A perfect killing ground.
“There.” I point to a narrow gap between two massive boulders. “That’s where they’ll enter. The ravine funnels them toward it—only approach that doesn’t require climbing.”
“And we’ll be waiting.”
“The forest will be waiting.” I move to the center of the ravine, positioning myself where the hunters will have to face me directly. “You stay hidden until the thornpaths seal their retreat. Hit them from behind once they’re committed. They won’t expect a second attacker.”
“Splitting our forces.”
“Maximizing our advantage.” I turn to face her, and the dim light catches her features in a way that makes my breath stutter. She’s striking—not soft, not pretty—dangerous in a way that makes every instinct I have sit up and pay attention. “The forest will protect you until you’re ready to move. Just stay low and wait for my signal.”
“What’s the signal?”
“You’ll know.”
She watches me for a long moment. Then she nods and melts into the shadows, her dark armor blending with the forest until she’s nearly invisible.
I turn to face the approaching hunters. The forest hums around me, eager and ravenous. I haven’t let it kill like this in years—haven’t directed its violence toward living prey rather than simply containing it. The King stirs at the edges of my awareness, pressing against the barriers I’ve maintained since the binding.
Feed me, it whispers. Let me taste them.
I ignore the voice. Focus on the heartbeats approaching through the undergrowth. Lives about to end.
The forest doesn’t give warning. Neither do I.
The first manthrough the gap doesn’t see me until the root erupts through his chest.
He emerges from the gap between boulders, fire weapon raised, scanning the ravine for threats. His eyes pass over me without recognition—I’m standing in the center of the killing ground, making no attempt to hide, and he still doesn’t see me.
The forest makes me invisible when I want to be invisible. Makes me part of the trees and shadows and ancient bones that carpet the ground.
Then I step forward, and his eyes widen, and the root is already sprouting from his back before his mouth finishes opening to cry out.
The thornpaths collapse behind the hunters.
Not gradually—all at once, the way a trap springs shut. Walls of thorns surge upward from the forest floor, sealing the gap between boulders, blocking the narrow approaches, cutting off every route of retreat. The hunters spin, weapons raised, shouting in confusion as the terrain they just walked through transforms into a cage of barbed wood.
I watch them stumble into the ravine. A score of them, maybe more—heartbeats pounding with fear and adrenaline, bodies suddenly aware that they’ve walked into a trap beyond their ability to escape.
Good.
“The warden!” Someone shouts the warning. Crossbow bolts fly toward me—a hail of them cutting through the air with lethal precision.
The vines catch them. Pluck them from flight like a hand swatting insects. The bolts clatter to the ground at my feet, harmless, useless.
I call the forest to war.
The response is immediate, overwhelming, terrifying. I’ve been containing Briargrave’s violence for so long that I’d almost forgotten what it looked like unleashed. Now I remember. Now I feel the forest’s joy as it finally, finally gets to feed.
Roots explode from the earth, impaling hunters mid-stride. The sounds they make aren’t quite human—high, short, cut off as the wood pierces organs and exits through flesh. Blood sprays across the ravine floor, soaking into soil that drinks it greedily.
Vines descend from the canopy, barbed and seeking. They wrap around throats, around limbs, around fire weapons that discharge harmlessly into the air as their wielders are dragged upward. The hunters shriek as the thorns bite deep, as the vines constrict, as their bodies are pulled apart by vegetation that should be too slow to move and too weak to kill.
Root-spikes thick as a man’s forearm erupt from the tree trunks, from the boulders, from the walls of the ravine itself. Hunters who try to shelter against the stone find the stone reaching back, find their armor punctured in a dozen places before they can raise their weapons to defend.
Half of them fall before they can mount a defense. I feel the deaths like drops of rain—each one distinct. The King presses harder against my barriers, and I push back.
Hold, I tell it. This is mine. You don’t get to claim this.
