SEVEN THAROS
SEVEN
THAROS
The forest deepens.
That’s the only way to describe it. The trees grow thicker, older, more twisted.
The air becomes heavy with the smell of blood-sap.
The light—what little of it filtered through the canopy—disappears entirely, leaving us in a darkness broken only by the faint glow of phosphorescent fungus clinging to the bark.
I can see well enough. Decades of adaptation have changed my eyes along with everything else. But the woman is struggling, one hand trailing along the tree trunks to keep her bearings, her steps slowing as she tries to navigate by touch and sound.
“Take my hand.”
The words come out before I can stop them. She hesitates—I can hear it in the pause of her breathing—and then her fingers find mine.
Her skin is warm. Calloused from years of holding weapons, rough at the knuckles, scarred across the palm. I shouldn’t notice these things. I notice anyway.
“The path is narrow here.” My voice sounds strange. Too quiet. Too controlled. “I’ll guide you through. When I stop, you stop. When I move, you move.”
“Understood.”
We walk.
The thornpaths twist and turn, leading us deeper into territory I haven’t visited in years.
The forest here is old—older than anything else in Briargrave, older maybe than the Veil itself.
These trees were ancient when the High Witches still walked the land.
They remember things that even the King has forgotten.
They’re also hostile. Not to me—never to me, not since the binding—but to anything foreign. Anything that doesn’t belong. The woman is a violation in their eyes. A wound that needs to be closed.
I keep her hand in mine. Feel the forest’s anger press against me, demanding that I release her, let the thorns take her, add her bones to the collection that carpets the Heartgrove floor.
I don’t release her.
“The fire is closer.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “I can smell it.”
She’s right. Smoke threads through the forest’s decay-thick air, acrid and wrong. The Consortium is burning faster than I expected. They must have brought accelerants. Weapons designed specifically to hurt a forest that heals from normal fire.
“They know what they’re doing.” Anger threads through my words. “Someone told them how to hurt Briargrave. Someone who understood the forest’s weaknesses.”
“The Consortium has resources. Researchers. Scholars who study places like this.” She squeezes my hand—not comfort, just communication. “They’ve been planning this for years. Maybe longer.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve worked for them before. Not on this contract—freelance jobs, small stuff. But I’ve seen their files. Heard their people talk.” A pause. “They don’t send fifty hunters into a death forest without a plan. They don’t bring siege weapons without a target.”
The King’s voice slithers through my thoughts: She’s right, warden. They know about me. They want what I can give them. Power. Vengeance. The ability to crush their enemies without lifting a blade.
I shove the voice away. Focus on the path ahead. On the warmth of the woman’s hand in mine. On anything except the growing certainty that I’m not going to be able to stop what’s coming.
“There’s a clearing ahead.” I slow my pace. “We’ll be able to see the fire from there. Assess how close they are.”
“And then?”
“Then we figure out how to stop them.”
The clearing opens before us. And beyond it, through a gap in the twisted trees, I see the glow of flames against the darkened sky.
They’re closer than I thought. Much closer. Maybe a mile from the Heartgrove’s edge.
The woman’s breath catches. Her hand tightens on mine.
“That’s not just fire,” she says. “That’s—”
“I know.”
The siege engine. Massive, wreathed in smoke and flame, its runes blazing against the darkness. A Binding Breaker. Designed to sever the bond between a warden and his forest. Designed to shatter containments that have held for centuries.
Designed to set the Thorn King free.
The forest shrieks. Not just in my head this time—actually shrieks, a sound like wood tearing and metal shrieking and a thousand voices crying out at once. The trees around us shudder. The ground heaves.
And in the Heartgrove, the Thorn King’s hunger spikes so hard my vision whites out.
Finally, the voice roars through my skull. Finally, they’ve brought me the key.
I collapse. The woman catches me—arms around my chest, keeping me upright, her body pressed against mine in a way that sends sensation crackling through every nerve I have left.
“Tharos.” Her voice in my ear. Sharp. Demanding. “Stay with me. What’s happening?”
“It’s—” The King’s presence claws at the edges of my control. Tries to slip through. Tries to take over. “It’s trying to possess me. The King. It wants—”
I can’t finish. The hunger is everywhere, filling my thoughts, drowning my will. Decades of resistance crumbling under the onslaught of the King’s anticipation.
“Fight it.” Her hands grip my shoulders. Force me to face her. “You’ve been fighting it your entire adult life. Don’t stop now.”
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.” Her face is inches from mine. I can see every scar, every line, the fierce determination burning in her expression. “You didn’t let me die in that clearing. You didn’t let the forest take me. You’ve been holding this thing back for decades. So hold it back now.”
Her words cut through the hunger. Not much—not enough—but a fraction.
I grab onto that anchor. Pull myself back from the edge. Force the King’s presence down, down, down into the dark place where I’ve been containing it for decades.
It takes everything I have. When it’s done, I’m shaking. Covered in sweat and sap. Barely able to stand.
But I’m still me. Still in control. Still fighting.
“That was close.” My voice comes out as a rasp.
“Too close.” She doesn’t let go of my shoulders. “Can you move?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Her jaw sets. “Because those hunters are about to reach your Heartgrove. And I’m not letting decades of containment collapse because I couldn’t kill a few Consortium thugs.”
I stare at her. This woman who came here to kill me. This bounty hunter who followed me into the dark, who held my hand through the worst of it, who just talked me back from the edge of possession.
“Why?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “Why help me?”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then, almost too soft to hear:
“Because you’re not the monster I came here to kill.”
She releases my shoulders. Steps back. Draws her blades.
“Now,” she says, “show me the fastest way to that siege engine. We have a forest to save.”
The King’s laughter echoes in my skull.