2. Xela
TWO
XELA
An hour in, the path starts to fight me.
I’m certain I’ve been walking straight. I’ve been checking landmarks—a distinctive stump, a boulder half-swallowed by roots, a tree whose branches form an arch overhead.
But I pass the same arch three times, approaching from different directions each time.
The forest is folding in on itself, routes that should lead forward leading back instead.
Thornpaths. The stories mentioned those. Channels through the undergrowth that shift according to the forest’s will. What opens for one traveler closes for the next. What leads to safety today leads to death tomorrow.
I stop in a small clearing, barely wider than my arm span, and breathe. Panic is useless here. Panic gets you killed.
The contract handler didn’t just give me money and a target. She gave me information—scraps of it, gathered from the few people who’ve survived brief incursions into Briargrave’s outer reaches. The thornpaths are unpredictable, but they respond to certain things. Violence. Blood. Intent.
The warden can read them.
But the warden is what I’m here to kill, so that’s not helpful.
The bodies in the outer reaches are displays. Warnings. The forest wants trespassers to see them, which means the forest can be reasoned with, at least on some level. It has wants. It has strategy. It’s not just a force of nature—it’s an intelligence. A hungry one.
I draw my knife and slice my palm.
The cut stings, blood welling up fast and bright. I hold my hand out, let three drops fall to the forest floor—
The ground shudders.
Not much. Just a tremor, barely enough to feel through my boots. But the thorns around me rustle, though there’s no wind. The vines that hang from the branches overhead stop their subtle movement and go very, very still.
The forest has noticed me.
“I’m not here to steal.” My voice comes out rough. Haven’t spoken in days. “I’m not here to burn anything. I’m here for the orc.”
Nothing answers. But the path ahead of me—the path that’s been looping me in circles for the past hour—opens. Just a crack. Just enough to show darker forest beyond.
I wrap my palm, sheath my knife, and walk through.
The contract had named him: Tharos Blackroot. Three months of tracking had worn the syllables smooth. At least I knew what I was walking toward.
The outer graves find me at midday.
I don’t know when it became midday. Time moves strangely here, stretching and compressing without warning. But the light has shifted again, turned from gray-green to pale gold, and the clearing I’ve stumbled into is bright enough to see everything clearly.
I wish it wasn’t.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Some are ancient, bones so old they’ve turned gray and started to crumble. Others are newer—flesh still clinging to skulls, hair still matted to scalps, expressions still frozen in whatever emotion they were feeling when the forest claimed them.
They’re arranged.
That’s the worst part. They’re not scattered randomly, not left where they fell.
They’ve been posed. Positioned. A skeleton kneeling in supplication, hands raised to the canopy above.
A body fused with a tree, its spine curved around the trunk like a lover’s embrace.
Three corpses arranged in a triangle, all facing inward, all reaching for each other with fingers that never quite touch.
Art. The forest is making art.
My stomach heaves, but I don’t vomit. Can’t show weakness here. Can’t give this place anything it might use against me.
I force myself to look. Really look, the way Cyrilla taught me before she stopped teaching me anything. Read the bodies. Read what killed them.
Thorns. Most of them died from thorns—puncture wounds through the chest, the throat, the skull.
Some from strangulation, vines wrapped so tight around necks that the vertebrae are crushed.
A few from a different death. Whatever hollowed them out from the inside left their bodies intact but their organs missing.
The forest doesn’t just kill. It feeds.
One of the bodies is wearing armor that looks familiar. Not the armor itself—the style. The reinforcement patterns. The way the leather is stitched at the shoulders.
Bounty hunter armor, Consortium-issue.
I crouch beside the corpse, ignoring the way my skin crawls. The hunter is—was—a woman. Young. Younger than me. Her face is gone, replaced by a mask of moss and fungus, but her gear is mostly intact. I find a pouch at her hip, work it open with careful fingers.
A contract scroll. Sealed with the Consortium’s mark.
I break the seal and read.
Target: Tharos Blackroot. Location: Briargrave Forest. Payment: Standard terms plus hazard bonus. Special instructions: Extract target alive if possible. Value increases with cooperation.
The date is six months old.
This hunter came here half a year ago, armed with the same information I have, hunting the same target. The forest made an example of her anyway.
I pocket the scroll and stand. My hands don’t tremble. My pulse stays even. I’ve looked at dead bodies before. I’ve made dead bodies before.
But a cold knot has formed in my chest. Fear, if I let it be.
I push it down. Keep moving.