Chapter 8 #2
The terrace doors stood open, cold air flowing in and carrying the scent of dew and night-blooming jasmine. How long had Thaine been planning this? The breeze raised goosebumps along her arms, her nightgown too thin for the early morning's bite.
"Did you think it would help?" His tone stayed conversational as he maneuvered her toward the railing, though she could hear exhaustion threading through it. "Fucking something like that to forget about my lord? I'm curious about the logic. I wonder how he’ll react when—”
That's when Frederick struck.
Water erupted from the decorative fountain to their right, not a gentle stream but a concentrated blast that caught Thaine full in the face. The water was ice-cold and he cursed in the old tongue, sputtering. His grip loosened just enough—
Briar wrenched free, staggered a few steps before she regained her footing and ran for the door. Her fingers grasped the handle and pulled.
The door didn't budge.
She looked and saw that vines had grown through the mechanism, around the frame, through the very wood itself. They were fresh, still green and supple, smelling of sap and earth.
When had he—
Pain exploded against her temple, sharp and bright. The world tilted sideways, the floor rushing up to meet her. Her knees hit stone, the impact jarring through already-bruised flesh. Thaine caught her before she could fall completely and hefted her over his shoulder.
Everything spun, nausea rising in her throat.
She caught pieces through the growing haze—the terrace railing passing beneath them as he vaulted over, her stomach lurching at the drop.
The garden rushed up, twenty feet that should have broken bones, but he landed in a crouch that barely jarred her.
The impact still drove what little air remained from her lungs.
They moved through shadows while her vision swam, the world going gray at the edges.
The scent of crushed mint assaulted her senses where his boots found an herb garden.
Voices nearby, guards discussing increased patrols, their words floating just out of reach.
She tried to call out but her mouth wouldn't work properly, her tongue thick and useless.
The sound that emerged was barely a whimper, lost in the pre-dawn darkness.
The guards passed without stopping, their footsteps fading on gravel paths.
Thaine kept moving, each step jarring her aching head, sending new waves of pain through her skull.
She caught glimpses of water following as Frederick darted between fountains and puddles, his tiny form bright with distress, before the gray at the edges of her vision swallowed everything whole.
Pain split through her skull before she even opened her eyes. The world swayed in a way that had nothing to do with movement and everything to do with the throbbing above her temple. Her stomach churned, bile rising in her throat. She swallowed it down and forced her eyes open.
Trees passed overhead in a steady rhythm, their branches creating a canopy that filtered sunlight into broken patterns.
She was moving, but not walking. Beneath her, around her, vines and roots formed a living cradle that rolled forward in waves.
The plants erupted from the earth ahead, carried her forward, then sank back into the soil behind in an endless cycle.
Bars of twisted wood rose on either side, curving overhead but never quite meeting—a cage that reformed itself with each surge forward.
Her wrists were bound in front of her with rope that smelled of sap and something bitter. A cloak covered her—Thaine's, judging by the scent of forest and steel—but her nightgown beneath offered little protection against the morning chill that seeped through the gaps in her moving prison.
She tested the ropes carefully, working her wrists in small circles. The bonds were tight but not cruel, professional rather than vindictive. Her feet pressed against the lattice of roots beneath her, feeling for weakness, for any gap that might—
"I wouldn't," Thaine said from ahead, not bothering to turn around. He walked with the steady pace of someone who had miles to go and no reason to hurry. "Those roots will take whatever pushes through them. You might get your body out, but your foot would stay behind."
To prove his point, a smaller vine near her ankle tightened briefly, not enough to hurt but enough to demonstrate how quickly the plants could constrict.
Briar pulled her feet back, fury replacing her methodical testing. "You kidnapped me."
"I retrieved you." His tone carried no particular emotion, as if they were discussing weather. "The hunt ended. You belong to the Forest Court."
"I belong to no one." The words came out rough, her throat still raw from whatever he'd hit her with. "You had no right—"
"I had every right." He still didn't turn, navigating the forest path with unconscious ease. "My lord wants you back. That's all the right I need."
"Your lord cast me out." She shifted, trying to find a position that didn't make her head spin. "Made me prey. Let them hunt me like an animal."
"Yes." Simple agreement, no attempt to soften it. "And now he wants you back."
"And that's enough for you? His whims, his tantrums, his—"
"Yes." Thaine stepped over a fallen log without breaking stride, the vine conveyance following, lifting slightly to clear the obstacle. "I serve the Forest Court. Not his moods, not his reasons, not whatever complicated thing you two have between you. I serve."
The motion of climbing over the log made her stomach lurch. She pressed her bound hands against her mouth, willing herself not to be sick. The last thing she needed was to vomit while trapped in a moving cage with nowhere to escape the smell.
"Are you going to tell him?" The question escaped before she could stop it.
That made him stop. He turned, finally, and she could see the bruises still shadowing his jaw, the healing cuts from his fight with the Withered. His dark eyes studied her curiously.
"Tell him what?"
Heat flooded her face but she forced herself to hold his gaze. "About Karse."
He tilted his head, considering. The morning light caught the edges of his dark hair, showing threads of silver she hadn't noticed before. How old was Thaine really? How long had he served the Forest Court, done Eliam's bidding without question?
"You mean am I going to tell my lord that you fucked a Drak on a balcony while the Star Court slept?" His tone remained conversational, but she saw something flicker in his expression.
The crude summary made her stomach turn for different reasons. She looked away, unable to hold his gaze.
"He cast you aside," Thaine said, and his voice carried an odd note. Not sympathy exactly, but understanding. He paused, stepping closer to her moving prison. "I understand why you did it. The Drak was there, willing, and you wanted to feel something other than pain."
She looked up, startled by the accuracy of his assessment.
"I'll make you a deal," he continued. "You don't mention my.
.. extended stay as the Star Court's prisoner, and I don't mention your evening activities.
My lord doesn't need to know that his best hunter spent three days failing to retrieve one human woman, and he doesn't need to know what that woman did when she thought she was free. "
"You're protecting your reputation."
"Obviously." He turned back to the path ahead, starting to walk again. The vines resumed their wave-like motion, carrying her forward. "I have no interest in being seen as incompetent. You have no interest in Eliam knowing about the Drak. We both benefit from selective silence."
The pragmatism of it, the casual way he reduced her pain and rebellion to a simple transaction, should have made her angrier. Instead, she found herself oddly grateful for his lack of judgment. He understood what she'd done and why, without trying to excuse it or condemn it.
"He's not well," Thaine said suddenly, still walking ahead. "Since you've been gone."
Something in her chest tightened—the warmth responding to even this distant mention of Eliam. "What do you mean?"
"Volatile. More than usual. The court walks carefully around him, never knowing what might set him off. That first morning a servant brought him morning tea with the wrong flowers—not purple, but white. He destroyed half the morning room before I could calm him."
Purple flowers. Her memory supplied the image immediately. Eliam bringing her tea and breakfast, the delicate bloom decorating the tray, his fingers gentle in her hair. The warmth in her chest pulsed, reaching eastward with painful intensity.
"The strange thing is," Thaine continued, navigating them around a massive oak, "he couldn’t explain why the purple flowers matter. Just kept insisting they're wrong. That everything's wrong. That’s when I had to stop him from leaving to go after you."
Frederick chose that moment to appear, his tiny form rising from a puddle beside the path. He kept pace with her moving cage, his bubble throwing tiny rainbows in the morning sun. Thaine glanced at the sprite but didn't comment.
"And then there's you," Thaine said. "Growing thorns that attack anyone near you. Creating flowers that burn. Magic that responds to threats without your control..." He stopped again, turning to face her fully. "How long has this been happening?"
Briar hesitated. How much did she tell him?
"It started when I first arrived," Briar said at last, watching Frederick maintain his position beside her moving cage. "The golden flowers that grew in the Oubliette, leading me out when I was drowning in the dark. I thought I was hallucinating at first, but they were real. Eliam saw them too."
Thaine's pace slowed slightly. "Flowers in the Oubliette. That should have been impossible. Nothing grows there."