“Confident. There’s a difference.”
She turns in my arms, faces me. The firelight catches her features, painting them in shades of gold and shadow. Scarred. Unbroken. The only person who’s ever made me want to survive this.
“What happens tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, we figure out how to end this permanently. The King is contained, but containment isn’t the same as destruction. As long as it exists, it’ll keep pushing. Keep testing. Keep looking for ways to break free.”
“Can it be destroyed?”
I consider the question. It’s one I’ve asked myself countless times over the years. “The King is... complicated. It’s not a creature in the traditional sense. It’s an accumulation. Centuries of rage and bloodshed, concentrated into something that can think and want and hate.”
“So how do you kill an accumulation?”
“Cut it off from what feeds it. Starve it until there’s nothing left.” My hand finds her hip, traces absent circles on the curve of bone. “The binding limits its feeding already. But there might be a way to sever it completely. Cut the King away from Briargrave itself—destroy the parasite without killing the host.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll figure it out.” I lean down, brush my lips across her forehead. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be long.”
She doesn’t argue. Just settles against me, her breathing evening out as exhaustion finally wins. I hold her while she sleeps, watching the fire burn low, feeling the forest breathe around us.
FORTY-FOUR
XELA
Iwake to silence.
Not the oppressive quiet of a forest waiting to kill—something different. Something that feels almost like peace, if peace could exist in a place built on bones and vengeance.
Tharos’s arms are still around me, his chest a warm wall against my back. His heartbeat pulses against it, slow and steady, and the rise and fall of his breathing. He’s asleep. Actually asleep, not just resting with one eye open the way I’ve seen him do since I entered Briargrave.
The fire has burned down to embers. Gray dawn light filters through the canopy overhead, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. And the forest...
The forest is quiet.
Something has changed. Something significant.
Tharos stirs behind me. His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me closer, and I feel his lips brush the back of my neck. A shiver runs through me—not from cold, but from the intimacy of it. The easy way he touches me now, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“You’re awake.” His voice is rough with sleep, intimate in a way that makes my pulse quicken.
“So are you.”
“Mmm.” He doesn’t let go. If anything, he presses closer, his body curved around mine, one hand splayed warm against my stomach. “You should sleep more. You’re still healing.”
“I heal fast.”
“Not fast enough.” His lips brush my temple. “Stay still. A few more minutes.”
I could argue. I should argue—we have a god to finish dying, a forest to stabilize, a binding to figure out. But the warmth of him at my back and the quiet of the forest around us feels too good to waste. So I close my eyes and let myself have this.
Just this. For a few more minutes.
Of course, a few minutes becomes an hour. I don’t mind. We take considerably more time than that.
He tendsmy wounds while the sun finishes rising.
“Tell me about before.” I don’t let go of his hand. “Before the binding. Before Briargrave. What were you?”
