Chapter 3 #2
"Fine. Maiming only." He sounded mildly disappointed. "Though that really does complicate things. Dead bodies don't follow. Injured ones make noise, attract others. Very inefficient."
The forest around them had gone dark, true dark, the kind that existed only in places far from human lights.
The moon filtered through branches in broken patterns, catching on his scales where they pushed through tears in his shirt, dark fabric that she suspected had been stolen from one of the dead hunters.
The air tasted of pine sap and old earth, and underneath it, the metallic tang of blood.
Hers, mostly, though he still carried the scent of charred flesh from Sarelle.
"Who are you?" she managed, her throat raw from screaming she didn't remember.
"You don't know? I told you. I'm a Drak."
"No, I mean... your name."
His footsteps barely disturbed the forest floor, each placement deliberate despite his casual gait. "Karse." He shifted her weight, and she felt the unnatural heat radiating from his skin, warmer than any human should be.
"I'm Briar."
"I know. You were screaming it earlier. 'Please, Briar needs to rest.' 'Briar is dying.' Very dramatic. Also you were talking in third person, which was odd."
Heat crept up her neck despite the cold night air. The movement made her aware of how she must look: dress destroyed, hair matted with blood and dirt, the carefully crafted court beauty dissolved into something feral and broken. "I was delirious."
"Obviously." Somewhere in the distance, an owl called, normal forest sounds that seemed wrong after a day of hunting horns. "You also kept reaching for something. Your chest, mostly. You kept saying something was gone. Is something missing?"
The warmth. The connection that had lived beneath her ribs for months, that golden thread that had bound her to Eliam even when she'd hated him for it. Now just hollow space, cold as winter earth. "It's... complicated."
"Most things are when fae are involved." His tone suggested complete disinterest, but she could feel his attention on her, sharp as the scales that caught moonlight along his neck. "You should sleep more. Talking is tedious and you need to heal."
"I'm not tired—"
"Yes you are. Close your eyes."
The trees around them had grown older, trunks thick enough that three people couldn't wrap their arms around them. Moss hung from branches like curtains, and the air felt heavier here, pregnant with magic that made her skin prickle. "You can't just tell me to—"
"Sleep," he said, and there was something in his voice, not quite command but absolute certainty. "I'm tired of conversation."
Against her will, her eyes grew heavy, the rhythm of his walking and the warmth at her back pulling her under...
She woke to the sensation of being lowered to the ground, bark rough against her spine as he propped her against an ancient oak.
The moon had moved, painting everything in silver-blue shadows.
Karse crouched beside her, and she could see the change in him—muscles coiled tight beneath skin and scales, his pupils contracted to thin lines despite the darkness.
His fingers splayed against the ground, and she noticed his nails were longer than they should be, darker, more claw than human.
His head tilted, and she could see him breathing deeply, tasting the air with that forked tongue that flickered out between too-sharp teeth.
Briar heard it then, voices carried on wind that shouldn't exist, moving against the natural current of the forest.
"—blood trail leads this way." Sian's melodic tone, but worried, stressed in a way that made the words sharper. "Too much blood. If she's lost this much—"
"She's alive." Arion's voice cut through the darkness, certain as dawn. "I can feel... something. She's close."
Her heart lurched, pulse jumping in her throat. The warmth in her chest suddenly pulsed. Faint, barely there, but reaching toward Arion's voice with desperate recognition. The sensation made her gasp, her hand flying to her chest.
Karse's attention snapped to her, those reptilian eyes tracking the movement. "What's wrong with you now?"
She shook her head, struggling for a moment to breathe. His stillness transformed into something else entirely—muscles coiling, weight transferring to the balls of his feet, every line of his body ready to explode into violence.
"Three," he murmured, his voice lower now, anticipatory. The moonlight caught his eyes and they flared gold-green, reflecting light that shouldn't exist. "Water magic on one. Light on another." His lips curved, revealing teeth that had grown sharper while she watched. "Interesting."
"Karse—" she tried, but he was already flowing to his feet, moving without sound despite the carpet of dry leaves.
"Stay," he said without looking back. "This won't take long."
“Karse! Wait!”
She heard Halian's voice, closer now. "Then we should hurry before—"
The words cut off in a strangled sound, followed by the crack of wood and Sian's sharp intake of breath that preceded her magic, water gathering from moisture in the air with a sound like distant rain.
Briar forced herself up, using the tree for support. Her leg screamed protest, the cauterized wound pulling with each movement, but she pushed through it. The warmth in her chest pulsed stronger with each step toward the conflict, reaching for Arion with an intensity that made her stumble.
She broke through the trees to find chaos.
Karse had Halian pressed against an oak, one scaled hand around his throat, lifting him just enough that his feet scraped for purchase.
Water whipped through the air—Sian's magic manifesting as liquid tendrils that turned to steam before they could reach Karse, the air around him shimmering with heat waves.
Arion stood between Sian and the conflict, his hands glowing with cold light that created a barrier of radiance. When Karse turned toward him, the light flared brighter, forcing him to squint and step back, but it didn't strike out, didn't attack, just... pushed.
"Let him go," Arion said, voice steady despite the tension. "We're not here to hurt anyone."
"No?" Karse tilted his head, still holding Halian. "You're tracking what's mine. Following her blood through the forest. That sounds like hunting to me."
He squeezed slightly, and Halian's face darkened. Sian pulled more water from the air, from the dew on leaves, building something larger.
"Stop!" Briar's voice cracked as she stumbled into the clearing. Her leg gave out three steps in, sending her to her knees in the leaf litter. "Karse, stop. They're—" she had to pause, gasping for breath, "—they're my friends."
Karse's attention shifted to her, though his grip didn't loosen. "You're supposed to stay where I put you."
"Please." She tried to stand again and failed. The warmth in her chest was burning now, pulling toward Arion with such force it felt like being torn in half. "They helped me before. They're not hunting—they're trying to help."
Arion moved toward her, his light dimming, but Karse's free hand erupted in white-blue flame. "Don't."
"She's injured," Arion said, keeping his hands visible, the light fading to a soft glow that illuminated rather than threatened. "Let me help her."
"She doesn't need your help. She has me." Karse's flames grew hotter, the nearby leaves beginning to curl and blacken. "I fixed her. She's mine to protect."
"Yours?" Sian's voice was sharp with disbelief. "She's not property—"
"Karse." Briar forced steel into her voice despite the pain. "Put Halian down. Now."
The Drak looked at her, really looked at her, and something shifted in his expression. Not obedience exactly, but... consideration. His fingers loosened slightly, though Halian still remained pinned.
"They were following you," he said, as if explaining something obvious. "Things that follow wounded prey usually intend to finish it."
"We were trying to find her before the other hunters did," Arion said carefully, still maintaining that soft light that pushed gently at the edges of Karse's heat. "We're not participating in the hunt. We're trying to stop it."
Karse laughed, short and sharp. "Fae helping a human? Out of kindness?" His flames grew hotter. "I've been in enough fae chains to know how that story ends."
"Not all fae—" Sian started.
"Yes, all fae." Karse's voice went flat. "You take what you want and dress it up in pretty words. Laws. Bargains. Hunts." He looked at Briar. "They'll kill you or keep you. There's no third option with their kind."
"These ones are different," Briar managed, though the words felt weak even to her.
"Different." He considered this, fingers still loose but ready around Halian's throat.
"The one with light magic keeps looking at you like you're his.
The water witch is calculating how to drown me.
And this one—" he squeezed slightly, making Halian wheeze, "—is trying to work his fingers to something sharp in his pocket. "
Halian's hand stilled.
"See? Fae." Karse's tone carried the satisfaction of a proven point. "They can't help their nature."
The silence that followed was heavy. Finally, Karse let Halian drop. The fae collapsed to his knees, gasping, one hand pressed to his throat where dark bruises were already forming.
Sian moved to Halian's side, water still swirling around her fingers as she helped him sit up. He waved her off, one hand pressed to his throat, already assessing his own damage with the clinical detachment of a healer.
Arion took a step toward Briar.
Karse shifted immediately, placing himself directly in Arion's path. The flames around his hands dimmed but didn't extinguish, the heat still palpable in the air between them.
"She needs help," Arion said, keeping his voice level.
"She has help. Mine." Karse didn't move. "She's breathing. She's conscious. That's more than she would be if I hadn't found her."
"You cauterized her leg with fire." Arion's light flickered slightly, betraying frustration. "She needs proper healing—"
"Proper?" Karse's laugh was sharp. "Like the proper hunt your kind arranged? The proper way that Sarelle woman was going to tear her apart?"
"We're wasting time," Arion said, and there was an edge to his voice now. "Every moment we stand here arguing, more hunters are closing in. Can you not hear them?"
Briar could. Distant but unmistakable, the sound of coordinated movement through the forest. Multiple groups, calling to each other in the musical language of the courts.
She tried to push herself up from where she'd fallen, using a young birch for support. The bark felt too smooth, too cold under her palms. Her leg wouldn't hold weight properly, the cauterized wound pulling with fresh agony, but she managed to get her feet under her.
"You want to help?" Karse was saying. "Leave. Draw them off. Take your companions and make noise elsewhere."
"We're not leaving her with—"
The argument continued, but the words started blurring together. Briar took one step, then another, focusing on the space between them. If she could just get there, make them stop, make them listen—
Her leg buckled. The ground rushed up.
Karse caught her before she hit the leaves, moving without taking his eyes off Arion. One arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her against his too-warm chest, holding her upright when her legs wouldn't.
"You see?" His voice had gone quieter, more dangerous. "She can't travel. Not fast enough to matter."
That's when Halian struck.
Roots erupted from the earth, wrapping around Karse's ankles and calves in a sudden burst of growth. Not gentle vines but thick, woody bonds that locked his legs in place. Karse's attention snapped downward for one crucial second.
Sian's water came from everywhere—moisture in the air, dew from the leaves, all of it converging into a spinning vortex that engulfed them both. The water moved too fast to evaporate, constantly cycling, dousing his flames before they could fully form.
Karse's grip on Briar tightened, a snarl building in his throat, but then—
The light hit them like a physical force. Not gentle radiance but harsh, brilliant white that turned the world into nothing but glare. Briar's eyes slammed shut instinctively, but the light burned through her eyelids, disorienting, overwhelming.
She felt Karse's arms torn away from her, felt herself pulled in a different direction. Cooler hands caught her, lifted her, and she knew without seeing that it was Arion. The warmth in her chest sang at his proximity, reaching desperately.
"No—" she tried to say, but the words wouldn't come properly.
Behind them, she heard Karse roar—rage and betrayal mixed into something inhuman. The sound of steam hissing as he fought against the water, roots cracking under immense heat.
"Go!" Halian shouted. "It won't hold long!"
The forest blurred past, each jostle sending pain through her injuries. She could hear Sian and Halian behind them, their footsteps quick but controlled.
The wrongness of it twisted in her stomach.
Karse had saved her, had carried her for hours, had killed for her, and they'd trapped him like an animal.
But Arion's arms were steady and familiar, and the warmth in her chest pulsed with each heartbeat, settling into something almost like peace after hours of hollow cold.
She hated herself for how grateful she felt, how her body relaxed into his hold despite everything.
His light magic still glowed faintly around them, creating a bubble of soft radiance in the dark forest. It felt nothing like Karse's burning heat—this was gentler, like morning sun through windows, like safety she didn't deserve after what they'd just done.
"I'm sorry," Arion murmured against her hair, and she wasn't sure if he meant for the rough handling or for leaving Karse behind. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
She wanted to tell him to go back, to free Karse, to explain that the Drak had been protecting her.
But the words wouldn't come, and the shameful truth was that part of her—the exhausted, terrified, human part—was desperately glad to be in familiar arms again.
The warmth spreading through her chest felt like coming home, even though home was something she'd never have again.
And further back, getting fainter but not gone, the sound of something burning. Something breaking free.
Something hunting.