed off from the doorframe. "Bath's through there." He indicated a door she hadn't noticed last night. "Try not to drown. The water here has opinions."
He left before she could ask what that meant.
The bathroom was another marvel of organic architecture. A pool carved from living wood steamed gently, fed by water that flowed from somewhere inside the walls. Flowering vines provided privacy.
She approached the water cautiously. It looked normal enough. Clear, warm, inviting.
The moment she stepped in, she understood Thaine's warning.
The water didn't just surround her. It examined her. She could feel it cataloguing every scrape, every bruise, every place another's magic had touched. Where the mark spread across her arm, the water seemed to purr with recognition.
"This is insane," she said aloud, just to hear something normal.
The water rippled in what might have been agreement. Or laughter.
Briar bathed quickly, unsettled by the sensation of being known by liquid. But when she emerged, her skin felt different. Softer. Polished into a better version of herself.
The dress waiting for her was deep violet silk that shifted to black in shadow. When she lifted it, she noticed the intricate beadwork that glittered with each movement. It was beautiful, graceful and served as another reminder of how completely out of place she was here.
The v-shaped neckline plunged lower than anything she'd ever worn, designed to display rather than conceal.
Her fingers found the embroidery cascading down from the bodice which, at first glance, appeared to be decorative swirls.
Upon looking closer she recognized the pattern.
Thorned vines, subtle but unmistakable. Even the clothes here would mark her as his.
She stepped into it because what choice did she have? The fabric clung and flowed in ways that made her feel exposed despite being fully covered. The off-shoulder sleeves left her throat and shoulders bare, displaying the bruises from his grip.
It felt as though the dress was trying to make her into something she wasn't, someone who belonged in this world of dangerous beauty.
Instead, she felt like a child playing dress-up in clothes that would never truly fit, no matter how perfectly they'd been tailored to her body.
The flowing skirts that should have made her feel elegant only made her aware of how differently she'd have to move, how careful she'd need to be.
Briar found a comb on the vanity and had just started working through her damp hair when the door opened again.
When she turned, Eliam stood in the doorway studying her with those inhuman eyes. He didn't speak immediately, just took in the transformation, the way the dress clung to her frame, and how her hair fell around her shoulders.
After a moment he stepped into the room uninvited, moving with that particular grace that made her hyperaware of her own mortality.
Today he'd abandoned his usual austere style for something that screamed dangerous nobility, a shirt of midnight green silk that shifted to near-black in the shadows, opened at the throat in a way that drew her eye to the hollow of his collarbone.
Over it, he wore a coat of darker velvet, the hems embroidered with thorned vines in thread that caught light like beetle shells.
"Better," he said after his assessment, circling her slowly. "You clean up well."
"Thanks, I think." She turned to track his movement,
He moved closer before reaching out to touch her hair, lifting a strand to examine it. “Lovely,” he murmured as he twisted the lock between his fingers.
"Hold still," he commanded, moving to her vanity. He paused, considering, before selecting a delicate hair pin of dark metal shaped like thorned branches with tiny gems caught in the design.
He returned to stand behind her, gathering a section of her hair with practiced movements.
She could feel the warmth of him at her back as he twisted and secured the damp strands, sliding the pin into place with surprising gentleness.
The silver rings adorning his fingers caught the light as he adjusted the placement, making sure it held.
"There." His hands rested on her shoulders for a moment, and in the mirror she could see how the jewels in the pin glittered, marking her as his in yet another small way.
"The servants will think you're my new pet.
The courtiers will assume you're a temporary amusement.
" His thumbs pressed slightly into the curve where her neck met her shoulders. "What do you think you are?"
"Your prisoner."
"Prisoners go into dungeons." He stepped back, fingers trailing away from her shoulders. "You're in guest quarters."
"Guests can leave."
"Can they?" He turned toward the door, and she caught the full impact of him, of the wild king playing at civilization, dressed in silks and velvets that did nothing to hide the predator beneath. "Come."
Briar reluctantly followed because, what else could she do?
The halls looked different in this pale light.
Less ominous, more alien. She caught glimpses of other residents through doorways.
In one room a female with moth wings, the tips badly charred, was arranging flowers that screamed silently and seemed to follow Briar as she hurried passed.
In another, a man with broken antlers wrote feverishly in a book that bled ink from between its pages.
All of them avoided looking at her directly. But she felt their attention anyway.
"Where are we going?" she asked when the silence stretched too long.
"The conservatory first. Then the library. Then, if you manage not to embarrass yourself, court."
"Court?"
"Where formal business is conducted. Petitions heard. Judgments rendered." He glanced back. "Punishments delivered."
Her steps faltered. "Am I being punished?"
"That depends entirely on you."
They entered a vast glass space filled with plants she had no names for. Trees that grew downward from the ceiling. Flowers that tracked their movement with too-intelligent eyes. Vines reached toward Eliam as he passed, desperate for acknowledgement.
"Lesson one," he said, stopping beside a fountain that bubbled something too dark to be water. "Everything here is alive. Everything here is watching. Everything here reports to me."
"Paranoid much?"
He moved faster than thought, backing her against a pillar wrapped in thorned roses. "Careful, little thief. That sharp tongue might amuse me now, but novelty wears thin."
This close, she could smell him, pine and dark earth and something wild. Something that made the warmth in her chest flutter again, stronger than before.
His eyes narrowed slightly, as if he'd felt it too. But then he stepped back, composed again.
"As I was saying. The forest sees all. Knows all. Your attempt at gaining allies, for instance." He plucked a rose from the pillar, careful of its thorns. "Did you think I wouldn't hear about your conversation with the kitchen maid?"
Briar's blood chilled. "I didn't—"
"Ask her name? But you wanted to. Perhaps even wondered if she might help you, given time." He studied the rose, then held it out to her. "Take it."
"Why?"
"Because I told you to."
She reached for it carefully, but the moment her fingers touched the stem, more thorns erupted. They pierced her palm and fingertips, drawing blood that the rose drank greedily.
She tried to drop it, but her hand wouldn't open.
"Lesson two," Eliam said calmly. "Everything here has a price. Even gifts. Especially gifts."
When the rose finally released her, it was fat with her blood. Her hand throbbed, the puncture wounds already swelling.
"You're insane."
"No. I'm fae." He took her injured hand, examining the wounds with clinical interest. "And you're human. Oh so fragile and breakable. So easily damaged by things that wouldn't even scratch my kind."
"Then why give it to me?"
"Because you need to understand." His thumb pressed against one puncture, and she hissed at the pain. "This is not your world. Your rules don't apply. Your assumptions will get you killed. Pain is as adequate a motivator as any."
"I thought you wanted me alive."
"I want you mine." The distinction hung between them, heavy with implication. "There's a difference."
He released her hand, and she cradled it against her chest. Blood spotted the perfect dress, but he didn't seem to care.
"Come. The library next."
"My hand."