Chapter 9 #2
The accusations stung worse than the weeds' cuts. She wanted to explain, to make them understand she couldn't help. But what good would words do?
"Come closer," a new voice wheedled. This Rooted grew nearer to where she knelt, its transformation more recent. She could still make out feminine features in the bark. "I know a secret. About the garden. About how to survive. Just come closer so I can whisper."
Briar hesitated. Information might help, but approaching seemed foolish.
"Please," the Rooted woman continued. "I've been here so long. Just to speak to someone, to remember what I was. What's the harm?"
Against her better judgment, Briar crept closer. The woman's features became clearer. She'd been beautiful once, young and bright eyed. Patches of her normal skin still showed through the bark.
"Yes," the woman breathed. "So nice to have company. Tell me your name?"
"Briar."
"Briar. Pretty. I had a name once. I think it started with M. Or was it N?" Confusion clouded the trapped features. "It's so hard to remember. But I remember the important thing. Lean closer."
Briar leaned in.
The bark erupted. Hands shot out, not fully transformed, still partially flesh. They grabbed her shoulders with desperate strength as more limbs burst free, more souls desperate for release. The Rooted woman tried to pull Briar against her trunk.
"Take my place!" she shrieked. "Let me out and you become the tree! That's how it works! That's the secret!"
Briar struggled, but the grip was iron. More Rooted animated around them, those close enough reaching with whatever appendages could break free. They grabbed at her hair, her clothes, trying to drag her in different directions.
"My turn!"
"No, mine!"
"I've been here longest!"
In her panic to escape, Briar didn't notice the vines beginning to move. Not the quick, aggressive motion of Eliam's magic, but something far worse. They descended slowly, experienced hunters taking advantage of her immobility.
The first one touched her ankle so gently she didn't register it through the chaos. Thin as thread, it explored the leather of her boot, finding the gap where leather met leather. It slipped inside.
The second found her collar while the Rooted fought over her. This one was thicker, more confident. It traced her throat with obscene delicacy before beginning to burrow against the skin.
Pain, sharp and wrong, finally alerted her. She looked up to see vines, dozens of them, descending from above. They moved with serpentine grace, deliberate and patient. Where they touched her, she felt them trying to dig through leather, through cloth, seeking skin and what lay beneath.
"No!" She twisted harder, but the Rooted held firm.
The vine at her throat found purchase. She felt it pierce skin, not deep, not yet, just tasting. The sensation was worse than pain. It was an invasion, something foreign trying to work its way inside. Her vision blurred as more vines joined the first, ever patient and thorough.
The mark on her arm blazed with sudden heat.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the garden changed.
The ground beneath her groaned and split.
Roots erupted from the earth, not the garden's dead roots but something vitally, violently alive.
They were dark wood shot through with veins of emerald light, and where they touched the marrow vines, the hungry plants recoiled.
"What have you done?"
Eliam's voice carried the kind of rage that preceded cataclysm. He stood at the garden's edge, dressed in only sleep pants and fury, his power turning the air thick with the scent of ancient forests and dark earth.
The Rooted released her instantly, shrinking back into their bark prisons. But the vines were slower to understand the danger, still trying to burrow even as he approached.
He moved with predatory purpose. Where he stepped, the ground responded—dead earth cracking to reveal rich soil beneath, dormant seeds stirring to life only to wither again in his wake.
When he reached her, the vines still trying to penetrate her skin simply.
.. ceased. Not destroyed but absorbed back into the garden itself, forced to recognize a greater claim.
"You dare," he snarled, but not at her. His attention fixed on the garden itself, which seemed to cower despite having no consciousness to cower with. "She is mine to break. Mine to torment. Not yours to consume."
His hands went to her throat where the vine had begun its work.
She felt his power pour into the wound, not healing like before but something rawer.
Claiming. Where the vine had tried to burrow, his magic took root instead.
She gasped as she felt it, tiny thorns of living wood piercing just beneath the skin, following the path the vine had started but making it his own.
"Up," he commanded, and she obeyed on instinct.
Only then did she see the true extent. Vines had found a dozen entry points while the Rooted held her. Tiny wounds, none deep, but all beginning the terrible process of burrowing. Each one he touched, and each one he claimed.
His fingers traced her throat, and she felt the thorns bloom beneath her skin, not painful exactly, but present. They formed delicate patterns just under the surface, dark green veins that showed through her pale skin like elaborate tattoos drawn from the inside.
"Walk," he said.
She stumbled beside him as he strode through the garden.
Where he pointed, things changed. The Rooted who'd grabbed her twisted tighter, their bark forms compressing until anguished faces barely showed.
The moss near where she'd knelt blackened and crumbled.
The marrow vines throughout pulled back into themselves, coiling into defensive knots.
"You forget yourself," he told the garden. "She serves her sentence. She is not yours to claim."
They reached the gate where her abandoned tools lay. The basket was full of the razor weeds she'd managed to clear, their sap now eating through the woven hair.
"Adequate work," he judged. "The sentence is complete."
"But dawn…"
"I decide when dawn comes in my domain." He turned that terrible focus on her, and she saw something beneath the rage. Something that might have been fear. "You survived. Many don't. Most don't."
"The Rooted—"
"Knew what they risked when they reached for what was mine.
" His hand curved around her throat, thumb tracing one of the new patterns beneath her skin.
The thorns pulsed with his touch, sending warmth through her veins.
"Just as the vines knew. Just as the moss knew.
Everything here understands possession, little thief. Apparently better than you do."
Heat radiated from the mark despite his forest touch. That warmth in her chest responded, reaching toward him with recognition that transcended logic.
"I wasn't trying to…"
"To what? Die? Let something else claim you?
" His grip tightened, and the thorns beneath her skin bloomed deeper, creating intricate patterns.
"Do you understand what would have happened?
Marrow vines don't kill quickly. They burrow deep, following bone paths, drinking slowly.
You would have been aware for days. Possibly weeks. "
The image made her stomach revolt. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry." He laughed, the sound sharp and dangerous.
"She's sorry for nearly letting my garden eat her.
" His free hand pressed against one of the patterns at her collar.
"These won't fade. You'll wear my thorns beneath your skin now, testament to what happens when you're careless with what belongs to me. "
"You put me here. I didn't ask for this."
"No. You asked for nothing. Not even when you should have." He released her, stepping back. "Come. You need tending, and I find myself... displeased with my garden's enthusiasm."
She followed on unsteady legs, leaving the bone garden behind. But she felt it watching their retreat with something that might have been resentment. It had tasted her, just barely, and found her sweet.
At the door, Thaine waited with an expression of genuine surprise.
"Well," he said. "You lasted longer than most. Though not quite until dawn, I see."
"Dawn comes when I say it does," Eliam repeated, voice still carrying the promise of punishment to any who crossed him. "See that the garden understands this."
"Of course, my lord." Thaine's eyes tracked the patterns beneath her skin with interest. "Should I arrange for healers?"
"No. She'll wear these as a reminder." Eliam's hand settled on Briar's lower back. "Of what waits when she forgets who she belongs to."
They ascended in silence, leaving Thaine and the garden behind, but Briar could still feel phantom touches, the moss memories, Rooted hands, patient vines seeking entrance. She shivered despite the warm halls they returned to.
"You're cold," Eliam observed. "The garden does that. Steals heat along with everything else."
"Does it always... attack like that?"
"Only when it senses weakness. Division." He guided her through corridors she didn't recognize. "You were fighting them. Fighting me. Fighting yourself. The garden exploited that."
"So if I'd just accepted—"
"You'd have died differently." He laughed but it held no humor. "The bone garden doesn't offer good options, little thief. Only varied forms of suffering."
They reached a door she didn't recognize. Inside, a bath steamed. The tub wasn’t like the living wood of her quarters but something carved from dark stone. The water smelled of herbs and fresh turned earth.
"Bathe," he ordered. "The thorn-marks need sealing or they'll grow wild."
"Grow wild?"
"Did you think my marks would be simple?" He moved to the bath's edge, testing the water with casual familiarity. "They're seeds, essentially. Without proper binding, they'd spread through you until you became another decoration for my halls."
She stared at him. "You marked me with something that could kill me?"
"I marked you with something that marks you as untouchable." His eyes met hers, still carrying that banked fury. "Nothing in my domain will dare what the garden attempted. Not when you wear my claim beneath your skin."
She looked back at the water. Perhaps it was lingering fear, or frustration at being put in such a precarious situation, but Briar was feeling irritated and bold. "Leave so I can bathe."
"No." He settled on the bath's edge. "The binding requires precision. Unless you'd prefer to slowly transform from the inside out?"
Heat flooded her face, but the patterns pulsing beneath her skin decided for her. With great reluctance she turned her back and began unbuckling the leather with stiff fingers.
When she finally slipped into the water, dressed only in underthings and defiance, the heat engulfed her completely. But beneath the warmth was something else, a power that made her mark sing and the thorn-patterns pulse with new life.
"All the way under," he instructed. "The binding needs complete immersion."
She hesitated at the water's edge, remembering how the bathwater in her room examined her too closely. This would be worse—this was his magic, his binding. But the patterns beneath her skin pulsed with increasing urgency, demanding completion.
Drawing a deep breath, she slipped beneath the surface, and the world changed.
In the water, she could feel every pattern beneath her skin, connected by threads of his magic.
Eliam's power surrounded her, but so did something else.
That warmth in her chest blazed, meeting his forest claim with equal strength.
When she surfaced, gasping, he was staring at her with an expression she couldn't read.
"What?" she asked.
"You're fighting it."
"I'm not—"
"Not consciously." He leaned closer, studying her face. "But something in you resists proper binding. That warmth..."
His hand dipped into the water, fingertips tracing one of the patterns visible through her wet skin. Where he touched, gold flickered briefly beneath the green before his magic reasserted itself.
"Interesting," he murmured.
"What's interesting?"
"Nothing that concerns you." But his eyes said otherwise. "The binding is adequate. Dress and I'll return you to your rooms."
"That's it?"
"Would you prefer more elaborate rituals?" His smile was sharp. "I could make this far more intimate, if you insist."
She sank lower in the water. "Rooms. Yes. Rooms would be good."
"As you wish." He rose, turning his back with surprising courtesy. "But remember, little thief, those marks are mine. Those thorns beneath your skin won't fade, and they don't forget. Every time you see them, you'll remember who put them there. And why."
The patterns pulsed in agreement, and that warmth in her chest whispered questions she didn't want to answer.