15. Xela
FIFTEEN
XELA
Tharos finds me there twenty minutes later.
I hear him before I see him—the subtle shift of the forest as it makes way for its warden, the soft crunch of ancient bones beneath his feet.
By the time he enters the clearing, I’ve reassembled myself into something functional.
My eyes are dry. My expression is controlled.
Whatever he might have seen if he’d arrived earlier is locked away where it belongs.
“The Consortium is regrouping.” He moves through the clearing with the fluid grace I’ve come to associate with him, stepping over bodies and around roots with an ease that speaks of long familiarity. “More hunters now, with reinforcements coming from the western approach.”
“More?” I stand, brushing bone dust from my leather armor. “The scouts we killed numbered less than a dozen. That means backup has already arrived.”
“The Consortium doesn’t do anything halfway.” He stops a few feet away, his massive frame blocking the filtered light that struggles through the canopy. “They’ve been planning this for years. Did you really think they’d stake everything on one hunting party?”
“I was hoping they’d be stupid.” I check my blades, more to occupy my hands than any real need. “How long until they reach the Heartgrove?”
“At their current pace? Hours. Maybe less if they push.” His gaze sweeps the clearing, pausing briefly on the skeleton I’d been kneeling before.
If he noticed anything unusual about my posture when he arrived, he doesn’t mention it.
“The siege engine is the problem. The Binding Breaker’s runes are specifically designed to tear apart the magic holding the King in check.
If they get close enough to activate it fully... ”
“The King breaks free.”
“Yes.”
“I’d seen enough of their files before I took this contract to know what they were really after. They built that weapon specifically for your binding. The Binding Breaker—they’d been designing it for years.”
Something shifts in his expression—not surprise exactly, but recognition. “So they told you what they were really here for.”
“Enough of it.”
I sheath my blades and face him fully. In the dim light of the clearing, he looks less like a monster and more like what he actually is—a man worn down by isolation and impossible duty. The bark-ridges on his forearms have darkened since I first saw him, and the lines around his eyes seem deeper.
The binding is costing him. Every moment he spends containing the King, every ounce of energy he pours into keeping the forest from consuming me, is taking a piece of him that he won’t get back.
The tremor in his hands is faint but visible—the first time I’ve seen anything in him waver.
“Tell me about the binding.” I change tactics, hoping a different approach might crack his defenses. “Not the King—the binding itself. How does it work?”
He weighs the question before he speaks. I think he’s going to refuse. Then his posture shifts—a slight relaxation, as if the question itself is a relief.
“The binding is a ritual. Ancient, older than the Veil itself. It ties a warden to the forest at a fundamental level—blood, bone, and will all woven into the root system until separation is impossible.” He holds up his forearm, where the vines have grown into his skin over years of service.
“These aren’t decorations. They’re literal links to Briargrave’s nervous system.
I feel what the forest feels. I sense what it senses.
When a tree burns, I feel the pain. When a creature dies within the boundary, I taste the death. ”
“That sounds horrific.”
“It’s necessary.” He lowers his arm. “The previous wardens—the ones before me—they didn’t have this depth of binding.
They used partial rituals, half-measures that gave them control without true integration.
Most of them lasted a few years before the King found weaknesses in their defenses and consumed them. ”
“And you chose the full binding.”
“I didn’t have time to be careful. The King was waking in the ashes of the fire I’d started.
Every second I hesitated was another second it grew stronger.
” His voice is flat, recounting the memory as if it happened to someone else.
“The full ritual was the only option that would work fast enough. So I cut my palms, spoke the words, and let the forest grow into me.”
I try to imagine it. The desperation. The terror. A mercenary who’d just watched his crew burn, facing an ancient hunger, choosing to bind himself to the very forest that had killed them.
“You could have walked away.” The words come out before I can stop them. “You’d already lost everything. Why not just... leave? Let someone else deal with the consequences?”
“Because there was no one else.” He meets my gaze, and the depths of those eyes make the breath catch in my lungs.
“The lord who hired me was dead—I made sure of that before I started the ritual. His soldiers had scattered. The High Witches were long gone, and orcs don’t have the kind of magic that could stop a creature like the King.
I was the only one standing between that thing and everything within reach. ”
“So you became its prison.”
“I became its warden.” The distinction seems to matter to him.
“The binding doesn’t make me the forest’s master.
It doesn’t give me absolute control over the King.
It just makes me... aware. Linked. Able to feel when the King is pressing against its constraints, able to push back before it breaks through. ”
“For how long now?”
“For however long it takes.” He turns away, scanning the treeline with that predator’s attention I’ve come to recognize.
“The binding will kill me eventually. Every warden before me died serving Briargrave—some to the King, some to hunters, some to simple exhaustion. I’ve lasted longer than most. That’s not nothing. ”
“It’s not enough, either.” The words come out fierce, almost angry. “You’ve given everything to this forest—your freedom, your future, your entire damn life—and your best-case scenario is dying in service to a thing that doesn’t even know how to thank you.”
He goes still. When he turns back to face me, his expression is guarded.
I don’t give him time to answer. We both know it.
“The Consortium’s siege engine is their centerpiece.” He shifts back into tactical mode, and I pretend the transition doesn’t feel like a loss. “Without it, they lose their ability to break the binding. The hunters themselves are dangerous, but manageable. We need to destroy that machine.”
“How? You said it’s surrounded by guards, protected by fire weapons—”
“It’s also fueled by the same kind of magic it’s designed to destroy.” He gestures toward the forest around us. “The runes on the Binding Breaker draw power from Briargrave itself. Which means the forest can sense it. Feel it. And with enough focus, I might be able to turn that against them.”
“You’re talking about sabotage.”
“I’m talking about using the enemy’s weapon against them.
” His lips curve in what might be a smile, if smiles weren’t foreign to that hard face.
“The Binding Breaker is designed to sever my bond with the forest. But it’s still drawing on forest magic to function.
If I can corrupt that flow—feed it a substance the runes weren’t designed to handle—”
“The machine destroys itself.”
“Theoretically.”
“Theoretically.” I laugh, and the sound is harsh in the silent clearing. “You want to sabotage a siege engine using magic you don’t fully understand, based on a theory that might not work, while surrounded by hunters who want you dead.”
“More or less.”
“That’s insane.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
I don’t. And he knows it.
“Fine.” I draw my blades, feeling their familiar heft settle my nerves. “Walk me through the plan. What do you need me to do?”