Xela
FORTY
Thorns erupt from the ground, blocking escape routes. Vines descend from the canopy, catching the fleeing soldiers and dragging them back. Roots coil around ankles, pulling men down into the devouring earth.
Tharos moves through the chaos with a grace that shouldn’t exist—not fighting this time, but herding. Directing. The soldiers die one by one as Briargrave claims them, their blood soaking into soil that’s been waiting eight centuries for this moment.
Vorn tries to flee last. His professional calm has shattered completely—he’s a man running blind, panicked, willing to do anything to escape the nightmare his mission has become.
He doesn’t get far.
Tharos catches him at the edge of the burned corridor. Lifts him by the throat with one hand, clawed fingers digging into flesh.
“You came to my forest with fire and weapons.” His voice is layered again, but differently—not the King’s influence, but Briargrave’s. The forest speaking through its warden. “You killed my trees. Burned my paths. Threatened what is mine.”
Vorn chokes, clawing at Tharos’s grip. “Mercy—”
“Briargrave doesn’t know that word.”
Vines wrap around Vorn’s limbs. Roots coil up his body. Thorns press against his skin, waiting.
“But I do.” Tharos releases his grip, lets Vorn fall into the forest’s embrace. “So I’ll give you a choice. Tell me everything about the Consortium’s plans. Who sent you. What they wanted. How many more are coming.”
“I’ll tell you.” Vorn is sobbing now, all pretense of composure abandoned. “Everything. Just please—”
“And then,” Tharos continues, as if he hadn’t spoken, “you’ll die anyway. Because that’s the price for threatening her.” His eyes cut to me. “The only question is whether you die quickly or slowly.”
Vorn talks.
He tells us everything—the Consortium’s interest in harvesting the Thorn King’s power, the artificers who designed the Severance Engine, the reinforcements that aren’t coming because Vorn was supposed to succeed.
He tells us about the buyers who would have paid fortunes for bottled malice, the empires that could have been built on concentrated vengeance.
When he’s done, Tharos nods.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
The thorns pierce Vorn in a dozen places. He screams, but not for long. The forest drags him down, pulls him into the earth, adds his bones to the gallery of the dead.
Then it’s quiet.
I lean against a tree that isn’t trying to kill me, let the exhaustion finally hit. My wounds are screaming. My body is shaking. I’ve lost too much blood, taken too many hits, pushed too hard for too long.
But I’m alive. And so is Tharos.
He moves toward me, and I see the changes the battle has left on him. The dark in his eyes has faded to a faint ring around his pupils. His scars have closed, though they still seep traces of sap. He looks more like himself than he has since the King’s power first flooded through him.
“Hey.” I reach for him. “You still in there?”
“Just me.” He doesn’t hesitate—just pulls me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me like he needs to feel me breathing.
I press my face into his shoulder, inhale his scent beneath the blood and sap.
Pine and earth and something darker. The smell I woke up to this morning.
The smell I’m starting to think of as home.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs against my hair.
“Adrenaline crash.” I don’t pull away. Don’t want to. “Give me a minute.”
His hand slides up my back, finds the nape of my neck, cradles my head against him. The gesture is tender in a way that would have surprised me a few days ago. Now it just feels right. Natural. Like we’ve been doing this for years instead of hours.
When I finally lift my head, he examines my wounds with gentle touches—fingers tracing the edges of cuts, pressing carefully around bruises. The same hands that tore men apart minutes ago are impossibly gentle on my skin.
“These are bad.”
“Nothing that won’t scar over.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
He almost smiles. “The King is quiet now. Sulking, I think. It didn’t get what it wanted.”
“What did it want?”
“Me. Completely. The power I let it channel was supposed to be a door—a way in that would become a way of staying forever.” His hand cups my face, thumb brushing my cheek. “But you gave me a different tether. Every time it tried to pull me under, I could feel you holding me up.”
“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said about me being a supernatural lifeline.”
“I mean it.” His expression turns serious. “What you did back there—using our bond to ground the binding when the weapon was tearing it apart—the old records described it as theoretical. Something that would only work if the anchor was already part of the forest’s awareness.”
“And I bled on the ground four times.”
“Briargrave drank it. And it liked the taste.” His voice is soft. “You’re not just grounding me anymore. The forest knows you now. Accepts you.”
I should be disturbed by that. A sentient murder forest developing a taste for my blood seems like a problem. But I’m too tired to care. Too relieved that we’re both alive. Too focused on the warmth of his hand on my face, the steadiness of his breath against my skin.
“So I’m forest-approved now?”
“You’re forest-bonded.” His voice drops. “The same way I am. Not as deep—not yet—but the roots are there. Growing.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“I don’t know.” He pulls back, meets my eyes. “But I know this: the King tried to take me, and you pulled me back. The weapon tried to break me, and you kept me whole. Whatever’s happening between us, it’s stronger than anything the Consortium could build.”
“Damn right it is.”
I pull him down and kiss him.
It’s not the desperate, violent kiss from before.
Not the hunger of fleeting moments. This is slower.
Deeper. The kiss of two people who know each other’s bodies now, who’ve already crossed every line worth crossing.
His mouth moves against mine with familiar heat, and my body responds instinctively—pressing closer, hands sliding up his chest to curl around his neck.
When we break apart, I don’t go far. Stay pressed against him, his arm around my waist, my head tilted back to look at him.
The setting sun filters through the gaps in the canopy, touching the ruined battlefield with colors that seem almost peaceful.
Touching us with warmth we probably don’t deserve.
“We should move.” His thumb traces circles on my hip, the touch casual and possessive at once. “The Heartgrove is still undefended. The King is still waiting.”
“What about the binding? Is it stable?”
“For now. But the weapon did damage. The bond between me and Briargrave is weaker than it was.” He looks at me. “I’m going to need your anchor for a while longer.”
“You’re stuck with me anyway. Might as well make it official.”
He pulls me closer, presses a kiss to my temple—a gesture so casual and affectionate it makes my chest ache in the best way. Then we start walking toward the Heartgrove, his arm around my shoulders, mine around his waist. Not just holding hands. Holding each other.
I lean into his side as we move, letting him support me. My leg is throbbing where the crossbow bolt hit, and every step sends pain lancing up my thigh. He notices—of course he notices—and adjusts his pace without comment, his grip on me tightening.
The forest parts before us like a living thing—because it is, because he is, because somehow I’ve become part of this too. The thorns don’t reach for me anymore. The vines move aside rather than blocking my path. The roots smooth into solid ground beneath my feet.
Briargrave has accepted me.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. But I know how I feel about the man beside me—his body warm against mine, his heartbeat steady under my palm where it rests on his chest. The warden who opened himself to a monster’s power and let me pull him back.
Who fought an army and a weapon and his own darkness with my name on his lips.