Chapter 37 #2
Through the wall, she heard Eliam's door open. Voices—his and Thaine's. She couldn't make out words, just tones. Eliam sounded irritated. Impatient. The voice of a king dealing with tedious matters he didn't understand.
Was she a tedious matter now?
Her chest ached where the warmth used to live. Not because it was gone—that absence she'd grown used to. But because it was so close, just beyond the wall, inside someone who didn't want her anymore. Who didn't even know to want her.
The door to her room opened quietly. She didn't look up.
"Oh, child." Síocháin's voice, those strange musical tones. "Thaine told me."
The bed dipped as the fae woman sat beside her. Those impossible fingers smoothed her tangled hair back from her face.
"He doesn't remember anything," Briar said into the pillow. "Not the bargain. Not the marking. Not—" Her voice broke. "Not any of it."
"The mind is a strange thing," Síocháin said, continuing to stroke her hair. "Especially when magic tears it apart and puts it back together. The reunification saved his life, but perhaps it cost him something else."
"Everything. It cost him everything."
"No. It cost you everything. He doesn't know what he's lost."
The distinction made it worse. Briar turned her face deeper into the pillow, fresh tears coming though she'd thought she had none left.
"You must be strong," Síocháin said gently. "The court needs—"
"I can't." The words came out muffled but firm. "I can't be strong anymore. I've been strong through everything. Through the bargain, through the hunt, through Malus, through watching Arion die. I can't."
Síocháin was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers never stopped their gentle motion through Briar's hair.
"Then don't," she said finally. "Tonight, you grieve. Tomorrow, we see what comes."
"What if he never remembers?"
"Then you decide if you can live with that. If you can stay here, seeing him every day, being nothing to him. Or if you leave."
Leave. The word sat heavy in the darkness. Leave the Forest Court. Leave Eliam. Go back to the human world where she belonged.
"My sister," Briar said suddenly, remembering. "The bargain. If he doesn't remember it, is it still valid? Is Allegra still healed?"
"Magic doesn't require memory to function. The bargain was made. The price was paid. Your sister remains whole."
Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless. At least her sacrifice hadn't been entirely erased.
Through the wall, she heard Eliam's footsteps again. Pacing. He'd always paced when something bothered him, though he probably didn't remember that about himself either.
"Is everything lost?" Briar asked into the darkness.
Síocháin's fingers stilled in her hair. "I don't know, child. I truly don't know."
The honesty was worse than false comfort would have been. Briar closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn't come. She just lay there, listening to the king she loved pace in the room next door, a stranger wearing the face of someone who'd once wanted her.
The hours stretched toward dawn, and still she didn't sleep. She just existed, suspended between what was and what could never be again.
Day flowed into day and Briar found herself wandering halls that had once felt alien and now felt empty of anything but pain and sorrow. She wasn’t sure how she ended up there, but the conservatory was exactly as she remembered.
Glass walls reached toward a winter sky, trapping warmth that had no right to exist in this season. The fountain still bubbled its too-dark water. The vines still reached for anyone who passed, desperate and hungry. And the roses—the roses still grew on the pillar, black-thorned and beautiful.
Briar stood where she'd stood months ago, staring at the flowers that had drunk her blood that first day. Her hand ghosted over her palm where the scars had long since faded. Such a small beginning to everything that followed.
This was for the best. His memory loss was a blessing, a chance for her to leave without the messy pain of rejection. He didn't remember marking her, claiming her, wanting her. Didn't remember the way he’d said her name like ownership and promise combined. It was cleaner this way. Kinder, even.
Her heart disagreed violently.
She reached toward one of the roses, careful now in a way she hadn't been then. The thorns were sharp as ever, gleaming with that hungry intelligence. One pricked her finger despite her caution, and she watched the blood well up, remembering how fascinated he'd been by the sight.
Footsteps echoed on the glass floor. That particular measured pace—not hurried but purposeful and predatory. She'd heard it so many times, but never directed at her like this. Not since those first days.
"What is a human doing in my conservatory?"
She turned slowly, her bleeding finger curling into her palm. He stood in the doorway, blocking the exit without seeming to. He wore black, as always, but there was something different about how he carried himself. He was colder and more distant. The way he'd been before she'd started mattering.
"I needed air," she said.
"The gardens are full of air. Yet you chose to enter a private space." He stepped closer, and her body remembered this—the way he moved when he was about to be deliberately cruel. "Wandering about as though you have some right to be here. As though you belong."
"I do belong here." The words came out desperate. "You brought me here months ago. You taught me about your world, about the roses, about—"
"Stop." The word cut through her rambling. He was closer now, close enough that she could feel the heat emanating from him. "I don't know what delusion you're nursing, but I've never brought a human here, let alone taught one anything."
"You did. You gave me a rose and it drank my blood and you said everything here has a price, especially gifts."
His eyes narrowed. Something flickered in them—not recognition but something worse. Interest. The kind of interest a cat shows in a mouse that's behaving strangely.
"You're very familiar with my habits for someone I don't know." His voice dropped to that dangerous softness she knew too well. "Tell me, little human, why do you think you know me?"
"Because you marked me." Her voice cracked. "Because you claimed me in front of your entire court. Because you—"
He moved fast, backing her against the pillar. The roses rustled, eager, remembering her blood.
"Careful," he said, and his breath ghosted across her face. "Lying about a fae lord is dangerous. Claiming intimacy where none exists is... unwise."
"I'm not lying."
"No?" His hand came up, fingers wrapping around her throat, feeling her pulse race. "Then why does my mind not know you? Why does my magic not recognize you?"
Tears burned her eyes. "I don't know."
He studied her face with that clinical curiosity that used to precede either cruelty or unexpected gentleness. Now it was just cold assessment. His thumb traced along her jaw, and her traitorous body responded, remembering this touch even if he didn't.
"Interesting," he murmured. "You react as though you know me. Your body expects my touch."
"Because you've touched me a hundred times."
"Have I?" His head tilted, predatory interest sharpening. "Then you won't mind if I test that claim."
Before she could respond, his mouth was on hers.
It was nothing like before. No careful control, no possessive tenderness, no dark affection. This was meant to prove a point, to frighten her, to show her what happened when humans overstepped. His kiss was cruel, invasive, taking without giving.
But his body betrayed him. She felt the moment he registered how perfectly she fit against him, how her mouth opened under his without hesitation, how she knew exactly how he liked to be kissed. He made a sound—confusion, frustration, want he didn't understand—and pressed closer.
That's when she shoved him.
Her palms hit his chest and pushed hard, and he actually stepped back. The old Eliam would never have allowed it, would have grabbed her wrists and held her in place. But this Eliam let her push him away, and somehow that was worse.
"There," he said, his breathing slightly uneven. "You see? You know you don't belong here. Your body knows I'm a threat."
"You're not a threat. You're just lost."
"I'm exactly where I've always been." But there was something in his expression—a flicker of uncertainty, of frustration at his own reaction to her. "You're the one who's lost. A human with delusions of importance."
"Then why did kissing me affect you?"
His jaw clenched. "It didn't."
"Liar."
The temperature dropped so fast frost formed on the glass walls. "Leave."
"Eliam—"
"Leave before I decide to stop being generous about your trespass." His voice was deadly quiet. "Whatever game you're playing, whatever you think you're owed, it ends now."
She stood frozen, her lips still burning from his cruel kiss, watching him walk away. At the door, he paused without turning.
"And little human? Don't come here again. The roses remember blood, and they're always hungry."
Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the hungry flowers and the shattering of her heart.