“It’s hard.” His voice cracks—the first break in the layered sound since the transformation began. “It’s so much power. So much hunger. If I just let go?—”
“Then you lose yourself. And I lose you.” I lean forward, press my forehead against his despite the wrongness of his skin, the cold sap seeping through the contact. My hands frame his face, and I kiss him—hard, brief, grounding. “I didn’t fight through an army just to watch you disappear. I didn’t give you my body, my trust, everything I swore I’d never give anyone again, just to have it taken away by a forest.”
“You gave me?—”
“Everything.” The word comes out fierce. Certain. “So you better give it back. All of it. Including the parts the King is trying to steal.”
He trembles. The dark in his eyes recedes—not entirely, but enough. The amber shows through like sunlight through storm clouds.
“I’m with you.” His hand finds my hip, steadies me, grounds us both. “Not going anywhere.”
“Prove it. Beat this thing. Come back to me whole.”
A sound behind us. Mechanical. Wrong.
The Severance Engine roars to life.
I turn—we both turn—and see Vorn at the controls, his hands on levers that pulse with that sickly green light. The runes carved into the siege engine blaze brighter than before, their screaming reaching a pitch that makes my skull feel like it’s splitting open.
“You think your forest magic can stop this?” Vorn’s voice carries across the battlefield, high with triumph. “This weapon was designed by master artificers! Forged specifically to break bindings like yours! Every second it runs, it tears another piece away from your precious bond!”
Energy surges through the runes. Green light explodes outward, washing over the battlefield in a wave that makes my skin crawl. It passes through me without effect—I’m not the target—but Tharos...
Tharos screams.
Not a sound of pain—a sound of tearing. Of ripping. Like cloth being torn from flesh, like roots being ripped from earth. He staggers, and the forest staggers with him. Trees groan. The ground heaves. The vines that have been moving at his command go limp, falling to the ground like dead things.
“No—” I reach for him, but he’s already falling, dropping to his knees as the Engine’s energy tears at the bond that defines him.
“Keep firing!” Vorn is laughing now—the laugh of a man who’s won against all expectation. “Don’t stop until there’s nothing left!”
The runes pulse again. Another wave of energy. Another scream from Tharos.
The glow that was burning beneath his skin is fading, flickering, dying. Something dark seeps from his scars. The power the King gave him is being ripped away, and what’s being revealed beneath is...
Nothing.
THIRTY-NINE
XELA
Not his true self. Not the man I know. Just emptiness where the binding used to be.
“Tharos!” I grab him, wrap my arms around his shaking body, try to hold him steady the way I did before. “Fight it! Don’t let that thing?—”
“Can’t—” His voice is barely a whisper, all the layers stripped away, nothing left but pain. “It’s too strong. The weapon—it’s designed for this. Designed to?—”
Another pulse. He convulses in my arms.
“No.” I hold him tighter, feel his body convulsing against mine. “No, you don’t get to leave. You don’t get to break. Not after everything. Not when we’re this close.”
“Xela...” His hand finds mine. Weak. Trembling. “If I can’t stop it... if the binding fails...”
“It won’t.”
“The King will be free. Everything I’ve kept caged?—”
“Then we’ll contain it differently.” I grab his face, make him look at me. “You said the bond between us is almost as strong as your bond with the forest. You said the King could feel it. So use that. Use me.”
