FORTY-FIVE XELA
FORTY-FIVE
XELA
His hands tremble where they grip my hips. I’ve never seen him tremble before—not when facing an army, not when channeling the King’s power, not when the Severance Engine tried to tear him apart.
But he’s trembling now.
“I don’t—” He stops. Swallows. “I don’t know how to accept this. Someone choosing me. Choosing to stay.” His voice drops to a whisper. “No one has ever...”
“I know.” I kiss his forehead. His temple. The ridge of his brow. “That’s why I’m saying it. So you hear it. So you believe it.”
He catches my mouth with his. The kiss is desperate—a claiming, a surrender, a question and answer all at once. I taste salt on his lips and realize he’s crying. This ancient, scarred, terrifying creature is crying because I told him I’d stay.
I kiss him back with all I possess. Let him feel the truth of my choice in the press of my body against his, the way my fingers tangle in his hair, the sound I make when his hands slide beneath my shirt to find bare skin.
His palms are warm against my ribs. Calloused and rough, but gentle—so impossibly gentle. He touches me like I might break, like I might disappear, like he’s still not sure I’m real.
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes. “I’m real. This is real. And I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know.” His voice is wrecked. “I just... I need a moment. To believe it.”
“Take all the moments you need.”
We could take this further. Should, maybe. But there’s something different about this moment—something sacred. So I pull back,
press my forehead against his, and just breathe.
“Whatever happens next,” I tell him, “we face it side by side. That’s the deal.”
“I never agreed to that deal.”
“Too bad. It’s the only one I’m offering.”
He laughs—a broken sound, more sob than humor—and pulls me against his chest. His arms wrap around me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
“Side by side,” he repeats. “I think I can live with that.”
“You better. Because I’m not—”
The forest shudders.
Not a gentle tremor—a violent convulsion that ripples through every root and branch. The trees groan, their trunks twisting. The thornpaths writhe like wounded snakes. And from somewhere deep, somewhere that feels like it’s coming from everywhere at once, a sound rises.
The Thorn King is screaming.
I’ve heard the King’s voice before. Felt its hunger pressing against my awareness. But this is different. This isn’t hunger or rage or the patient malice of an ancient predator.
This is fear.
Tharos goes rigid against me. His head snaps toward the Heartgrove, and I see his expression shift—confusion giving way to alarm.
“That’s not possible.” He’s on his feet before I can respond, hauling me up with him. “The King doesn’t feel fear. It’s not capable of—”
Another convulsion. The ground beneath us buckles, and I grab onto Tharos to keep from falling.
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” His voice is tight. Controlled in a way that tells me he’s more scared than he’s letting on. “Something’s wrong at the Heartgrove. Something the King didn’t expect.”
“Didn’t expect or didn’t plan for?”
“Both.” He grabs my hand. “We need to move. Now.”
We run.
The forest parts for us. This is frantic—trees bending out of the way like they’re trying to escape, roots smoothing into paths so fast they leave gouges in the earth. Briargrave is terrified, and its terror is pushing us toward the source.
The King’s scream grows louder as we approach. I can feel it now—not just hear it, but feel it vibrating through my bones, through the new awareness that’s been growing since my blood touched this soil. Fear and confusion and something that might be pain.
“Tharos—”
“I know.” His grip on my hand tightens. “Whatever this is, it changes everything.”
We crest the final ridge, and the Heartgrove comes into view.
The altar still stands at the center. The massive trunk behind it still rises toward the canopy. But the King...
The King is wounded. Badly enough to know it.
I can see it in the way its mass has shrunk, pulling back from the edges of the grove like a tide retreating.
In the way its roots have gone slack, no longer pulsing with dark sap.
In the way the faces pressed into its bark have finally, finally gone quieter—not screaming the way they were, not watching with the same hunger, but not gone either. Waiting.
The crown of blackened briars lies shattered on the altar. Black petals scattered like ash across the bone-carpeted floor.
“The Severance Engine.” Tharos’s voice is barely a whisper. “It did more damage than we realized. Than the King realized.”
“Is it... is it dead?”
“Dying — slowly enough to be dangerous.” His hand finds mine, squeezes. “The weapon severed something essential. Cut off part of what was feeding it. But it’s still here, and it knows what’s happening to it. A wounded animal looking for a way out.”
“Out where?”
“Anywhere it can hold. The forest is rejecting it. If it can’t keep its grip on Briargrave, it will try to take root in the next thing it can reach.
” He looks at me, and I understand what he isn’t quite saying — that the next thing it can reach has my heartbeat and my name.
“Now we have a chance to end this. Permanently. But only if we get there before it finds somewhere new to land.”
The King’s scream rises one final time—a sound of rage and terror and desperate, calculating defiance. Then it fades, and the forest falls silent.
Not the silence of waiting.
The silence of something gathering itself for one last attempt.
“The Heartgrove.” Tharos pulls me forward. “We need to reach it before the King recovers. Before it finds a way to heal.”
I let him lead me toward the grove. Toward the entity that’s been his burden and his prison for longer than I’ve been alive. Toward the end of something ancient and terrible.
And toward the beginning of something new.