Tharos
TWENTY-FOUR
She doesn’t answer immediately. I watch emotions flicker across her face—grief, anger, an expression that might be shame. Her jaw tightens. Her hands curl into fists against her thighs.
“You.” The word comes out barely above a whisper.
“I looked at your back, and I thought about driving the blade through, and I...” She stops.
Breathes. “I couldn’t. Not because of Cyrilla.
Not because of logic. Because it would have meant killing you.
And somewhere in the last few days, that stopped being an acceptable outcome. ”
The words land somewhere deep. I feel them in my gut, my bones, in places I don’t have names for.
“Xela—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t make this into more than it is. I’m not declaring love or loyalty or any of the things that would give the King more leverage. I’m just saying that killing you isn’t on my list anymore. That’s all.”
“That’s enough.”
“Is it?”
It’s more than I’ve had in years. The thought settles in my chest, too large to examine. I release her hand and sit back against the root.
She doesn’t answer right away. The Heartgrove breathes around us—the constant creak of living wood, the subtle shift of roots beneath the bones. I can feel the King’s attention pressing against my awareness, searching for weakness, looking for an opening.
It won’t find one. Not right now.
“Tell me about her.” The words come out before I realize I’m going to speak them. “Your partner. Cyrilla.”
Her head snaps toward me. “Why?”
“Because the King used her against you. Because it found the shape of your grief and tried to turn it into a weapon.” I meet her gaze steadily. “I want to understand what I’m helping you protect.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything left to protect.
” But she doesn’t refuse. She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, looking at something far past the bones at her feet.
“She’s why I came here. And I think—” She stops.
“I think I’ve been punishing myself for not being the reason she stayed. ”
That’s new. She’s said pieces of Cyrilla before, but not this. Not the guilt beneath the grief. I hear it. “Was she?”
“No.” The word is simple and costs everything.
“I was a mercenary before the binding.” The words come out rough. Unpracticed. “Part of a crew. We traveled the Veillands taking contracts—the kind other people wouldn’t touch. Violence for profit. Death for gold. I was good at it.”
She’s watching me now. Listening.
“There was a woman. Another mercenary. We didn’t love each other—not the way you loved Cyrilla—but we needed each other.
Relied on each other. She watched my back; I watched hers.
For years, that was enough.” I pause, feeling the old memory rise.
“She died in the fire I started. The fire that was supposed to burn Briargrave to the ground.”
The fire took them all.
“You’ve mentioned the fire before. But not her.”
“I don’t talk about her. I try not to think about her.” My hands curl into fists.
Silence. The kind of silence that carries meaning. A heaviness I can feel pressing against my ribs.
“What was her name?”
“Seren.” The name feels strange in my mouth.
I haven’t spoken it in years. “She had red hair. Green eyes. A scar on her chin from a fight she never told me about.” I shake my head.
“I don’t remember much else. The binding takes memories sometimes.
Erodes the details until all that’s left is the shape of what you’ve lost.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She knew what we were. What the job entailed. She would have done the same thing in my position.” I lean back against the root. “That’s what survival costs. You make choices that haunt you. And then you keep making them, because the alternative is letting everything end.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
She shifts, moving closer. Not touching—not quite—but near enough that I can feel the warmth of her body, smell her scent beneath the blood and sweat. A floral note underneath.
“We’re quite the pair.” Her voice is soft. Almost gentle. “Two people who lost partners to choices we’d rather not remember. Two people who came to this forest to fight and found each other instead.”
“What did you find?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Just looks at me.
“I’m still figuring that out.”
The King stirs.
I feel it before I see it—a spike of hunger that tears through the binding like a blade through flesh. The Heartgrove shudders. The bones beneath us rattle and shift. And the King’s mass at the grove’s center begins to pulse with renewed urgency.
“Tharos?” Xela’s voice sharpens with alarm.
“It’s—” Pain lances through my skull, cutting off the words. The King is pushing, harder than before, using the emotional vulnerability we’ve been building like a doorway to force its way through. “It’s using this. Using us. The openness. The—”
Another spike of agony. I feel the binding strain, feel cracks forming in defenses I’ve spent my entire existence maintaining. The King’s laughter echoes through my thoughts—not the seductive whisper from before, but a triumphant, hungry sound.
Seren called your name too. The voice reaches through the binding like a cold hand. At the end, in the fire. Did you know that? She understood what you’d done. She forgave you anyway. I kept that grief for you. I’ve been keeping it warm. Let go, warden, and I’ll let you feel it one last time.
“Don’t listen to it.” Xela’s grip closes on my shoulders. Strong, grounding. “Whatever it’s saying—”
“It’s not saying. It’s doing.” My vision blurs. Doubles. I can feel the King pressing against my consciousness, trying to seize control the way it did in the ravine. “The binding—the binding is built on isolation. On the warden standing alone. When I let you in—when I started to care—”
It pushes. I feel my control slipping, feel the warden’s will that’s held back the hunger for years beginning to crack under the assault.
The King knows my weaknesses now—all of them.
Seren, burning in the fire. The crew I led to their deaths.
The countless people I’ve let the forest claim because it was easier than fighting every single time.
And Xela. The woman who looked at me and saw a man worth saving.
The King seizes that thread and pulls.
You want her. The voice is inside me now, spreading through my thoughts like poison. You want her in ways you haven’t wanted anything since before the binding. I can give you that. I can make her yours. All you have to do is let go.
“Tharos!” Her voice, distant. Panicked. “Your eyes—there’s darkness in your—”
I feel myself losing. Feel the King’s presence flooding through the cracks in my defenses, seizing control of limbs that no longer answer to my commands. My body rises. Turns toward her. Looks at her with eyes that see her as prey instead of partner.
No. The word is desperate, internal, buried beneath the King’s overwhelming presence. I won’t let you—
You already have. The King’s laughter echoes through me, around me, everywhere at once. And now she’ll learn what happens when someone gets too close to my warden. I am pushed somewhere I cannot reach the surface from. I cannot warn her. I cannot stop what comes next.