Chapter 22 #2
"Would that work?" Halian asked.
"Maybe." Eliam's expression suggested he had doubts. "If the forest is willing to choose. If it recognizes the distinction between title and truth. If a dozen other things go right that I can't predict."
"And if they don't?" Karse asked.
"Then she suffers for nothing," Eliam said bluntly. "And we're back where we started, except she's been put through agony for my arrogance in thinking I could outsmart a binding I created in the first place."
Briar squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to her. "It's not arrogance to try. It's arrogance to assume we can't even attempt to fix this."
Something shifted in his expression, the harsh lines softening slightly.
"Alright," he said finally. "But the moment it starts to go wrong, I'm stopping it. I don't care if we're halfway through, if there's still a chance. The moment you're in too much pain, we stop."
"Agreed," Arion said before Briar could argue.
Eliam stood, Briar’s hand still wrapped in his, and pulled her up with him. "Everyone else step back. If this goes badly, I don't want anyone close enough to interfere."
The others moved away from the table, giving them space. Briar felt her heart hammering, felt the autumn marks at her throat already seeming to sense something was coming. They rustled against her skin, copper leaves chiming soft warning.
Eliam turned to face her fully, both his hands finding hers now. His expression was focused, intense, but underneath she could see his fear. Not for himself. For her.
"Ready?" he asked quietly.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
"Then repeat after me," he said. "My life was given to the Forest King in bargain."
"My life was given to the Forest King in bargain," she echoed, her voice steadier than she felt.
The autumn marks pulsed once, acknowledging the truth of the statement.
"I ask the forest to show me its true king."
Briar took a steadying breath. "I ask the forest to show me its true king." The marks pulsed again, but this time there was resistance in it. A warning.
"And to that king alone shall I belong."
"And to that—” Briar felt the marks beginning to stir. “To that king alone shall I—"
The marks seized her throat, cutting off air before she could finish the words.
The copper leaves turned sharp as blades, pressing into her skin with brutal force.
She couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. Her hands flew to her throat as though she could somehow stop what was happening through force alone.
Eliam's own marks flared in response, burning across her shoulder and arm where he'd claimed her. Fire meeting constriction, two competing magics warring for dominance while her body became the battlefield.
She tried to scream but no sound came out. The marks were squeezing tighter, tighter, cutting off air, cutting off everything. Her vision started to gray at the edges, black spots dancing across her sight.
Through the agony, she felt Eliam's hands on her face, heard him shouting something, but the words were distant, underwater. The warmth in her chest was thrashing, trying to help, trying to fight, but it was too weak, too depleted from everything they'd already endured.
The autumn marks squeezed harder.
Then Eliam's magic surged.
It poured through their connection with violent force, shadows and thorns and forest power crashing against the autumn marks like a wave against stone. Not trying to destroy them but to force them back, to make them loosen their grip just enough for her to breathe.
The competing magics screamed against each other, the autumn marks fighting viciously, recognizing the challenge, refusing to yield. Eliam's power pushed harder, and somewhere in the chaos she heard him speaking, commanding, pouring authority and will into words she couldn't quite hear.
The marks loosened. Just slightly. Just enough.
Air rushed into her lungs and she gasped, the sound harsh and desperate. Her knees buckled and Eliam caught her, pulling her against his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head while the other pressed flat against her back.
"No more," he commanded, and she realized he was talking to the magic, to the bargain, to everything that was trying to tear her apart. "Enough!"
Finally the autumn marks settled back against her skin, no longer actively trying to kill her but still there, still claiming her for Malus. Briar stayed pressed against Eliam's chest, shaking uncontrollably.. Her throat felt raw, bruised, like invisible hands had tried to strangle her.
"I've got you," Eliam said against her hair, his voice rough. "You're alright. I've got you."
Sian appeared at her elbow with a glass of water, her expression stricken. "Here. Small sips."
Briar took the glass with trembling hands, barely able to hold it steady. The water burned going down her abused throat, but it helped. She managed a few swallows before her stomach threatened to rebel.
"It didn't work," she said finally, her voice coming out as barely more than a rasp.
"No," Eliam agreed, his arms still tight around her. "The forest either can't choose or won't. The bargain stays with Malus."
"So we're back to killing him," Karse said, his tone carrying no sympathy, just cold practicality. "I did mention that was the simplest solution."
"Getting close enough to kill him isn't simple," Arion said, though he sounded tired now, the earlier anger drained out of him. "Not with the entire Forest Court protecting him."
"Then we find a way to get close," Karse said. "Or we accept that she belongs to him and start a war. Personally, I’m okay with either."
"We're not accepting anything," Eliam said, his voice carrying that cold authority that meant the discussion was over. "But we're also not solving this tonight. Briar needs rest."
"I'm fine," Briar protested, pulling back to look at him. "We need to figure out what to do, we need—"
"You need rest," Eliam cut her off. "You just survived having a bargain try to strangle you. You're done for today."
"Eliam—"
"Not a discussion." He stood, pulling her up with him, one arm staying firmly around her waist when her legs wobbled. "We'll reconvene tomorrow. The problems will still be there, and you'll be in better shape to face them."
"But—"
He simply turned toward the door, his arm around her the only thing keeping her upright.
She wanted to argue, to insist she could keep going, but her body betrayed her.
Her legs felt like water, her throat ached with every breath, and exhaustion was crashing over her in waves now that the adrenaline was fading.
"Tomorrow," Arion said, and she couldn't tell if he was agreeing with Eliam or just acknowledging the inevitable. "Get some rest, Briar."
Sian touched her arm gently as they passed. "I'll check on you later."
Eliam guided her out of the council room, his hand never leaving her waist. The hallway felt impossibly long, each step requiring more effort than the last. By the time they reached the chambers Arion had given them, she was leaning heavily against Eliam's side, her pride the only thing keeping her from asking him to carry her.
He shut the door behind them with a soft click that felt like a barrier against the world. The room was warm despite the open terrace doors, a fire crackling in the hearth and candles floating overhead in that distinctly Star Court way that made everything feel ethereal and slightly unreal.
A table had been set near the terrace, laden with food that steamed gently in the cool air flowing through the open doors. Someone had anticipated their needs, or perhaps Arion had sent word ahead. Either way, the sight of actual food made Briar's stomach clench with sudden, desperate hunger.
"Come," Eliam said, his hand at the small of her back guiding her toward the table. "You need to eat."
She wanted to argue, to say she was fine, but her body betrayed her with a stomach growl loud enough to make him raise an eyebrow. Heat crept into her cheeks as she let him pull out a chair for her.
Through the open doors she could feel winter in the wind that drifted through carrying a bite that hadn't been there days ago.
"It'll snow soon," she said, the observation coming from nowhere, from the need to fill silence with something safe and mundane.
"Inevitably." Eliam said as he sat across from her, already filling a plate with bread, cheese, and fruit. He set it in front of her before preparing his own. "The Star Court keeps winter at bay within its borders, but you can feel it waiting beyond."
She picked up a piece of bread, tearing it into smaller pieces more from habit than intention.
The meeting kept replaying in her mind—Ferria's deflection, the failed bargain attempt, the way the autumn marks had tried to strangle her. Arion's accusation that Eliam didn't actually care about her freedom.
"Eat," Eliam said, his tone carrying command but also something gentler underneath. "Or do you require my assistance?"
She forced herself to take a bite, then another. The food was good, simple and real in a way that made her realize how long it had been since she'd eaten anything. After all she’d been through, her body needed fuel even if her mind was too chaotic to care.
They ate in silence for a while and soon Briar felt the exhaustion creeping back in now that she'd stopped moving. Her throat still ached from where the marks had constricted, and every swallow reminded her that she belonged to Malus, that nothing they'd tried had changed that fundamental truth.
She reached for her water glass and paused, her hand hovering over it.
Something Malus had said seemed to drift like a phantom to the forefront of her mind.
It had been in his chambers, when he'd been trying to understand what the warmth was, what it meant.
The words had gotten buried under everything else, but now, in the quiet, they surfaced with crystalline clarity.
He placed a fragment of his essence inside you before you were even born.
Her hand trembled slightly as she picked up the glass, took a sip. The water felt cold going down her bruised throat.
"Briar?" Eliam's voice cut through her thoughts. "What's wrong?"
She set the glass down carefully, not wanting to spill it.
"I think,,,” she said quietly, lifting her eyes to meet his gaze. “I think I know why Malus wants me back so badly."
Eliam went completely still, his fork halfway to his mouth. He set it down slowly, his eyes locked on her face. "What do you mean?"
“He bit me and he… he was so angry,” she explained, memories of that night rising unbidden.
The fear and the hopelessness. She pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the warmth pulse beneath her palm.
It grounded her. "My blood, he said it tasted of the old forest, of you.
He was trying to understand why." Her fingers spread over her sternum.
"Why it protects me, why it reacts the way it does. "
"And?"
"He thinks he knows," she said, lowering her eyes.. "He thinks you hid something in me. That when you saved my mother's life, you put part of your essence inside me." She swallowed hard. "Before I was even born."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Eliam's expression went blank, that careful neutrality he used when his mind was racing too fast to show anything on his face. His hand on the table had curled into a fist.
"That's impossible, I—" He stopped, his jaw clenching, muscles working beneath skin. She could see him trying to reach for the memory, to grasp at something that wasn't there. The frustration that crossed his face was raw, unguarded.
"If I had done something like that," he said finally, "put part of myself in an unborn child, I should remember.”
He stood abruptly, moving to the terrace doors, bracing himself against the frame. His back was rigid, tension radiating from every line of his body.
"Malus said you were trying to protect it," Briar continued, needing to get all of it out. "He was doing something that night… some ritual or something… and you hid part of your power where he wouldn't think to look. In me."
"A ritual." Eliam's voice was distant. "Twenty-five years ago."
"He was trying to strip you of your power."
She watched his shoulders tense further, watched him process implications she couldn't fully see.
"If that's true," he said slowly, not turning to face her, "if you're carrying part of my essence, part of my power—"
"Then that's why he wants me." The words came out steadier than she felt. "Not just because of the bargain."
Eliam turned then, and his expression was terrible. Not angry. Worse. The kind of cold calculation that came before violence.
"He won't stop," Briar said, voicing what they both knew. "He can't afford to. This isn't about pride or the bargain or punishing you. If I have access to your power, if he can get it through me—"
"Then he gets what he's always wanted." Eliam crossed back to her, his hands finding her shoulders. "And knowing my brother, he'll do anything to make that happen."
The weight of it settled between them. The border confrontation made more sense now. Malus's barely contained rage, his threats, his refusal to let her go despite the political complications. She wasn't just a human he owned. She was the key to something bigger.
"What does he need your power for?" she asked. "What's he planning?"
Eliam's hands tightened on her shoulders, then released. He stepped back, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration she rarely saw from him.
"I don't know," he said.
The autumn marks at her throat rustled, responding to something. A shift in the air, a change in temperature. Briar's hand went to them automatically.
"We tell the others tomorrow," Eliam said, his voice settling back into that controlled authority. "We will figure out what he's planning and how to stop him. But right now…" He moved to her, pulling her to her feet. "Right now you should rest."
"I don't think I can," she admitted. He said nothing, his hands were already working the laces of her dress. She didn’t stop him from undressing her, enjoying the warmth of his touch as she let him guide her into the sleep shirt and then let him pull her into bed with possessive care.
His arms wrapped around her, solid and warm, and the warmth in her chest settled, recognizing its other half.
"Sleep," he commanded, pressing a light kiss against her hair.
Tomorrow they would figure out what it meant. What Malus wanted with it. How to keep him from taking it.