His hand shifted from her wrist to the small of her back, guiding her through the trees with proprietary certainty. The mark pulsed warm, satisfied to be heading home.
"Tell me," he said after they'd walked deeper into his domain, "how long have you carried that?"
"Carried what?"
His fingers twisted into the back of her shirt, yanking her to a halt. The sudden violence of it made her heart slam against her ribs. His grip pulled the fabric tight against her throat, making each breath deliberate.
"Don't play stupid. It doesn't suit you."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" The words came out high, panicked. How could she answer what she didn't understand?
He spun her to face him. In the darkness between the trees, his eyes burned brighter.
"There's something in you," he said softly. "Something that shouldn't be there. Something that feels..." He trailed off, jaw tightening. "When did it start?"
Cold dread pooled in her stomach. He could sense something she barely understood herself, and she had no idea what answer would satisfy him.
"Nothing's started. I don't—"
"Lie to me again," he interrupted, "and I'll make you walk barefoot over thorns until you remember how honesty works."
The casual cruelty of it made her shiver. But what could she say? That sometimes, when the mark burned, something else answered? That being near him made her feel strange in ways that had nothing to do with fear?
"I don't know," she said finally. Truth, even if he chose not to accept it. "I don't understand any of this."
He studied her for a long moment. "No. I don't suppose you do."
They walked on, his hand still locked around her wrist. The forest grew denser and older until the trees were so vast she couldn't see around them. No paths that she could discern, but Eliam moved with absolute certainty.
"Where are we going?"
"Home."
The word settled in her stomach with finality. "It's not my home."
"It is now." He glanced back at her, and his smile held no warmth. "Forever, remember? Or did you think I'd keep you in some cottage at the forest's edge? No, little thief. You'll stay where I can see you."
The trees began to change. Where before they'd been merely ancient, now they became architectural. Trunks twisted into columns, branches wove together in deliberate patterns. The forest had shaped itself into something crafted and intentional.
"The Forest Court," Thaine said from somewhere behind them. She hadn't heard him following, but of course he was there. "It's been some time since we've had a guest."
"Not a guest," Eliam corrected. "Guests can leave."
Briar’s steps faltered as the reality of her situation crashed over her with unexpected finality. She was moving further from everything she had ever known and deeper into a world where she had no power and no escape. The mark pulsed steadily, a constant reminder that she belonged here now.
That she belonged to him.
Ahead of them, the path widened into something resembling a road, though still made of living wood. Other figures moved between the trees now, tall beings with bark-textured skin, smaller creatures that skittered up trunks and watched from the canopy. All of them stared at her with varying degrees of interest and hunger that left her feeling exposed.
"Eyes down," Eliam commanded, and every gaze dropped instantly. "She's not for you."
A structure loomed in the dark gloom of the forest, though calling it a structure seemed inadequate. Architecture grown rather than built. Massive trees woven together into walls and archways, living wood shaped into stairs and galleries. Flowers bloomed in impossible colors, their faces tracking movement. Everything breathed with quiet life.
"Welcome to your new home," Eliam said, pulling her through an archway of thorns that parted at his approach. "Try not to get lost. The halls rearrange themselves sometimes, and they're not always kind to strangers."
The interior made her feel small and inconsequential. Everything here was ancient, powerful, utterly inhuman. She was a mayfly in a world of immortals, a fragile thing in a place that could crush her without noticing. Her fingers found the mark on her wrist, pressing against it through her sleeve. At least it was warm. At least it was something she understood, even if she hated it.
Corridors branched in all directions, lit by veins of amber light that pulsed through the stone walls like a heartbeat. Where rock met root, the boundaries blurred—ancient wood grown into granite, marble shot through with living bark. And everywhere, that sense of being watched by the structure itself.
