The tunnel narrows. Roots arch overhead, woven so tightly they form a ceiling of living wood. Bones jut from the walls—finger bones, rib fragments, the occasional skull staring from the packed earth with hollow accusation. The air is close and humid, thick with the smell of decay that never quite fades in Briargrave’s depths.
“Watch your step.” My voice echoes strangely in the confined space. “The floor isn’t stable.”
“I noticed.” She’s right behind me, near enough that her scent cuts through the death-stench of the hollows. Steel and sweat and a vital undercurrent—one I’ve been trying to ignore since she entered my territory. “How far do these tunnels go?”
“Far enough.” I duck beneath a root that’s grown across the path, feel the wood shift against my shoulder in recognition. “They run beneath most of the forest. The original inhabitants used them for shelter during the worst of the Veil’s shattering.”
“Original inhabitants?”
“Before the King. Before the binding. Briargrave wasn’t empty when the shadow-magic flooded the Veillands.” I pause at a junction, reaching for the forest’s awareness to find the right path. The King’s presence presses against my consciousness, weakened but still waiting. “There were people here. Families. A whole settlement that thought the ancient trees would protect them from what was coming.”
“What happened to them?”
“What do you think?” I turn left, following a current of air that suggests an exit ahead. “The forest changed. They didn’t change with it.”
Her silence has shape. Then: “The Briarbound Dead.”
“Some of them. The ones the forest claimed slowly enough to absorb. The rest just died.” I run my hand along the wall, feeling the bones shift beneath my palm. “These tunnels are their tombs. The forest grew around them, through them. Made them part of itself whether they wanted it or not.”
“The records they left behind mention a different kind of magic—separation rituals. Ways of excising what doesn’t belong from a living system. The theory was sound: if something foreign has grafted itself onto a forest, it can be cut free.” I pause. “No warden has ever survived the attempt.”
Her footsteps slow. I stop, turn to look at her in the dim glow of the tunnel.
Her face is unreadable, but tension has gathered in her shoulders, tightened the line of her jaw.
“You’re trying to scare me again.”
“I’m trying to make you understand what you’ve walked into.” I step closer, and the tunnel feels smaller, the walls pressing in. “This forest doesn’t distinguish between enemies and allies. It doesn’t care about your intentions or your reasons. It just feeds. And right now, with the King stirring and the Consortium burning their way toward the Heartgrove, it’s hungrier than it’s been in years.”
“And yet I’m still alive.”
“Because I’m keeping you alive.” The words come out harder than I intended. “Every moment you’re in Briargrave, the forest is trying to claim you. Every step you take, the roots want to reach up and drag you down. I’m standing between you and that hunger, spending energy I should be using to contain the King, and I need to know it’s not wasted effort.”
She meets my gaze without flinching. Those slate-colored eyes cut through darkness like they were made for it.
Something gives in her expression. A crack in the mask, brief and quickly sealed.
“Maybe I’m tired of just surviving.”
The words settle into me like seeds taking root.
“What does that mean?”
She’s quiet for a long moment. The faint light of the tunnel catches her features, making her look otherworldly. Making her look like she belongs here, in this place of death and memory.
“I’ve spent my time taking contracts. Collecting payment. Moving to the next job before anyone got close enough to matter.” Her voice is flat, controlled, but I can hear a rawness underneath. “Then Cyrilla happened—eight years of partnership, three of something more—and I finally had a reason to stay. And then she walked into this forest and I went back to surviving because I didn’t know what else to do.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m standing in a tunnel full of bones, talking to an orc who should have killed me hours ago, about to help him fight an army that’s coming to wake an entity that wants to eat the world.” She laughs—a short, harsh sound without humor. “This isn’t surviving. This is uncharted territory. I just don’t have a name for it yet.”
I should use her vulnerability. Her uncertainty. The forest would. The King certainly would, if it had the chance. I should push her away, tell her to leave while she still can, drag her back to the boundary whether she wants to go or not.
Instead, I find myself speaking words I haven’t said to anyone in longer than I can remember.
“I know what it’s like. To lose the thing that made survival worth the effort.” My voice comes out rough, unpracticed. “Before the binding, I was a mercenary. One of many orcs who sold their violence to whoever paid best. I had a crew. People I trusted. When I took the contract to burn Briargrave...” I stop. Swallow. “They died in the fire. All of them. I started the blaze that killed them, and then I spent the rest of my life alone because I couldn’t face what I’d done.”
She’s watching me with an expression I haven’t seen before. Not pity—closer to recognition.
