And from the shadows beyond the cage, a voice like grinding stone:
“You should not have come here.”
Running is useless—I can see that now. The roots have sealed every exit. The thorns would tear me apart before I made it three steps.
Instead, I lower my blades. Just an inch. Just enough to signal that I’m not about to attack.
“Tharos Blackroot.” My voice doesn’t shake. I’ve trained it not to shake. “I’m here for you.”
Movement in the shadows. A massive shape adjusting its position. The forest around me seems to lean closer, as if every tree and vine and root is straining to witness what comes next.
“Many have been.” The voice again. Closer now. Coming from directly ahead, from the darkness between two massive trunks. “The forest keeps their bones.”
He steps into the light.
Seven feet tall. Broad enough to block the path completely. Dark green-black skin marked with scars that look like bark—raised, rough, textured like actual wood. His forearms are wrapped in vines that seem to grow from his flesh, connecting him to the roots beneath the earth. His hands are massive, fingers ending in curved talons, stained dark with sap and soil.
His face is weathered. Hard. A heavy jaw, thick tusks worn uneven from use, deep-set eyes that burn with faint light in the forest’s perpetual twilight. He’s looking at me the way a predator looks at prey—assessing, weighing, deciding whether I’m worth the effort.
I’ve faced monsters before. I’ve killed things that made grown men scream and run.
I’ve never felt this outmatched.
But I’ve also never felt anything quite like the heat that sparks in my gut when those burning eyes meet mine. Recognition, maybe. One killer acknowledging another. Or a pull I don’t have time to think about.
“I’m not like the others.” I keep my voice steady. “I work alone. And I didn’t come here to steal anything. I came here for your head.”
His expression doesn’t change. He steps closer, and the roots beneath my feet shift and settle, as if the forest itself is adjusting to his presence.
“You came here to die.” Not a threat. A statement of fact. “What remains to be seen is how long you last.”
The survival instinct—the part that’s spent thirty years fighting, refusing to give up—snaps into focus. I’m trapped in a cage of thorns, facing a monster who controls the forest itself, armed with nothing but steel and stubbornness.
The odds are impossible.
I smile anyway.
“Then I guess we’ll find out,” I say. “Won’t we?”
The orc studies me for a long moment. I hold his gaze, refuse to look away, refuse to show the fear that’s trying to claw its way up my throat. The forest presses close, thorns rustling, roots shifting. Waiting for a command.
Then a flicker crosses those predator’s eyes. An emotion I can’t name. His head tilts slightly, and for just a second, his attention isn’t on me as a threat—it’s on me as a puzzle. A piece that doesn’t fit his expectations.
“You’re not afraid.” The statement comes out almost questioning.
“I’m terrified.” No point in lying. “But fear is just information. It doesn’t make decisions for me.”
Another long pause. The thorns around me don’t retreat, but they stop pressing closer. The roots beneath my feet go still.
“You should go,” the orc says finally. “Turn back. Leave this forest. The contract isn’t worth what the forest will take from you.”
“Can’t.” I sheath one blade, slowly, keeping my movements visible and non-threatening. “The contract is all I have. The money is the only thing standing between me and—” I stop. He doesn’t need my life story. He doesn’t need anything from me except my absence or my death.
“Standing between you and what?”
I don’t answer. I shouldn’t answer. He’s a target, not a confessor. But the way he asked—the tiredness in his voice, the bone-deep weariness of someone who’s been isolated for far too long?—
“Between me and becoming one of those bodies in the outer graves,” I say. “Just another corpse posed for the forest’s gallery. At least if I die trying to complete this contract, it means something.”
