He’s faster than he should be. Faster than he was when we fought the Consortium hunters, when we moved through the forest like two halves of the same blade. The King is driving him now, using his body without the restraint Tharos imposed on himself. Using every ounce of strength the binding grants without caring about the cost.
This isn’t the ravine. There the King wore him for moments, brittle and contestable, the way a stranger tries on a coat. Now it has roots in him. The grip looks like it’s gone all the way down, and getting him back is going to cost more than a blade against his throat and a name spoken right.
I barely get my blades up in time. The impact jars through my arms, rattles my teeth, sends me skidding backward through bones that scatter and crunch beneath my boots. He presses forward without pause, fist swinging in an arc that would crush my skull if it connected.
I duck. Roll. Come up three feet to his left, steel flashing toward his exposed ribs.
The forest blocks me.
Roots erupt from the ground, tangling around my ankles, yanking me off balance. Vines descend from the canopy, reaching for my throat, my arms, my weapons. The Heartgrove itself is fighting on the King’s side, responding to commands that bypass the warden entirely.
I slash through the nearest vine, feel the bark split beneath my blade.
Dark fluid sprays across my face. More vines reach. More roots grasp. I’m fighting the possessed orc and the possessed forest at the same time, and I’m losing ground with every heartbeat.
I need every ounce of focus I have just to stay alive.
Cut. Dodge. Roll. The pattern becomes rhythm, instinct taking over where thought can’t keep up.
A root erupts inches from my face. I twist away, blade severing it at the base. A vine wraps around my left wrist, yanks my arm wide. I let the momentum carry me into a spin, using the force to drive my other blade toward Tharos’s throat.
He catches my wrist. His grip is iron—no, stronger than iron. The bones in my arm grind against each other. I hear myself make a sound, half gasp and half snarl, but I don’t drop the blade. Won’t drop it.
“You fight well.” The King’s voice is almost approving. “I can see why he values you. Why he let you get so close.” Tharos’s face leans toward mine. “But fighting won’t save you. Nothing will save you. He’s mine now. And soon, you will be too.”
I headbutt him.
It’s not elegant. Not tactical. Just the desperate strike of someone who’s run out of options and refuses to accept it. My forehead connects with his nose—his nose, Tharos’s nose—and I feel cartilage crunch. Dark blood sprays. The grip on my wrist loosens for just a moment.
I tear free. Put distance between us. My head is ringing, my vision blurred, but I’m still standing. Still fighting.
“That’s it.” The words are mine, forced out between ragged breaths. “That’s all I’ve got. Fighting. Surviving. Refusing to stay down no matter how many times I get knocked there.” I raise myblades again, ignoring the tremor in my arms. “You want me? Come take me. But don’t expect it to be easy.”
But I catch a fragment of hope. A flicker in Tharos’s expression. A moment of resistance in movements that should be completely controlled.
He’s still in there. Still fighting.
I just have to give him time.
TWENTY-SIX
XELA
The battle stretches into eternity.
I lose track of time, of injuries, of everything except the next attack and how to survive it. The King doesn’t tire—the forest sustains the body it’s wearing, feeding it strength that should have run out long ago. I’m running on adrenaline and stubbornness, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning, my blades growing heavier with every swing.
I can’t win this fight. I know it almost immediately. The King is too strong, the forest too compliant, the odds too stacked against me. Every cut I land heals within seconds. Every blow I dodge is followed by two more. Every moment I survive is borrowed time, and the interest is compounding.
But I don’t have to win. I just have to last.
A vine catches my ankle. I go down hard, bones jabbing into my back, the air driven from my lungs. Tharos looms over me, his fist raised for a strike that will end everything.
I roll. The fist pulverizes bone where my head was a heartbeat ago. Fragments spray across my face. I lash out with my blade, open a gash across his thigh, use the moment of imbalance to scramble back to my feet.
“Why do you keep fighting?” The King sounds genuinely curious now. “You can’t hurt him. You can’t save him. Every moment you resist just prolongs your suffering.”
“Maybe I like suffering.” I spit blood—when did I start bleeding from the mouth?—and reset my stance.
