“Nothing I say is going to make you feel better. But the thing that killed her wasn’t me.” I meet her eyes again. Force myself to hold the contact even though part of me wants to look away. “I don’t kill everyone who enters this forest. Just the ones who threaten what I’m protecting.”
“And what are you protecting?”
The Thorn King answers before I can. Its voice slithers through my thoughts, oily and cold:
Everything. He’s protecting everything from me. Tell her, warden. Tell her what you really are.
I shove the voice back. Slam mental doors shut. But the effort shows—I can feel my face twisting, my hands clenching into fists.
“An entity that would make your grief over Cyrilla feel like a pleasant memory,” I manage. “One that feeds on vengeance and turns it into power. One that’s been growing in this forest for eight centuries, waiting for a chance to break free.”
She studies me. I can see her calculating—weighing my words against what she knows, what she’s observed, what her instincts are telling her. Her eyes hold a sharpness that cuts.
“The Consortium,” she says slowly. “They’re not just here for you. They’re here for... whatever’s in the heart of this forest.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve been keeping it contained. Since before I was born.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I made a choice—not a noble choice, just the only choice that would let anything survive.
I don’t say any of that. Instead: “Because the alternative was worse.”
The forest shudders.
SIX
THAROS
The sensation hits like a fist to the chest.
Not pain—worse than pain. Wrongness. A tearing at the edges of my awareness, a shriek that echoes through every root and branch of Briargrave. The Thorn King is waking. Not fully—not yet—but faster than I’ve felt in years. Decades.
The Consortium’s fire. The violence of their passage. The deaths they’ve caused. All of it feeding the hunger in the Heartgrove.
“What—” The woman’s voice cuts off as the ground trembles beneath our feet. The trees around us lean inward, branches creaking, thorns extending like claws reaching for prey.
“Run.” I’m moving already, the forest parting before me as I sprint toward the Heartgrove. “Get out. Now.”
“What’s happening?”
“It’s waking up.” The words tear out of me. “The thing I’ve been containing is waking up, and if I don’t get to the Heartgrove before?—”
The shriek hits again. Stronger this time. I stagger, catch myself against a tree that shudders at my touch. The scars on my arms split open, dark sap dripping down my skin and falling to the earth. The roots beneath my feet writhe and twist.
Thank you for the feast, the Thorn King whispers. The Consortium’s violence has been... delicious. But I want more. I want everything.
“Tharos.”
My name. She’s using my name. When did I tell her my name?
She’s beside me. Shouldn’t be—should have run, should have taken the chance to escape—but she’s there, one hand gripping my arm, the other still holding a blade. Her face is pale in the forest’s dim light, but her voice is steady.
“What do you need?”
