"Please," the Rooted woman continued. "I've been here so long. Just to speak to someone, to remember what I was. What's the harm?"
Against her better judgment, Briar crept closer. The woman's features became clearer. She'd been beautiful once, young and bright eyed. Patches of her normal skin still showed through the bark.
"Yes," the woman breathed. "So nice to have company. Tell me your name?"
"Briar."
"Briar. Pretty. I had a name once. I think it started with M. Or was it N?" Confusion clouded the trapped features. "It's so hard to remember. But I remember the important thing. Lean closer."
Briar leaned in.
The bark erupted. Hands shot out, not fully transformed, still partially flesh. They grabbed her shoulders with desperate strength as more limbs burst free, more souls desperate for release. The Rooted woman tried to pull Briar against her trunk.
"Take my place!" she shrieked. "Let me out and you become the tree! That's how it works! That's the secret!"
Briar struggled, but the grip was iron. More Rooted animated around them, those close enough reaching with whatever appendages could break free. They grabbed at her hair, her clothes, trying to drag her in different directions.
"My turn!"
"No, mine!"
"I've been here longest!"
In her panic to escape, Briar didn't notice the vines beginning to move. Not the quick, aggressive motion of Eliam's magic, but something far worse. They descended slowly, experienced hunters taking advantage of her immobility.
The first one touched her ankle so gently she didn't register it through the chaos. Thin as thread, it explored the leather of her boot, finding the gap where leather met leather. It slipped inside.
The second found her collar while the Rooted fought over her. This one was thicker, more confident. It traced her throat with obscene delicacy before beginning to burrow against the skin.
Pain, sharp and wrong, finally alerted her. She looked up to see vines, dozens of them, descending from above. They moved with serpentine grace, deliberate and patient. Where they touched her, she felt them trying to dig through leather, through cloth, seeking skin and what lay beneath.
"No!" She twisted harder, but the Rooted held firm.
The vine at her throat found purchase. She felt it pierce skin, not deep, not yet, just tasting. The sensation was worse than pain. It was an invasion, something foreign trying to work its way inside. Her vision blurred as more vines joined the first, ever patient and thorough.
The mark on her arm blazed with sudden heat.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the garden changed. The ground beneath her groaned and split. Roots erupted from the earth, not the garden's dead roots but something vitally, violently alive. They were dark wood shot through with veins of emerald light, and where they touched the marrow vines, the hungry plants recoiled.
"What have you done?"
Eliam's voice carried the kind of rage that preceded cataclysm. He stood at the garden's edge, dressed in only sleep pants and fury, his power turning the air thick with the scent of ancient forests and dark earth.
The Rooted released her instantly, shrinking back into their bark prisons. But the vines were slower to understand the danger, still trying to burrow even as he approached.
He moved with predatory purpose. Where he stepped, the ground responded—dead earth cracking to reveal rich soil beneath, dormant seeds stirring to life only to wither again in his wake. When he reached her, the vines still trying to penetrate her skin simply... ceased. Not destroyed but absorbed back into the garden itself, forced to recognize a greater claim.
"You dare," he snarled, but not at her. His attention fixed on the garden itself, which seemed to cower despite having no consciousness to cower with. "She is mine to break.Mineto torment. Not yours to consume."
His hands went to her throat where the vine had begun its work. She felt his power pour into the wound, not healing like before but something rawer. Claiming. Where the vine had tried to burrow, his magic took root instead. She gasped as she felt it, tiny thorns of living wood piercing just beneath the skin, following the path the vine had started but making it his own.
"Up," he commanded, and she obeyed on instinct.
Only then did she see the true extent. Vines had found a dozen entry points while the Rooted held her. Tiny wounds, none deep, but all beginning the terrible process of burrowing. Each one he touched, and each one he claimed.
His fingers traced her throat, and she felt the thorns bloom beneath her skin, not painful exactly, but present. They formed delicate patterns just under the surface, dark green veins that showed through her pale skin like elaborate tattoos drawn from the inside.
"Walk," he said.
