Chapter 30 #2
"Oh, this is perfect." Ferria's laugh was sharp and bitter.
"You actually believe it. You think the magic is the only reason.
" She circled Briar slowly, savoring this.
"I've watched him for centuries. Seen him with countless others—fae, humans, it doesn't matter.
He uses them, controls them, throws them away. "
She stopped directly in front of Briar.
"He's never taken the eye of a Great Lord for one of them. He's never abandoned his court to save one. The magic didn't create that."
She leaned in close, her voice soft and edged with amusement. "Malus doesn't intend to let you go." Ferria's smile was one of satisfaction as she returned to the bench. "You'll have plenty of time to reflect on your mistakes. To watch Eliam whole and finally mine, and know exactly what you wasted."
The words cut deep, because Ferria was right. Briar had been so caught up in questioning, in doubting, that she lost sight of what truly mattered. She had let Arion’s words worm their way under her skin and fester.
The realization should have brought relief. Instead, it just made everything worse. Because now she knew it was real, and she was going to lose it anyway.
"He'll never love you," Briar said, the words escaping before she could stop them.
Ferria's expression went cold. "What?"
"You could have him for eternity. You could force him whole, could have Malus deliver him bound and helpless, and he would still never choose you.
" The anger was building now, cutting through the nausea and pain.
"You've watched him for centuries and you still don't understand.
He doesn't love you because he can't. Because there's nothing in you worth loving. "
"Careful." Ferria's voice had dropped to something dangerous.
But Briar couldn't stop, wouldn't stop. The revelation about Allegra, about everything being orchestrated, about this woman's obsession destroying lives, it was too much to contain.
"You made my sister sick. You manipulated everything. You helped fracture Eliam and now you're helping Malus destroy the world, all because you're so desperate for someone who doesn't want you."
"He doesn't know what he wants," Ferria snapped. "He's incomplete. Fractured. When he's whole again, when he's restored—"
"He'll still hate you." Briar forced herself to stand, using the wall for support, ignoring the way the room spun. "Because the problem isn't that he's incomplete. The problem is that you're pathetic."
Ferria moved faster than Briar could track, crossing the space between them in two strides. Her hand caught Briar's throat, slamming her back against the wall hard enough to make stars burst behind her eyes.
"Pathetic?" Ferria's voice was soft, dangerous.
"You call me pathetic when you've spent days doubting the one thing I would give anything to have?
When you've thrown away his devotion because you couldn't see past your own fear?
" Her grip tightened. "At least I know what I want.
At least I'm not too stupid to recognize when I have it. "
She released Briar's throat, shoving her away dismissively.
"He'll come for me," Briar said, voice rough. "Eliam will find me."
"I'm counting on it." Ferria moved to the entrance of the safe haven, checking something Briar couldn't see.
"Malus needs both pieces in one place, remember?
Eliam will follow, and Arion will follow Eliam.
They always do, drawn to each other even when they don't understand why.
And when they're all here, when we have everything we need. .." She trailed off, satisfied.
Briar pressed her hand against her chest, feeling the warmth there pulsing with fear and rage and grief all tangled together. Ferria had confirmed what she had doubted. Eliam's love was real. And she was going to lose him anyway.
Unless she could find a way out of this. Unless she could fight.
The warmth pulsed once in response to her unspoken thoughts.
It had saved her before. If she could figure out how to use it.
How to make it manifest the way it had during the hunt, or when Malachar had attacked.
The way it wanted to now, she could feel it pushing against her skin, trying to respond to her fear and rage.
She closed her eyes, focusing on that sensation. Reaching for it consciously instead of letting it react on its own. The rage that had been building finally found its focus. Briar took a step toward Ferria, then another, ignoring the way her vision swam with each movement.
“What are you doing?” Ferria asked, uncertainty mixing with annoyance.
"You're wrong," she said quietly.
"About what?"
"Eliam," Briar took another step, and Ferria actually backed up slightly, hand moving toward a weapon at her belt. "You think reuniting him will make him what you want. But you're forgetting something."
"And what's that?"
"The piece of him that's inside me." Briar pressed her hand against her chest. "You said I'm the catalyst. That means I'm part of the reunification too.
Whatever happens when Eliam becomes whole, I'll be there.
Part of it. Connected to it." She saw understanding dawn on Ferria's face.
"You won't get him the way you think you will.
Because I'm woven into what he is now. Into what he becomes. "
It was a guess, a desperate theory formed from fragments of information. But she saw it land. Saw Ferria's expression shift from cruel amusement to something darker.
"Malus will extract you," Ferria said, but her voice had lost its certainty. "He'll separate the essence from your body, use it without your interference—"
"Will he?" Briar took another step. "Twenty-five years, Ferria.
I've carried this essence for twenty-five years.
It's not separate from me anymore. It's woven into every part of who I am.
You can't extract it without extracting me.
And if I'm part of the reunification..." She let the implication hang.
Ferria's hand closed around her weapon. "You're lying. Trying to manipulate—"
"Am I?" Briar felt the warmth pulse in agreement, felt it confirming what she'd guessed. "Or are you just realizing that your precious bargain with Malus isn't going to give you what you want?"
The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications neither wanted to voice.
“There’s one more thing,” Briar continued.
Ferria moved before Briar could finish, drawing her weapon in one smooth motion and lunging forward with intent that was unmistakably lethal.
Briar's body reacted before her mind caught up. The warmth surged in response to the threat, and she reached for it consciously this time, imagining the thorns she'd seen Eliam create, wanting them to manifest, to protect, to stop Ferria before—
Golden light erupted from her skin. Not formless and diffuse the way it had been before, but focused. Sharp. Deadly.
Thorns burst from the ground between them, three feet long and wickedly pointed. Ferria tried to dodge but she was already mid-lunge, momentum carrying her forward onto the spikes.
One went through her shoulder. Another through her thigh. A third caught her side, just below her ribs.
She screamed, the sound sharp and terrible in the enclosed space. Her weapon clattered to the ground, and she tried to pull herself off the thorns, but the movement only drove them deeper.
Briar stood frozen, watching golden light fade from her hands, watching Ferria struggle and fail to free herself. The thorns held her suspended, growing from stone that shouldn't have been able to support plant life, anchored with magic Briar had called consciously for the first time.
"I’m not weak," Briar said, her voice coming out steadier than she felt.
Ferria gasped, trying to respond, perhaps beg for mercy, but blood was filling her mouth, making speech impossible.
Briar watched her struggle, watched the light fade from her eyes as blood spread across her clothing, and felt nothing but cold certainty. This was necessary, this was survival.
When Ferria finally went still, Briar couldn’t let herself turn away, wouldn’t.
She had made a choice, a terrible choice, and would not shy away from the truth of it.
The thorns were already beginning to fade, returning to whatever place they came from when Briar's will no longer sustained them.
Ferria's body slumped to the ground, blood pooling beneath her.
She looked down at her hands, still shaking slightly, and tried to process what had just happened and what it meant. What she'd become in a single act.
Time stretched strangely in the safe haven's artificial quiet.
Briar stood frozen, staring at Ferria's body, at the blood pooling beneath it, at her own hands still shaking and stained red.
The golden light had faded from her skin, but she could still feel the warmth pulsing in her chest, satisfied in a way that made her stomach turn.
Voices penetrated the silence, distant at first, then growing closer, calling her name with increasing urgency. The entrance to the safe haven shimmered into existence, that strange fold in reality that marked the boundary between here and the real world.
Eliam burst through first, shadows writhing around him in violent agitation. His eyes swept the space, taking in the blood, the body, finding her standing in the center of it all. The wildness in his expression shifted to something else entirely when he confirmed she was upright, breathing.
He crossed to her in three strides, his hands finding her face, fingers checking for injuries even as his eyes stayed locked on hers.
"Are you hurt?" His voice was controlled but she could feel the tremor underneath, the barely leashed violence looking for a target.