Tharos
TWENTY-SEVEN
Abone hollow opens beneath my hands like a wound.
I’ve been here before. During the darkest moments of the binding, when the King’s voice got too loud, when I wasn’t sure I could hold on for another hour, much less another year.
This place—a cavity beneath Briargrave’s oldest roots, carved by water and rot and the slow digestion of organic matter—is one of the few spots where the King’s influence thins.
Not gone, never gone, but distant enough that I can think without the constant pressure of hunger against my skull.
The walls hold the same litany of bone I’ve grown used to in this forest, but here they’re sunk deeper into the clay, polished smooth by decades of Briargrave’s slow digestion. The air is close, humid, thick with the smell of decay. But it’s breathable. And the vines don’t reach here.
“Down.” I lower myself into the hollow, then turn to help Xela follow. She takes my hand without hesitation—when did that happen?—and drops the six feet to the floor beside me.
The space is larger than it looks from above. Big enough to stand in, if you’re not seven feet tall. I’ve spent nights here, curled against the bone-studded walls, listening to the King rage above while I tried to remember why I was fighting at all.
Now I’m not alone.
“Charming.” Xela surveys our shelter, her voice dry despite the exhaustion that’s carved lines around her mouth. “You really know how to show a woman a good time.”
“The accommodations aren’t the point. The King’s reach is weaker here. We can rest without—” I pause, searching for words that won’t sound weak. “Without constant assault.”
“I know what you meant.” She’s already moving, finding a section of wall with fewer bone protrusions, settling against it with a wince she tries to hide. “How long do we have?”
“Hours. Maybe until morning.” I don’t sit. Can’t, not yet. The need to stand guard, to watch the entrance, to protect—it’s instinct now. Bred into me by years of surviving in a forest that wants me dead. “The King expended significant energy in the possession attempt. It needs to recover.”
“So do we.” She’s pulling supplies from her pack now. Bandages. A small pot of salve that smells medicinal. A needle and thread that gleam dully in the faint light filtering through the roots above. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
“I don’t—”
“Sit.”
The command in her voice stops me. I look at her—really look, for the first time since we fled the Heartgrove.
She’s a mess. Blood matted in her dark hair.
Gashes across her arms where the vines got through her guard.
A wound on her side that’s still seeping, dark against her torn armor.
The marks the King put on her tonight will outlast every cut the Consortium scouts ever drew.
The ravine I could explain away. This one I have to wear.
I caused some of that. When the King was wearing my body, using my hands—
“Stop.” Her voice cuts through the spiral of guilt before it can fully form. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. I can see it on your face.”
“You can’t see anything on my face.”
“I can see more than you think.” She gestures at the ground beside her. “Now sit. Please.”
I sit.
The hollow feels smaller with both of us in it.
Our shoulders nearly brush against the curved walls.
Her scent reaches me beneath the blood and sweat—clean and sharp, a fragrance that doesn’t belong in this place of death.
Her breathing is still too fast but steadying.
Her hands move with practiced efficiency as she begins treating her wounds.
I should look away. Should give her privacy. Should do anything except sit here watching like some lovesick youth who’s never seen a woman before.
I don’t look away.