18. Tharos
EIGHTEEN
THAROS
The bounty hunter moves like death made flesh.
I’ve watched Xela fight before—in the bone garden, against the first wave of scouts. But this is different. This isn’t survival. This is execution.
Her blades flash in the dim light, one catching the silver-haired woman’s sword arm, the other driving toward her throat.
The woman blocks—barely—and the two of them spin apart, circling each other in the blood-soaked ravine while I pull the bolt from my shoulder and feel the forest begin to heal me.
“Crowe.” The silver-haired woman spits the name like a curse. “I should have known you’d betray us.”
“I didn’t betray anyone.” Xela doesn’t stop moving, doesn’t give her opponent time to recover. “The contract was for one orc. Not for suicide against an entire forest.”
“The contract was to open the way. Your job was to find the weak points, identify the defenses, lead us to the heart.” The woman blocks another strike, counterattacks with a thrust that Xela sidesteps easily. “Instead, you’re fighting beside the target. Protecting the very thing we came to claim.”
“Plans change.”
They clash in a ring of steel that echoes off the ravine walls. The silver-haired woman is skilled—trained, disciplined, dangerous. But Xela is different. Feral and focused and utterly without mercy.
She fights like she’s been waiting her whole life for this moment. Like every contract, every hunt, every kill has been practice for the violence she’s unleashing now.
Xela kills the woman and stands over the corpse, breathing hard, her blades dripping. In the dim light filtering through the canopy, she looks like a figure out of legend—a warrior-goddess painted in crimson, beautiful and terrible and utterly devastating.
Want.
I want her. Want in a way I haven’t wanted anything since before the binding. Want that makes the King’s whispers seem quiet by comparison.
She looks up at me, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her go still.
We stand in the ravine surrounded by bodies.
The dead lie scattered across the killing ground—hunters who came to claim a power beyond their understanding, silenced before they could carry their knowledge back to their masters.
The blood is everywhere—soaking into the soil, dripping from the vines, pooling in the hollows between exposed roots.
The forest drinks it greedily, and I can feel the power flowing through the binding.
But the King isn’t my focus right now. Can’t be.
Xela is.
She hasn’t moved from her position over the silver-haired woman’s body.
The wound on her arm is bleeding freely, crimson running down her sleeve and dripping from her fingers to join the blood already saturating the ground.
She’s breathing hard, her hair has come loose from its practical cut, and her eyes are locked on mine.
“You fight well.” The words come out rough, inadequate for what I actually want to say.
“You sound surprised.” She doesn’t look away. Doesn’t wipe the blood from her blades. Just stands there, watching me with an intensity that makes my skin feel too tight.
“I’m surprised you fight at my side.” I move closer, stepping over bodies without looking down. “The contract still stands. You could have let them weaken me. Finished the job yourself.”
“I could have.” No denial. No justification. Just honest acknowledgment of a path not taken. “Maybe I still will.”
We’re near enough now that I can smell her beneath the blood and sweat—her scent, vital and fierce, cutting through the death-stench of the ravine. I can see her pulse beating rapid in her throat.
“You won’t.” I don’t know why I’m so certain. Don’t know why the words come out like a statement of fact rather than wishful thinking.
“Confident.”
“Observant.” I reach out, my hand hovering near her wounded arm without quite touching. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.” Her gaze flicks to my shoulder, where the bolt wound is still knitting closed. “The forest healing you?”
“Yes.”
“Convenient.” She doesn’t step back. Doesn’t break eye contact. “Does it hurt?”
“Everything hurts.” The admission slips out before I can stop it. “The binding, the containment, the constant pressure of the King trying to break free. Pain stopped being notable a long time ago.”
“That’s an evasion.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
The silence stretches between us, heavy with things neither of us is saying.
My heartbeat has quickened—faster than it should be.
Her proximity presses against my awareness like a second kind of warmth, something that has nothing to do with the forest, and she’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle she’s determined to solve.
“The Consortium.” She breaks the silence, though her voice is softer than before. “They weren’t here just for you.”
“No.” I let my hand drop, forcing myself to step back, to put distance between us before the wanting becomes a force I can’t ignore.
“And others will follow. The knowledge was never truly gone. Just... forgotten.” I turn to survey the carnage around us.
The bodies are already beginning to sink into the soil, the forest claiming them the way it claims everything that dies within its borders.
“The Consortium remembered. Others will too. And when they come—”
The forest shudders.
Not the subtle tremor I’ve grown accustomed to. Not the slight shift that signals the King pressing against its barriers. This is deeper. A vibration that travels up through the roots and into my bones, making my teeth ache and my vision blur.
Deep beneath our feet, the earth shifts.
“Tharos.” Xela’s voice cuts through the disorientation. Her hand finds my arm, gripping tight. “What—”
The King’s voice erupts through every root and branch of Briargrave.
Thank you for the feast.
The words aren’t words—they’re feelings. Satisfaction. Anticipation. Hunger that’s been fed but not sated, that’s tasted blood and wants more.
Now let me show you what your violence has fed.
The ground splits open.
Not the controlled eruption of roots I summoned during the battle. This is wild. Untamed. The soil tears apart along fault lines I didn’t know existed, revealing darkness beneath that seems to pulse with its own terrible heartbeat.
From that darkness, a presence rises.
Roots. Not the living, seeking roots of Briargrave’s trees—these are different. Black. Twisted. Covered in thorns that gleam with a wetness that isn’t sap. They surge upward through the torn earth, reaching for the sky, reaching for us, reaching for anything living that might fuel their growth.
The King is pushing through. Using the violence of the battle, the power of the deaths, to manifest in a way I haven’t seen in years.
“Run.” I grab Xela’s arm, pulling her away from the spreading darkness. “Now.”
“What is that?”
“The King. A piece of it.” The roots are spreading, consuming the bodies we left behind, absorbing the hunters into their mass. “It’s using the deaths to grow. To extend itself beyond the Heartgrove.”
“Can you stop it?”
“I don’t know.” Honesty. She deserves honesty, even now. “The battle fed it more than I expected. It’s stronger than it’s been since I took the binding.”
The black roots surge toward us. I call the forest to respond, and Briargrave answers—living vines wrapping around the tainted growth, thorns piercing the dark wood, roots of green and brown rising to meet roots of black.
The two forces clash in the center of the ravine, and for a moment, it seems like the forest might win.
Then the King laughs, and the living roots begin to blacken.
“It’s spreading.” Xela’s voice is tight. Controlled. But I can hear the fear underneath. “The infection. It’s spreading.”
“The Heartgrove.” I’m moving, pulling her with me, not caring about dignity or caution. “If we can reach the Heartgrove, I can reinforce the binding. Push the King back. But we have to move now.”
We run.
Behind us, the black roots continue to grow. The King’s laughter echoes through the forest, through the binding, through my very bones.
And in the depths of its hunger, I feel a new intent.