Xela
FIFTY
The King doesn’t die quietly.
The scream that erupts from its mass is like nothing I’ve ever heard.
Not sound—force. A wave of pure agony that slams into me, throws me backward, sends me crashing through a wall of roots that collapse around me like falling timber.
I hit the ground hard, the air driven from my lungs, my blade still buried in the thing I came here to kill.
The grove shakes. Trees outside the Heartgrove groan and crack. Bones scatter across the floor as the earth itself convulses.
But I can feel it working.
Through my grip on the hilt, through the steel that connects me to the King’s core, I feel the black wood crack. Feel dark energy spill out in waves that make the air taste like copper and ash. Feel eight centuries of accumulated horror begin to unravel, thread by thread, layer by layer.
The faces in the bark are screaming now.
Not in agony—in release. Their features twist, stretch, finally fade as the wood that held them prisoner begins to disintegrate.
One by one, they go still. One by one, their long torment ends.
I watch them find peace—the hunters, the soldiers, the travelers who wandered into this forest and never came out. They’re finally free.
Cyrilla is not among them. She never was—Tharos told me so, and watching the bark go quiet now is the closest thing to a funeral the freed have ever had.
I twist the blade. Drive it deeper.
The King convulses. Its roots thrash wildly, striking the walls of the grove, the altar, the bones scattered across the floor.
Its vines whip through the air without direction or purpose, the desperate spasms of a dying thing.
Its thorns retract into the mass like a wounded animal pulling in its limbs.
The crown of blackened briars crumbles. I watch the pieces fall—the oldest part of the King, the seed from which the rest grew. They hit the altar and dissolve into ash, into nothing, into memory.
And then—
Silence.
Silence crashes down. The absence of eight centuries of screaming. A silence like a held breath, like the world waiting to see if the danger has really passed. A stillness I’ve never experienced in this forest—because this forest has never been silent, not in all the time I’ve been here.
The King’s form collapses. Roots and vines and thorns disintegrate into dust that hangs in the air like ash after a fire. The faces that were trapped in the bark fade completely—not vanishing, but finally, truly dying. Finding the peace that was stolen from them when the King consumed their lives.
My blade comes free. I stagger backward, barely keeping my feet.
Every wound I’ve taken is screaming for attention now that the adrenaline is fading.
My left arm hangs useless at my side, numb from shoulder to fingertip.
My legs are trembling. I can barely see through the blood that’s dried in my eyes.
But I’m alive. And the King is dead.
I turn toward the altar.
Tharos hasn’t moved. He’s still slumped against the stone, his bark-scars still split and weeping, his breathing still shallow and labored. But he’s looking at me. His amber eyes are open, tracking my movement as I stumble toward him.
“Tharos.” My voice comes out wrecked, barely above a whisper. I fall to my knees beside him, my hands finding his face. His skin is cold—too cold. I can feel his heartbeat through my palms, and it’s slow. So slow. “Stay with me. Stay with me, damn you.”
His lips move. Form my name. No sound comes out.
“You promised.” The words tear out of me. “You promised you’d come back. You promised we’d face this together. You don’t get to die now. Not after everything we—”
My voice breaks. I didn’t know I could still break like this. Didn’t know I had enough left to lose.
His hand lifts. Shaking, weak, but moving. It finds my face. Cups my cheek with fingers that feel like ice.
“Still... here.”
The words are barely audible. A rasp that costs him everything he has left.
“Then stay here.” I press my forehead against his. Feel his breath on my lips—shallow, unsteady, but present. “Stay with me. I didn’t kill a god just to lose you to exhaustion.”
His mouth curves. The ghost of a smile on lips that are too pale.
“Not... a god.”
“Close enough.” I’m crying. I don’t know when I started. Don’t care. “You stubborn, impossible, beautiful monster. Don’t you dare leave me alone in this forest.”
His hand slides from my cheek into my hair. Pulls me closer. Presses his lips against my forehead in a kiss so gentle it makes my chest ache.
“You’re still my choice.” His voice is stronger now. Just a fraction. “Still... here. Still choosing you.”
I laugh. Or sob. I can’t tell the difference anymore.
“Then keep choosing.” I pull back just enough to look at him. “Every day. For as long as we have. Keep reaching for me, and I’ll reach back.”
“Deal.” His eyes flutter closed. “Now let me... rest. Just for a moment.”
“No.” I shake him. Gentle, but insistent. “You don’t get to close your eyes yet. Not until I know you’re okay.”
His eyes open. Meet mine. And despite everything—despite the exhaustion, despite the pain, despite the fact that he just ripped apart a bond that’s been killing him for longer than I’ve been alive—he smiles.
“I’m okay.” His hand finds mine. Squeezes. “Better than okay. Better than I’ve felt in years.”
“The King is dead.”
“I know. I felt it.” His other hand gestures vaguely at his chest. “It’s quiet in here now. No more whispers. No more hunger pressing against my thoughts.”
“How does it feel?”
“Empty.” He considers the word. “But not bad empty. Like... like a wound that’s finally been cleaned. It hurts. But it’s going to heal.”
I lean down. Press my lips against his. The kiss is soft—softer than anything we’ve shared before. Not desperate. Not claiming. Just... present. Real.
When I pull back, his eyes have drifted closed again. But his breathing is steadier now. His heartbeat stronger against my palm.
“Rest.” I settle beside him, let my head fall against his shoulder. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
His arm wraps around me. Pulls me closer. Even now, even barely conscious, he wants me near him.
“Promise?”
“Promise.” I press a kiss to his jaw.
The forest is silent around us. Not the hostile silence of a predator waiting to strike—something gentler. Something that feels almost like peace.
Briargrave has lost its master. The Thorn King is dead, its centuries of accumulated horror finally ended. And in the ruins of the Heartgrove, surrounded by the dust of what once was, two people who spent their lives running have discovered a reason to stop running.
I close my eyes. Let the exhaustion take me.