Xela
TWENTY-FIVE
The orc that faces me isn’t Tharos anymore.
Same body. Same scars. Same towering presence that’s filled my awareness since I first crossed into Briargrave.
But the eyes are wrong—that burning intensity dimmed and replaced by cold hunger.
The posture is wrong too, looser than Tharos’s controlled stillness, like a puppet whose strings have been cut and restrung by different hands.
Whatever is looking at me from behind those eyes is ancient. And it wants me dead.
“You should have run.” The voice is Tharos’s, but layered with other sounds. Rustling leaves. Grinding roots. Wood growing through bone. “Now you’ll stay. Forever.”
I’ve spent my whole life refusing to run.
Instead, I settle into a fighting stance, blades raised, feet finding purchase on the carpet of bones beneath us.
The Heartgrove presses close around us—the King’s mass pulsing at the altar, the same faces I’d seen before, still screaming.
Somewhere inside the creature wearing Tharos’s face, the man I’ve been fighting beside is still there. Still struggling.
I have to believe that. Have to hold onto it like a blade in my hand.
“I don’t know if you can hear me in there.” My voice comes out steady. Controlled. Not like someone facing down a monster in the heart of a nightmare forest. “But I’m not dying here. Not today. Not to you.”
The thing wearing Tharos laughs. It’s an awful sound—nothing human in it. Nothing orc, either. Just the grinding satisfaction of an ancient, patient evil that’s been waiting for this moment for centuries.
Then it attacks.
He’s faster than he should be. Faster than he was when we fought the Consortium hunters, when we moved through the forest like two halves of the same blade.
The King is driving him now, using his body without the restraint Tharos imposed on himself.
Using every ounce of strength the binding grants without caring about the cost.
This isn’t the ravine. There the King wore him for moments, brittle and contestable, the way a stranger tries on a coat. Now it has roots in him. The grip looks like it’s gone all the way down, and getting him back is going to cost more than a blade against his throat and a name spoken right.
I barely get my blades up in time. The impact jars through my arms, rattles my teeth, sends me skidding backward through bones that scatter and crunch beneath my boots. He presses forward without pause, fist swinging in an arc that would crush my skull if it connected.
I duck. Roll. Come up three feet to his left, steel flashing toward his exposed ribs.
The forest blocks me.
Roots erupt from the ground, tangling around my ankles, yanking me off balance. Vines descend from the canopy, reaching for my throat, my arms, my weapons. The Heartgrove itself is fighting on the King’s side, responding to commands that bypass the warden entirely.
I slash through the nearest vine, feel the bark split beneath my blade.
Dark fluid sprays across my face. More vines reach. More roots grasp. I’m fighting the possessed orc and the possessed forest at the same time, and I’m losing ground with every heartbeat.
I need every ounce of focus I have just to stay alive.
Cut. Dodge. Roll. The pattern becomes rhythm, instinct taking over where thought can’t keep up.
A root erupts inches from my face. I twist away, blade severing it at the base. A vine wraps around my left wrist, yanks my arm wide. I let the momentum carry me into a spin, using the force to drive my other blade toward Tharos’s throat.
He catches my wrist. His grip is iron—no, stronger than iron. The bones in my arm grind against each other. I hear myself make a sound, half gasp and half snarl, but I don’t drop the blade. Won’t drop it.
“You fight well.” The King’s voice is almost approving. “I can see why he values you. Why he let you get so close.” Tharos’s face leans toward mine. “But fighting won’t save you. Nothing will save you. He’s mine now. And soon, you will be too.”
I headbutt him.
It’s not elegant. Not tactical. Just the desperate strike of someone who’s run out of options and refuses to accept it. My forehead connects with his nose—his nose, Tharos’s nose—and I feel cartilage crunch. Dark blood sprays. The grip on my wrist loosens for just a moment.
I tear free. Put distance between us. My head is ringing, my vision blurred, but I’m still standing. Still fighting.
“That’s it.” The words are mine, forced out between ragged breaths. “That’s all I’ve got. Fighting. Surviving. Refusing to stay down no matter how many times I get knocked there.” I raise my blades again, ignoring the tremor in my arms. “You want me? Come take me. But don’t expect it to be easy.”
But I catch a fragment of hope. A flicker in Tharos’s expression. A moment of resistance in movements that should be completely controlled.
He’s still in there. Still fighting.
I just have to give him time.