“For you to leave.” I try to pull away. Her grip tightens. “This isn’t your fight.”
“The Consortium made it my fight when they followed me here.” Her jaw sets. So damn obstinate. “And if whatever’s in that Heartgrove breaks free, it’s not going to stop at the forest’s edge. Is it?”
No. It won’t. The King has been dreaming of expansion for eight centuries. Dreaming of a world without limits, without borders, without anything but hunger and the endless satisfaction of feeding.
“If you stay,” I say, “you’ll probably die.”
“I’ve heard that before.” She releases my arm. Raises her blade. “Which way to the Heartgrove?”
I should argue. Should force her to leave, use the forest to drag her back to the boundary and throw her out before she gets herself killed. But the King is stirring, and the Consortium is burning their way closer, and I don’t have time for arguments.
“Stay close.” I start moving again. Slower this time, letting her keep pace. “Don’t touch anything unless I tell you to. And whatever happens—whatever you see—don’t run unless I say run.”
“What am I going to see?”
I don’t answer. The forest is roaring in my head, and the King’s laughter echoes beneath the roar, and somewhere ahead, twenty-three heartbeats are getting closer to the heart of everything I’ve protected.
We run.
The thornpaths twistand shift around us.
Usually, I can read them easily—feel the flow of the forest’s attention, know where it watches and where it sleeps. But the King’s awakening has disrupted everything. Paths that should lead forward loop back on themselves. Clearings I’ve walked a thousand times appear in the wrong places. The forest is confused. Frightened.
I’ve never felt it frightened before.
The woman keeps pace. I’ll give her that much—she moves fast, adapts quickly, doesn’t waste breath on questions or complaints. When the path shifts, she shifts with it. When thorns reach for her, she cuts them away without breaking stride. A good partner, in different circumstances.
Not that I’ve had partners. Not since the binding.
We pass the bone hollows at a run. The entrance gapes in the earth, roots arching overhead like ribs, the darkness inside promising shelter that might be false. On another day, I’d use those hollows. Today, there’s no time.
“The trees are moving.” Her voice cuts through my focus. “Not just the vines. The trees themselves.”
She’s right. The trunks around us are shifting, barely perceptible, leaning toward us as we pass. Not attacking—not yet. But aware. Interested.
“The forest is waking too,” I say. “Not just the King. All of it. Everything that’s been sleeping since the binding.”
“That sounds bad.”
“It is bad.”
“How bad?”
I don’t answer. The roaring in my head is getting louder. The King’s presence presses against my awareness like a hand around my throat. I can feel it trying to slip through, trying to find the gaps in my defenses, trying to take control.
Not yet. Not while I’m still moving. Not while I still have work to do.
The outer graves wait in silence, as they always do.
“More bodies.” The woman’s voice is flat. Controlled. “This forest really does keep everyone it kills.”
“Not everyone.” I scan the treeline, looking for the path forward. “Some it just kills. Some it keeps. The ones it keeps become part of it—eyes and ears and sensors spread throughout the woods.”
“The Briarbound Dead.”
I glance at her. “You’ve heard the stories.”
“I’ve been preparing for this contract for three months.” She moves to the edge of the clearing, examines a skeleton half-swallowed by a root system. “I know about the Dead. I know about you—or what the stories say about you.”
