Xela
NINETEEN
The forest is changing.
I feel it in the air first—a thickness that coats my tongue and makes every breath taste like old blood. Then in the trees themselves, their trunks twisted into shapes that suggest agony, their branches reaching toward us like grasping hands. The deeper we travel, the more wrong everything becomes.
Tharos moves ahead of me, his pace relentless despite the wound in his shoulder that’s still knitting closed.
The black roots are behind us now—contained, he says, pushed back by whatever reserves of strength he has left—but the King’s laughter still echoes in my skull.
That ancient, hungry sound that promises things I don’t want to imagine.
Serve me, it whispered. And I’ll let her go.
I push the memory down. Focus on the path ahead. Focus on the orc whose broad back blocks most of my view, whose presence has become the only anchor I have in this nightmare of living wood.
“How much further?” My voice comes out steady. Professional. Not like someone who just watched the ground try to swallow an army.
“Close.” He doesn’t turn. “The Heartgrove is at the center of everything. The King’s influence will be strongest there—which means my hold will be too. We walk into its seat of power and we push back.”
We move in silence after that. The thornpaths open before Tharos with obvious reluctance, the forest fighting his commands in a way it didn’t before.
Whatever the King did in that ravine—whatever piece of itself it manifested through those black roots—has shifted the balance.
The warden is still in control, but his grip is slipping.
The trees here are different from the outer forest. Older. More twisted by whatever grows at Briargrave’s heart.
“The forest is dying.” I say it without thinking, then wish I hadn’t.
“The forest is being consumed.” Tharos stops at a gap between two massive trunks, his hand pressed flat against the bark.
“The King has been feeding on Briargrave for centuries. Draining its life to fuel its own growth. The binding slows the process—keeps the consumption at a level the forest can survive—but it doesn’t stop it. ”
“So even if you contain the King forever, the forest still dies.”
“Eventually. Yes.” He turns to look at me, and the strain in his face is worse than I’ve seen it.
Dark circles under eyes that have lost some of their glow.
Lines carved deep around a mouth that’s forgotten how to do anything but grimace.
“That’s the choice I made when I took the binding.
Not to save Briargrave. Just to slow down its destruction long enough for it to matter. ”
“That’s...” I search for the right word. Can’t find it. “Bleak.”
“That’s reality.” He turns back to the gap between the trunks.
“The Heartgrove is through here. Stay close. Don’t touch anything unless I tell you to.
And whatever you see, whatever you hear—don’t trust it.
The King’s power is strongest here. It will show you things.
Offer you things. Promise you things. All of it is lies. ”
“Even if it promises to release Cyrilla?”
The question is out before I can stop it. He goes still.
“Especially then.” His voice is rough. “You already know the answer. The King doesn’t free its prey. It just changes the shape of the cage.”
“Leverage.” I say it before he can. He reaches out, and his hand hovers near my face without quite touching. The gesture is almost tender. Almost.
“You matter to me now. The King knows that. It will use anything it can to drive us apart, to weaken my control, to find a crack in the containment it can exploit.”
“I matter to you.”
The words hang between us. I watch vulnerability flicker across his expression, quickly masked.
“You shouldn’t.” He drops his hand. Turns away. “Come. The Heartgrove waits.”