“Without hesitation?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Hesitation would be cruel. It would give you time to hope for a rescue that isn’t coming, time to beg, time to believe there’s another way.” I kept my voice steady, clinical. “Quick is kinder. It’s the last gift I could give you if it came to that.”
She pulled her arm free from my grip, stepping back like I’d burned her. “Good to know exactly where we stand. You really are just waiting for permission to fulfill your promise to Jo, aren’t you? This is just another acceptable outcome.”
“Elle—”
“No. I get it. I’m a mission. A debt. An inconvenience wearing marks you think should be yours.” Her voice shook, but whether from fear or anger I couldn’t tell. “Thanks for the honesty, I guess. At least I know what to expect when things go wrong.”
She walked away before I could correct her assumption, and I let her go. Better she think I was cold, calculating, waiting for an excuse. Better than her knowing the truth—that the thought of what the Crown would do to her made my corruption flare with a rage I couldn’t afford. That I’d burn through the last of my life to prevent them from taking her, not because of Jo’s debt, but because somewhere in the last few days, she’d stopped being just a mission.
I watched her disappear into her tent, shoulders rigid with hurt and anger.
Let her hate you, I told myself.It’s safer for both of you.
Even if the cost of that safety was her thinking I’d kill her without a second thought.
Even if the truth was I’d already started counting all the ways I’d die to keep that from being necessary.
9
Elle
I couldn’t sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the construct blooming from the inside out. Saw the circle of death Kaelren had created. My shoulder throbbed where the construct’s claws had raked me during our patrol earlier—three parallel cuts that had healed on the surface thanks to the shining threads in my blood, but still ached deep in the muscle. My ribs on the left side protested when I moved, bruised from when I’d slammed into a tree trying to dodge the second construct. Various smaller cuts decorated my arms from the thorns I’d manifested too wildly, not yet used to having weapons growing from my own skin.
The marks at my collarbones pulsed with each heartbeat. They’d grown slightly more vibrant during the fight, the golden vines at my collarbones seeming to glow from within, but they hadn’t spread beyond their original boundaries. At this rate, I wondered how long before they would begin their inevitable creep across more of my skin.
Would that be so bad?The thought wasn’t entirely mine. The Root speaking, maybe, or just my transformation.
I sat up, giving up on sleep. The camp was quiet except for whoever was on watch—probably Kaelren, because apparently the man never slept.
I needed air. The tent felt suffocating, the forest’s whispers pressing in from allsides.
I emerged to find I was right—Kaelren sat by the dying fire, silver eyes scanning the darkness with the focused intensity of someone who’d spent years waiting for attacks that eventually came.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked without looking at me, though I knew he’d tracked my movements from the moment I left my tent.
“The forest is too loud.” I moved closer to the fire, drawn by its warmth and the one person who seemed immune to the overwhelming presence of all this living wood.
“It’s completely quiet.” He glanced at me then, one eyebrow raised. “I can barely hear anything beyond the fire.”
“Not to me. Every root, every leaf—they’re all talking at once. Communicating in ways I’m only just starting to understand.” I rubbed my temples, where a dull ache had taken up residence. “It’s like trying to sleep in the middle of a crowded room where everyone’s talking directly into your ear simultaneously.”
“Sounds like hell,” he said flatly, and I appreciated that he didn’t try to minimize it.
“Pretty much. Not everything can be fixed by just powering through it, you know.” I sat on a log across from him, maintaining careful distance. The fire crackled between us, sending sparks dancing into the darkness.
“No. But complaining about it doesn’t make it stop either.” He stirred the fire with a stick. “You adapt or you break. Those are the options.”
“Wow. Inspirational. You should write greeting cards.” I watched the flames dance, remembering nights back home when the biggest concern was whether I’d remembered to lock the car. “Back home, I had this white noise fan. Ancient thing, sounded like a jet engine preparing for takeoff, drove my neighbors insane. But somehow it helped me sleep—just one constant sound to drown everything else out.” I gestured at the forest around us. “Here, every single leaf has an opinion it wants to share, and they’re all sharing them at once.”
“Sounds peaceful,” he said, and the dryness in his tone made it clear he understood exactly how not-peaceful it was.
“Oh, extremely. Very zen, having a thousand plants whispering commentaryabout everything. Even my bedroll has started trying to grow roots into me while I sleep, which is just fantastic for my already deteriorating mental state.”
He actually looked at me then, attention fully focused. “Your bedroll is growing roots?”
