Chapter 15 #2
Ice shot across the ground, stopping just short of her feet. A warning.
"Three nights," Eliam said, voice soft and deadly. "The letter of the law. Not a breath more."
He moved forward, and both Sian and Arion tensed. But he stopped just outside arm's reach, gaze fixed on Briar. She tried to meet his eyes but couldn't focus. Everything hurts. Everything spun.
"Look at me."
The command cut through her fog. Her eyes found his, and she saw fury, yes, but underneath it, something else flickered, something that might have been—
"Three nights," he repeated. "Use them wisely. Because when the third night ends, if you're not at my border, waiting..." His smile was frigid. "I'll consider it theft. And you know how I handle thieves."
His gaze shifted to Arion. "Both of you."
"Is that a threat?" Sian demanded.
"It's a promise." He stepped back, shadows already gathering. "Three nights for her soul to settle. Then she returns. Voluntarily. Or I collect her myself, along with anyone foolish enough to stand between us."
Briar found her voice, though it came out raw. "Eliam—"
"Save your words." He didn't look at her. "You'll need them when you return… to beg."
The shadows swallowed him between one blink and the next.
"We need to go," Arion said. "Now."
He lifted her carefully. She wanted to protest, but her legs were useless and head was spinning.
"The water roads," Sian said, already moving. "I can get us to the court faster. He can't follow those paths, not quickly."
"He won't follow." Arion's arms were warm around her, but his voice was grim. "He'll wait. He knows we have to honor the law too."
Three nights. Briar closed her eyes and felt the mark pulse with each heartbeat. Three nights of borrowed time.
Then back to the darkness.
Or worse.
"The flowers," she mumbled against Arion's shoulder. "Why did they...?"
"Shh," he said, his voice gentle now. "Rest. We'll figure it out."
But as they fled through passages that smelled of river and stone, Briar felt the truth settling in her bones.
The flowers had bloomed for her. Had made a path from nothing.
And Eliam knew it.
Three nights to understand why.
Three nights before he made her pay for it.
Awareness came in fragments.
Water rushed past in impossible directions. Sian's voice sang something in river-tongue, old words that made the current gentle. Cold stone became warm air. She felt herself being lifted, carried, set down.
Arion's face appeared above hers, haloed by light that seemed warmer than Eliam's cold illumination.
Strange, how she'd never really looked at him before.
He had the same sharp bone structure but softer somehow, comparing sword edges to weathered stone.
His hair was darker, a warm chestnut brown, where Eliam's was white, cold and bright as freshly fallen snow, but it fell in the same way.
They bore the same tall frame, the same impossible grace, but where Eliam moved with predatory intent, Arion moved with measured restraint, power held in check rather than displayed.
Her consciousness slipped away before she could grasp the comparison.
Voices filtered through. Worried tones. Fragments of conversation about water in lungs, marks, three nights.
Hands peeled away wet fabric, gentle and clinical. Someone made disapproving sounds over bruises, over the mark that wound up her arm in its possessive claim. Warm cloth touched her skin. Soft blankets covered her. The scent of something herbal and sweet filled the air.
She surfaced again to firelight. Arion sat beside the bed, reading from a book that glowed faintly.
The light caught his profile, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw Eliam there.
Not in feature but in something deeper. The way he held himself.
The way his fingers turned the page. An echo. A reflection in disturbed water.
"The same—" she tried to say.
His eyes found hers. Green depths of spring forests where Eliam's were green of deep winter. But the shape, the intensity, how had she not seen it before?
"Sleep," he said softly, and there was power in it. Not command as Eliam wielded but a suggestion, a request.
She slept.
Darkness. Water. Hands pulling, pulling, pulling her down.
Too many fingers, too many joints, dragging her into the deep places where pressure would crush her bones to powder.
Above, through the murky water, Eliam stood at the edge watching.
Just watching. His face expressionless as she drowned.
As the creatures tore at her. As her lungs filled and filled and—
Light.
Briar gasped awake, hands clutching at blankets instead of fighting water. Real blankets. Dry blankets. Sunlight, actual sunlight, streamed through tall windows, warming her face with gentle heat that had nothing to do with fae magic or forest shadows.
The room was unfamiliar but beautiful in its own way. Where Eliam's domain had been all dark wood and living architecture, this was carved stone and flowing fabric. The furniture looked made rather than grown. Still elegant. Still inhuman. But lighter somehow.
She lay in a bed with white linens that smelled of lavender. Her body ached but distantly, and when she looked down, she wore a simple shift of pale blue. Someone had braided her hair while she slept, wound it crown-style to keep it from tangling.
The terror of drowning still clung to her, but here in this bright room, it felt distant. She wasn't in the water. Wasn't in the dark. Wasn't drowning while he watched with those cold green eyes.
At least not yet.
The mark pulsed once, lazy and content. It should have been screaming. Should have been burning her alive for her defiance. Instead it lay quiet against her skin, the thorns still but present. Not absent but sleeping.
That was almost worse, like the calm before the inevitable storm. He was waiting.
She pushed herself upright, head spinning slightly. How long had she been unconscious? One night? Two? How much of her borrowed time was already spent?
She heard voices in the hallway growing louder, but not closer.
"—reckless beyond measure!" A female's voice, sharp with anger. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I saved her life," another replied, steady but strained.
Arion.
"You've signed all our death warrants!" The woman again. Something familiar about the voice. "When he comes, and he will come—"
"The law is the law, Ferria."
Ferria. The sister from the rescue, the one with illusion magic.
"Do you think he really cares about law when it comes to what's his?" Her voice dropped but carried clearly. "You told us what she did. Those flowers, that's not normal, even for a marked human. That's something else. Something that shouldn't exist."
"Which is why we need to understand—"
"Which is why we need to send her back! Now! Before he decides we're keeping her on purpose!"
"I won't send an injured woman back to torture."
"Better one mortal than our entire court!"
"That's not—"
"Isn't it?" Ferria's laugh was bitter. "How many will he kill when he comes for her? How many will he torture for information we don't have? You saved one life and doomed dozens."
"You don't know that."
"I know him." Something in her voice changed, it sounded older, sadder even. "I know what he's capable of when something he considers his is taken. And she is his, Arion. Down to her bones. Whatever made those flowers bloom doesn't change that. However you feel doesn’t change that."
“I just want to help her.”
“I’ve known you long enough to know it’s more than that,” Ferria replied.
Silence stretched. Briar found herself holding her breath.
"Two days," Arion said finally. "We have two more days to figure out what's happening. What she is."
"And then?"
"Then she chooses."
"Chooses?" Ferria's voice pitched higher. "You think he's going to let her choose? You think any of us have choices when it comes to the Forest King?"
"Everyone has choices."
"Pretty words from someone who's never been marked. Never been owned. Never—" She herself cut off. When she spoke again, her voice was carefully controlled. "Two days. But when he comes, and he will come, I won't stand between him and what's his. None of us should."
Footsteps moved away. A door slammed.
Then, quieter, Arion's voice reached her. "You can stop pretending to sleep."
Briar's eyes flew open. He stood in the doorway, looking tired and worried and too much like Eliam in the slant of morning light.
"How did you know?"
"Your breathing changed when you woke up." He entered, leaving the door open. "How do you feel?"
"I feel as if I drowned and came back wrong." She touched the mark. Still quiet and waiting. "Am I? Wrong?"
He was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know. But we have two days to find out."
"Ferria's right," she said at last. "I should go back. Before anyone else gets hurt."
"Is that what you want?"
Was it? The thought of returning to that darkness, to whatever punishment waited for her defiance made her feel sick. But the thought of others suffering for her perceived 'escape' felt worse.
"I don't know what I want." Truth filled her words. "I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore. I don't know why the flowers you say are impossible bloomed for me. I don't know anything except that in two days, none of it will matter."
"Then we'd better start finding answers." He gestured to a wardrobe. "There are clothes that should fit. Choose whatever you'd like. I'll wait outside."
Confusion flickered across her face and she hesitated. "What should I wear?"
His brow furrowed slightly. "Whatever you prefer. They're just clothes."
"But which would be appropriate?"
"Briar." His voice was gentle but puzzled. "You're not being presented or displayed. You're just getting dressed. Choose what feels comfortable." He moved toward the door. "Take your time."
She stared after him, mulling over his words before she swung her legs out of bed, testing them. They were a bit shaky but functional. She approached the wardrobe with something close to wonder.
Inside hung more dresses than she'd ever seen in one place. All of them were in shades that seemed pulled from dawn itself. Pale blues that reminded her of morning sky, whites soft as clouds, creams and ivories, butter yellows, rose golds, and pinks ranging from barely-there blush to deep coral.
She ran her fingers along the fabrics. They were all soft, all flowing, all beautiful without being constraining. No rigid structures. No impossibly tight lacing. Just... dresses.
Her hand stopped on one that made her breath catch. The bodice was pale gold overlaid with delicate ivory lace, flowers embroidered across it in shades of cream and the palest pink.
The neckline was modest and would sit just below her collarbones, with long sleeves that would drape gracefully, covering her arms and in turn the mark that now twisted across her shoulder blade Layers of sheer silk made up the skirt—gold, then cream, then white beneath—with embroidered flowers spilling down the length of it.
She took her time and dressed slowly, marveling at how the garment fastened easily and without help. How it fit without crushing her ribs, allowing her to actually breathe. The fabric settled against her skin, light and comfortable.
The freedom of choosing her own clothes, of dressing without inspection or correction, was almost frightening.
Since her arrival Eliam had chosen every garment, every color, every detail.
Even before court dinners, he'd laid out exactly what she should wear and how.
It was terrifying how she had grown accustomed to such treatment in such a short period of time.
She took a breath, steadying herself, then opened the door to find Arion waiting in the hallway.
He turned at the sound of the door, and whatever he'd been about to say died on his lips. His eyes widened slightly as he took in the dress and the way the morning light caught the gold and cream layers, how the embroidered flowers seemed to bloom across the fabric.
His gaze traveled from the modest neckline to the flowing skirt and back up to her face, where a faint blush had risen to her cheeks under his scrutiny.
"You..." He cleared his throat, looking away briefly before meeting her eyes again. "That suits you. Very much."
There was something in his voice, a warmth that hadn't been there before. She noticed his hands fidget at his sides, noticed how he seemed to catch himself staring and deliberately looked past her shoulder instead.
"Is it appropriate?" The question slipped out automatically.
"It's perfect," he said, then seemed to realize how that sounded. Color touched his cheeks, barely visible, but there. "I mean, it's what you chose. That makes it appropriate."
She didn't know what to do with that answer, or with the way he kept glancing at her when he thought she wasn't looking. She certainly didn't know what to do with someone who seemed genuinely affected by her choice.
"Shall we?" He gestured down the hall, his voice slightly rougher than before. "The library awaits."
"Why are you helping me?" she asked as they started walking.
He paused mid-step, and for a moment something flickered in his eyes. Recognition? Memory? Loss? When combined with the lingering flush on his cheeks, it made him look younger somehow, less certain.
"I don't know," he admitted quietly. "But something tells me I'm supposed to."
He continued walking, leaving her to trail behind him.
Two days to find answers.
If they were lucky, it might be enough.
If they weren't, she didn't want to think about what Eliam would do to anyone who stood between them when time inevitably ran out.