Chapter 24
Chapter twenty-four
The leaf warmed between Briar's palms as she crept through the darkening corridors.
Her pockets held treasures more precious than gold.
She carried with her half a roll from dinner, an apple she'd managed to palm, a small wedge of cheese wrapped in her napkin.
Not much, but for someone who'd been starving for years it would certainly seem like a feast.
The journey down felt shorter this time, her feet remembering the path. Through the oubliette corridor, eyes carefully averted from that terrible room, past the shimmer of the hidden door, down the endless stairs where moss bloomed at her touch.
"Thomas?" she called softly as she entered the dungeon chamber. "It's me. I brought food."
Movement in the far cell. He lurched forward faster than last time, chains rattling, and in the mosslight she could see him better. Still gaunt, still filthy, but his eyes burned brighter. Hungrier.
"You came back." His voice cracked with emotion. Was it relief? Desperation? "I thought... I thought I'd dreamed of you."
"I promised." She approached the bars, pulling the food from her pockets. "It's not much, but—"
"It's everything." He reached through the bars with shaking hands, taking the bread first. "Oh god. Oh god, actual food."
He tore into it like a starved animal, and her heart clenched. How long had he been down here? How long since anyone had shown him kindness?
"Slowly," she cautioned. "You'll make yourself sick."
But he barely seemed to hear, moving on to the apple with the same frenzied hunger. She watched him eat, this broken man who might have answers, who might understand what she was becoming.
"Thank you," he gasped between bites. "Thank you, thank you. You don't know what this means."
"You said you'd tell me about the flowers," she prompted gently. "The golden ones. You said you knew their secret."
He paused mid-chew, eyes sharpening despite the hunger. "Yes. The flowers." He swallowed hard. "But it's... it's complicated. Dangerous knowledge."
"I need to know. They bloom for me sometimes. From stone, from nothing. I don't understand why."
"From stone?" His eyes widened. "Show me."
"I can't control it. It just... happens. When things feel hopeless. When I'm drowning." She pressed closer to the bars. "Please. You said you studied the marks. Found patterns. What did you learn?"
Thomas finished the cheese, licking every crumb from his fingers. Already he looked stronger, more focused.
"The marks," he said slowly, "are more than just claims. They're... connections. Threads that bind soul to soul." He gestured to her arm where thorns wound beneath her sleeve. "Yours is spreading, isn't it? Growing stronger?"
"Yes. He said when it completes, I'll become part of him. Part of the forest."
"That's what he wants you to think." Thomas leaned forward, voice dropping. "But the marks can be reversed. Even broken, with the right knowledge."
Her heart leaped. "Broken? How?"
"Ah." He sat back, chains clinking. "That's where it gets complicated. The flowers, they're the key. They grow from the intersection of power. Where claim meets resistance. Where binding meets freedom." His eyes searched hers. "You've been fighting the mark, haven't you? Fighting him?"
"Every day."
Liar.
She shoved the thought aside.
"That's why they bloom. Your resistance, your will, it transforms the binding. Makes it... malleable." He rubbed his wrists where old scars showed. "I learned this through pain. Through trial. Through years of study before I was locked away."
"But how do I use that? How do I break free?"
He gripped the bars, knuckles white. "Alone it’s impossible… but together, we might... we might actually do this. Escape from this place. Both of us. I know the old paths, the secret ways.”
Briar leaned closer. “Where are they? How do we get to them?”
“It won’t be easy, and I’m still so weak, but…” he said, his voice low, hopeful.
“What?”
“I know it’s unfair of me to ask but… the food you brought me… it did little to satisfy the endless hunger I’ve endured.”
“I’ll bring you more,” Briar replied. “I’ll bring you as much as you need.”
“You’re overwhelmingly kind,” Thomas said, managing a ghost of a smile. “But I can’t ask you to risk getting caught.”
"I won't." She pulled the leaf in her pocket. "I have this. It hides me from him."
Thomas's eyes fixed on her hand. "Clever. Very clever. Who gave you that?"
"Someone who wanted me to find answers."
"Then they chose well." His smile grew and it transformed his gaunt face. "We'll figure this out together. You and I. Two humans against the fae courts." His voice dropped to a whisper. "But you must tell no one. Not even those you think are allies. The fae play games within games."
"I won't. I promise."
"Tomorrow then. Bring what food you can. And I'll try to remember more about the flowers. About breaking bonds." He touched his chest. "It's all here, jumbled. But food helps. Food clears the fog."
She nodded, rising to her feet. The illumination on the leaf rippled, a sign that she was running low on time. "I’m sorry but I have to go."
"Yes. Be careful. Always careful." He watched her back away. "And thank you. You don't know... you can't know what hope tastes like after so long in the dark."
The words followed her up the stairs, through the hidden door, back toward the upper levels. Hope. She'd given him hope, and he'd given it back to her.
Someone who understood. Someone who might help her break free. Someone human, like her, trapped by fae machinations.
The leaf's magic held steady as she navigated back to her chambers. Her heart raced with possibility. Breaking the mark. Escape. Freedom.
She eased her door open, slipping inside and pressing her back against it once it closed. Safe. Her hands trembled as she crossed to the writing desk, tucking the leaf into its hiding place beneath some papers.
At the basin, she cupped cold water in her palms, pressing them to her flushed cheeks, then her neck, trying to cool the heat that seemed to radiate from within.
The dress clung uncomfortably to her damp skin.
She peeled it off with shaking fingers, letting it pool on the floor, she'd deal with it later.
She pulled a silk nightshift from the wardrobe, the fabric whispering over her skin as she pulled it on, its coolness a small relief.
She tried to settle, sitting at her vanity, then standing, then pacing to the window. Her mind raced through Thomas's words, his promises, the possibility of freedom. Hope was dangerous here, but she couldn't stop it from unfurling in her chest.
"Restless tonight?"
She whirled. Eliam stood by her bookshelf, running his fingers along the spines. She hadn't heard him enter, he never announced himself in his own domain.
It was clear he had been preparing for sleep.
A dark forest green robe hung open over low-slung pants of soft black fabric that looked more suited to bed than court.
The robe's edges were embroidered with thorned vines that seemed to shift in the candlelight, but it was the bare expanse of his chest that drew her eye—lean muscle and pale skin marked with faint scars her fingers twitched to touch.
"I couldn't sleep," she said, which was true enough.
"Nor could I." He selected a book, flipping through it absently. "The castle feels unsettled tonight. Or perhaps that's just me."
He turned the book toward her, showing an illustrated page of thorned vines. "Interesting reading material you have. Though I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, you do seem drawn to dangerous things."
Eliam’s eyes tracked down her body slowly, deliberately, taking in the thin nightshift that did little to hide her form. The look was possessive, appraising, like examining something he owned.
She jerked her gaze away from his bare chest, heat flooding her face, but his knowing smirk said he'd noticed her looking.
"You should knock," she said, voice sharper than intended to cover her embarrassment.
"Should I?" He set the book aside, the robe shifting with his movement, revealing more than concealing. "Why would I knock to enter rooms I own?"
"Because someone lives in them."
"Property lives in them." His tone was mild, almost amused. "Property doesn't require courtesy."
The casual dismissal after everything, after the cushion, after holding her through the night, after the bath, made something snap inside her.
"Property," she repeated, bitterness coating the word. "Is that all? Because your mixed signals suggest otherwise."
He went still, and she immediately regretted speaking. But the words were already spilling out.
"You hold me while I sleep but call me property. Give me comfort in court but remind me I'm owned. Touch me like I matter then dismiss me as a thing. Which is it?"
"Mixed signals." He moved closer, each step deliberate. "You think I'm sending you mixed signals."
"Aren't you?"
"No." He stopped just out of reach, studying her with dark amusement. "You're interpreting ownership as affection. That's not my failing, it's yours."
Heat flooded her face. "I'm not—"
"Aren't you?" He tilted his head. "You think a cushion means care, and proximity means desire for closeness rather than convenience. You're reading human emotions into fae practicality."
"Then what was the bath?" The question escaped before she could stop it and she hated herself for it.. "The way you—"
"Responded to fascinating magic?" His smile turned sharp. "That warmth in your chest is an anomaly. Of course I'm curious about it. That doesn't mean I harbor tender feelings for the vessel that carries it."
The dismissal stung more than it should have. She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. Behind her, she heard him move closer.
"Did you think I was falling in love with you?" His voice came soft, mocking. "How adorably human. How predictably naive."
"Stop." The word came out rough.