“I die. The King breaks free. Everyone within reach of Briargrave suffers.”
“And if you’re right?”
“The King dies. The forest survives. Changed, but alive.” I reach for her hand. Need the contact. Need the grounding she provides. “And I might survive too. Might even be able to leave this place, if I want to.”
Her fingers lace through mine. “That’s a lot of mights.”
“I know.”
“And the bond?” She turns my hand over in hers, tracing the bark-scars on my forearm with her thumb. “What I’ve become to the forest—does that change when the King is gone? Am I still bound?”
“I don’t know what it looks like without the King.” The admission costs something. “The bond was forming around its presence—around the binding that contains it. With it gone...” I pause. “Different. Changed. But I don’t think it disappears. Briargrave chose you. That was never the King’s doing.”
“So I might stay bound to a forest that no longer wants to kill me.” She almost smiles. “There are worse fates.”
“There are.” I tip her chin up with two fingers, hold her gaze. “We’ll figure out the rest. After.”
“And you’re going to try anyway.”
“I have to.” I pull her closer, wrap my free arm around her waist. She comes willingly, fitting against me the way she has since that first desperate night in the hollow. “The King won’t stay weak forever. It’s already trying to heal, to regather its strength. If I wait too long, it’ll recover. And then we’re back to containment, back to the endless battle that’s defined my existence for decades.”
“And you don’t want that.”
“I want it over.” The admission costs something. “I want to stop being a warden of horrors. I want to be something else. Someone else.”
“Someone with options.”
“Someone who can choose to stay instead of being forced to.” I press my lips against her temple, breathe her in. “Someone who can choose you because he wants to, not because you’re the only thing keeping him sane.”
She laughs—soft, raw, a little broken. “You already chose me.”
“I want to choose you again. And again. Every day, by choice, not necessity.”
Her hand finds my face. Cups my jaw with a tenderness that still surprises me. “Then do what you have to do. I’ll be here when it’s over.”
“It’s going to hurt.”
“Everything hurts.”
“The King won’t go quietly. It’ll fight back, try to drag me down with it. If I lose myself in the separation?—”
“I’ll pull you back.” Her eyes are fierce. Certain. “I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then I’ll end it myself.” She kisses me—brief, hard, a promise as much as a goodbye. “But that’s not going to happen. Because you’re stronger than it. You’ve been stronger for a long time.”
I want to believe her. Want to let her certainty carry me through what’s coming. But I’ve spent decades fighting the King, and I know what it’s capable of. I know how it twists and manipulates, how it finds weaknesses and exploits them. Even wounded, even dying, it’s still the most dangerous thing I’ve ever faced.
“If I don’t come back from this, run. Get out of Briargrave.”
A short, joyless breath of a laugh escapes her. “You know I won’t do that.”
“I know. But I had to ask.”
“Stubborn orc.”
“Impossible woman.”
