I keep pace.
The forest is growing louder around us. Not sound—something beneath sound. A tension in the air that my body registers before my mind catches up. The same feeling Iget before a fight, the pre-violence awareness that tells me something is about to break.
“The King.” He says it quietly, almost to himself. “It can feel how close the siege engine is.”
“Can you hold it?”
“For now.”
I’ve learned that ‘for now’ from him means yes-but-ask-me-again-in-an-hour.
We push deeper.
TEN
XELA
The second engagement goes wrong.
We’re moving through a dense section of forest—thornpaths so narrow we have to go single-file—when the ambush hits. Not from the hunters. From the King.
The wave of pressure comes without warning. Not the gradual building I’ve felt before—not the slow tightening that gives you time to brace. This is immediate, like something tearing.
Tharos goes to his knees.
“The Heartgrove.” His voice is barely recognizable. “They’ve reached the outer defenses. They’re?—”
The forest shudders—and Tharos drives himself back from the edge alone.
His hand closes around my throat.
Not tight enough to choke. Not yet. But the threat is clear. The thing looking at me through his eyes isn’t Tharos anymore.
“Tharos.” I don’t struggle. Don’t fight. “I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me.”
“He can hear you.” The possessed orc leans closer. I can smell the wrongness on his breath—decay and hunger and eight centuries of accumulated malice. “He just can’t stop me. Notthis time. The attack on the Heartgrove has weakened him. And you—” The hand around my throat tightens slightly. “You’ve weakened him more. He cares about you, little hunter. Against all wisdom, against all instinct. He’s been alone so long, and you looked at him like he was more than a monster.”
“Let him go.”
“Why would I do that?” The Thorn King’s voice drips with amusement. “This is the closest I’ve been to freedom in decades. The Consortium’s attack is perfect—so much violence, so much fear, so much beautiful vengeance. And when the warden falls, when his control finally breaks...”
“He won’t fall.”
“Such faith. Such foolish, fragile faith.” The hand releases my throat. The possessed orc steps back, studying me with eyes that hold nothing of the man I’ve been fighting beside. “You interest me, little hunter. Your grief is so fresh, so raw. The woman you loved—Cyrilla, yes?—she cried out for days before the forest finally absorbed her. She called your name at the end. Did you know that? She begged for you to save her.”
The words hit like physical blows. I feel them in my chest, my gut, my bones.
Cyrilla. Crying out. Calling my name.
“You’re lying.” My voice doesn’t waver. I refuse to let it waver. “You’re trying to break me. It won’t work.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” The King tilts Tharos’s head, an alien gesture that looks wrong on his body. “But consider this: what if I’m not lying? What if every word is true? What if your precious Cyrilla is still here, somewhere in the forest, her consciousness trapped in wood and root and eternal suffering?”
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change anything.” I draw my blade. “You’re still not getting through me.”
“Getting through you?” The King laughs—Tharos’s voice, but twisted, wrong. “Child, I don’t need to go through you. Ijust need to keep the warden distracted long enough for the Consortium to finish their work. Once the Binding Breaker reaches the Heartgrove, once my prison shatters, I’ll be free. And then?—”
The voice cuts off. The possessed body convulses.
