An hour passes. Maybe more. Time moves strangely in the Heartgrove.
Tharos hasn’t moved from his position near the altar. His eyes are still closed, his body still rigid with concentration. But the light from his scars has dimmed, and the King’s mass has stopped pulsing with quite so much urgency. Whatever battle he’s fighting, he’s winning.
I watch him because there’s nothing else to do. Watch the way his muscles tense and release as he wrestles with forces I can’t see. Watch the way his jaw clenches when the King pushes back. Watch the sweat drip from his brow and disappear into the collar of his armor.
He’s striking in a way that shouldn’t make sense. Not pretty—nothing about him is pretty. But there’s a fierce grace to his dedication, a terrible beauty in the way he gives everything he has to holding back the darkness. I’ve met soldiers and hunters and killers of every description, but I’ve never met anyone like him.
Someone who fights not for glory or payment or survival, but because he’s the only one who can.
The King’s mass shudders. The faces in the bark disappear all at once, retreating into the wood like children hiding from a storm. The pulsing light at the altar’s heart dims, dims further, and finally goes dark.
Tharos opens his eyes.
He sways. Nearly falls. I’m moving before I realize it, crossing to catch him before he falls.
“Easy.” My arms wrap around him, bracing his body against mine. He’s heavy—of course he is, he’s seven feet of orc muscle—but I dig my heels in and keep us both upright. “I’ve got you.”
“The King...” His voice is a rasp. “Pushed back. For now.”
“I noticed.” I guide him toward the edge of the grove, toward a spot where the roots form a natural seat. “You look like hell.”
“Feel like it too.” He sinks onto the root, his head falling back against the bark.
He’s quiet for a long moment. The Heartgrove is silent around us, the King’s presence retreated to wherever it goes when it’s been pushed back. Just the two of us, sitting among the bones of generations, trying to catch our breath.
“Thank you.” His voice is rough. “For choosing correctly.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” I lean back against the root, exhaustion making my limbs heavy. “The King isn’t done. You said yourself—it’s stronger than it’s been in years. What happens when it pushes back again?”
“We fight. Again.” He turns his head to look at me, and his expression makes my heart skip. “But we fight with a choice made. With trust proven. That matters more than you know.”
“Does it?”
“The binding is built on will. On conviction. On the warden’s belief that what they’re doing matters.” His fingers lace through mine in the darkness, rough and warm against my palm. “You could have ended everything. Instead, you chose to believein what we’re building. That kind of faith—it strengthens the binding. Strengthens me.”
I look at our joined hands. At the way his fingers curl around mine, holding without grasping. At the warmth that spreads up my arm and settles in places I’m trying not to think about.
“I’m not sure ‘faith’ is the right word. I just didn’t want to be responsible for ending the world.”
“Call it whatever you want.” His thumb traces a pattern on my palm, and I have to fight not to shiver. “You stood against the King’s temptation and chose to trust me. That’s more than anyone has done in years.”
“Then everyone else was an idiot.” The words come out before I can stop them. “You’re worth trusting.”
He goes still. His hand tightens on mine.
“Xela...”
“Don’t.” I pull my hand away, stand up, put distance between us. “You already said I shouldn’t matter to you. Let’s not complicate things more than they already are.”
“It’s too late for that.”
I turn back.
“The King will come at us again,” he says. “It will use everything it has to drive us apart. To weaken whatever we’re building.”
“We’re not building anything.”
“We are.” He pushes himself to his feet, crosses to where I’m standing. He’s unsteady, exhausted, barely upright—but he comes to me anyway. “Every moment we spend fighting at each other’s side. Every choice you make to trust me instead of betraying me.” He stops in front of me, his presence filling my awareness like smoke. “That’s real. Deny it all you want—the King can feel it. That’s why it’s afraid.”
