17. Tharos
SEVENTEEN
THAROS
The King has Xela’s name in its mouth when I tear myself back.
I don’t know how—there’s a moment of her steel against my skin, her voice somewhere far above the hunger, and then the King’s grip on me snaps like a rotten cord and I’m in my own body again, on my knees, with black roots erupting around us and Xela hauling me upright with one hand still on her blade.
We flee the manifestation for half a mile before I can contain it.
Brute force, nothing elegant, costing me more than I want to spend.
By the time the tainted growth retreats into the earth, Xela has a cut across her forearm and I have a headache that feels like the forest grinding against the inside of my skull.
We shelter in a narrow cleft between two ancient oaks long enough to breathe and take stock.
The main Consortium force is still moving.
The ravine is still the best ground we have.
We move before the silence can settle.
We descend into the ravine through paths that don’t exist until I will them into being.
The forest parts before me, thorns retracting, roots smoothing into steps that lower us down the sheer walls without effort.
Xela follows close behind, her footsteps nearly silent on the forest floor.
She’s learned to move with Briargrave rather than against it.
Learned that resistance only makes the forest push back harder.
I’ve watched hunters spend days in this territory without understanding what she’s grasped in hours. It should worry me. Should make me question whether the King is somehow influencing her, smoothing her path, preparing her for some purpose I can’t see.
Instead, I find myself wanting to trust her. Wanting to believe that the woman fighting at my side is exactly what she appears to be—a survivor who’s chosen her battlefield and refuses to retreat.
The ravine floor is carpeted with old bones and older debris.
Rusted weapons poke up through the leaf litter like grave markers.
The walls rise on either side, sheer stone wound through with vines that move slightly when I’m not looking directly at them.
Above, the canopy closes tight, blocking the sky until only scattered shafts of light penetrate.
A perfect killing ground.
“There.” I point to a narrow gap between two massive boulders. “That’s where they’ll enter. The ravine funnels them toward it—only approach that doesn’t require climbing.”
“And we’ll be waiting.”
“The forest will be waiting.” I move to the center of the ravine, positioning myself where the hunters will have to face me directly. “You stay hidden until the thornpaths seal their retreat. Hit them from behind once they’re committed. They won’t expect a second attacker.”
“Splitting our forces.”
“Maximizing our advantage.” I turn to face her, and the dim light catches her features in a way that makes my breath stutter.
She’s striking—not soft, not pretty—dangerous in a way that makes every instinct I have sit up and pay attention.
“The forest will protect you until you’re ready to move. Just stay low and wait for my signal.”
“What’s the signal?”
“You’ll know.”
She watches me for a long moment. Then she nods and melts into the shadows, her dark armor blending with the forest until she’s nearly invisible.
I turn to face the approaching hunters. The forest hums around me, eager and ravenous.
I haven’t let it kill like this in years—haven’t directed its violence toward living prey rather than simply containing it.
The King stirs at the edges of my awareness, pressing against the barriers I’ve maintained since the binding.
Feed me, it whispers. Let me taste them.
I ignore the voice. Focus on the heartbeats approaching through the undergrowth. Lives about to end.
The forest doesn’t give warning. Neither do I.
The first man through the gap doesn’t see me until the root erupts through his chest.
He emerges from the gap between boulders, fire weapon raised, scanning the ravine for threats. His eyes pass over me without recognition—I’m standing in the center of the killing ground, making no attempt to hide, and he still doesn’t see me.
The forest makes me invisible when I want to be invisible. Makes me part of the trees and shadows and ancient bones that carpet the ground.
Then I step forward, and his eyes widen, and the root is already sprouting from his back before his mouth finishes opening to cry out.
The thornpaths collapse behind the hunters.
Not gradually—all at once, the way a trap springs shut.
Walls of thorns surge upward from the forest floor, sealing the gap between boulders, blocking the narrow approaches, cutting off every route of retreat.
The hunters spin, weapons raised, shouting in confusion as the terrain they just walked through transforms into a cage of barbed wood.
I watch them stumble into the ravine. A score of them, maybe more—heartbeats pounding with fear and adrenaline, bodies suddenly aware that they’ve walked into a trap beyond their ability to escape.
Good.
“The warden!” Someone shouts the warning. Crossbow bolts fly toward me—a hail of them cutting through the air with lethal precision.
The vines catch them. Pluck them from flight like a hand swatting insects. The bolts clatter to the ground at my feet, harmless, useless.
I call the forest to war.
The response is immediate, overwhelming, terrifying. I’ve been containing Briargrave’s violence for so long that I’d almost forgotten what it looked like unleashed. Now I remember. Now I feel the forest’s joy as it finally, finally gets to feed.
Roots explode from the earth, impaling hunters mid-stride. The sounds they make aren’t quite human—high, short, cut off as the wood pierces organs and exits through flesh. Blood sprays across the ravine floor, soaking into soil that drinks it greedily.
Vines descend from the canopy, barbed and seeking.
They wrap around throats, around limbs, around fire weapons that discharge harmlessly into the air as their wielders are dragged upward.
The hunters shriek as the thorns bite deep, as the vines constrict, as their bodies are pulled apart by vegetation that should be too slow to move and too weak to kill.
Root-spikes thick as a man’s forearm erupt from the tree trunks, from the boulders, from the walls of the ravine itself. Hunters who try to shelter against the stone find the stone reaching back, find their armor punctured in a dozen places before they can raise their weapons to defend.
Half of them fall before they can mount a defense. I feel the deaths like drops of rain—each one distinct. The King presses harder against my barriers, and I push back.
Hold, I tell it. This is mine. You don’t get to claim this.
The survivors break formation. They scatter in different directions, abandoning their weapons, their fallen companions, their careful tactical training. Panic does that to people. Shows them what they really are beneath the professionalism and the discipline.
I let the forest hunt them. My attention is fixed on the one who hasn’t run. The silver-haired woman who’s been barking orders since the ambush began, who stands in the center of the carnage with her weapon raised and her expression cold.
She’s not afraid. That interests me.
“You’re the one they call Blackroot.” Her voice carries over the sounds of dying hunters, steady and composed. “I expected you to be... more.”
“You expected wrong.” I step over a body, approaching her with the slow, deliberate pace of a predator that doesn’t need to hurry. The forest parts around me, clears a path straight to where she’s standing. “The Consortium should have learned from the last hunters they sent.”
“Those were freelancers. We’re professionals.” She smiles—a thin, cold expression that doesn’t reach her eyes. “And we’re not here for you.”
I stop. Her tone makes me pause, makes the forest hesitate with me.
“Explain.”
“The Consortium has been studying this forest for years. Mapping its patterns, analyzing its magic, learning its weaknesses.” She lowers her weapon slightly—not surrender, just a change in posture.
Like she’s negotiating rather than fighting.
“We know what you’re guarding. We know what sleeps in the Heartgrove.
And we know it’s far more valuable alive than dead. ”
The King’s attention sharpens. Even contained, even pressed against my barriers, I feel its hunger spike at her words.
“You want to harvest it.” The realization comes with a cold certainty. “You’re not here to destroy the Thorn King. You’re here to use it.”
“Everything has a purpose. Everything has a price.” She tilts her head, studying me with the detached interest of a merchant examining goods.
“The King’s power—properly channeled, properly controlled—could reshape the Veillands.
Could give the Consortium advantages no amount of gold could buy. We just need to... relocate it.”
“Relocate.” The word tastes like ash. “You want to break my containment and steal an entity that’s been trying to consume everything in reach for eight centuries.”
“We want to harness it. There’s a difference.”
Behind her, a shadow moves. Xela, circling into position. She meets my gaze across the bodies littering the ravine floor, and I see the same cold fury in her expression that burns in my own veins.
The Consortium doesn’t want to destroy the King. They want to control it. Want to take the horror I’ve spent my entire adult life containing and turn it into a weapon they can aim at their enemies.
“You’re insane.” I take another step forward. The vines overhead tense, eager. “The King can’t be controlled. It can barely be contained. Whatever your scholars told you, whatever research convinced you this was possible—they were wrong.”
“Were they?” The silver-haired woman raises her weapon again.
Not threatening—pointing. At me. “You’ve contained it since before I was born.
Kept it chained inside this forest while you walked free among the trees.
If one orc can hold it, imagine what we could do with proper resources. Proper infrastructure.”
“One orc.” I laugh, and the sound is harsh even to my own ears.
“You think I’m holding it because I’m strong?
I’m holding it because I’m willing to die trying.
Because I’ve given everything I am to keeping that thing chained.
The binding isn’t a cage—it’s a leash, and I’m the one wrapped around its throat. ”
“Then perhaps it’s time for new management.”
“Vorn and the engine specialists are still moving.” A flicker of something—satisfaction, or its close cousin—crosses her face. “You can’t stop what’s already in motion.”
She fires.
The bolt takes me in the shoulder—the same shoulder the Consortium scouts wounded hours ago, still not fully healed. The impact staggers me back, sends pain radiating down my arm. The forest screams in response, vines and roots and thorns surging toward the silver-haired woman with killing intent.
She dances back, faster than I expected. Trained for this. Ready for this.
But she’s not ready for what comes next.
Xela hits her from behind.