"I want to try," she repeated, meeting Eliam's eyes. "Because doing nothing means I'm his until I die. At least this way there's a chance."
She saw him wanting to argue, saw him ready to refuse, but something in her expression made him stop. His jaw clenched, and she watched him wrestle with the desire to protect her from pain and the knowledge that protection wasn't what she needed right now.
"The wording would need to be precise," he said finally, the words coming out rough. "Acknowledging the existing bargain while asking the forest to choose. Something like..." He paused, working through it. "'My life was given to the Forest King in bargain. I ask the forest to show me its true king, and to that king alone shall I belong.'"
"Would that work?" Halian asked.
"Maybe." Eliam's expression suggested he had doubts. "If the forest is willing to choose. If it recognizes the distinction between title and truth. If a dozen other things go right that I can't predict."
"And if they don't?" Karse asked.
"Then she suffers for nothing," Eliam said bluntly. "And we're back where we started, except she's been put through agony for my arrogance in thinking I could outsmart a binding I created in the first place."
Briar squeezed his hand, drawing his attention back to her. "It's not arrogance to try. It's arrogance to assume we can't even attempt to fix this."
Something shifted in his expression, the harsh lines softening slightly.
"Alright," he said finally. "But the moment it starts to go wrong, I'm stopping it. I don't care if we're halfway through, if there's still a chance. The moment you're in too much pain, we stop."
"Agreed," Arion said before Briar could argue.
Eliam stood, Briar’s hand still wrapped in his, and pulled her up with him. "Everyone else step back. If this goes badly, I don't want anyone close enough to interfere."
The others moved away from the table, giving them space. Briar felt her heart hammering, felt the autumn marks at her throat already seeming to sense something was coming. They rustled against her skin, copper leaves chiming soft warning.
Eliam turned to face her fully, both his hands finding hers now. His expression was focused, intense, but underneath she could see his fear. Not for himself. For her.
"Ready?" he asked quietly.
She nodded, not trusting her voice.
"Then repeat after me," he said. "My life was given to the Forest King in bargain."
"My life was given to the Forest King in bargain," she echoed, her voice steadier than she felt.
The autumn marks pulsed once, acknowledging the truth of the statement.
"I ask the forest to show me its true king."
Briar took a steadying breath. "I ask the forest to show me its true king." The marks pulsed again, but this time there was resistance in it. A warning.
"And to that king alone shall I belong."
"And to that—” Briar felt the marks beginning to stir. “To that king alone shall I—"
The marks seized her throat, cutting off air before she could finish the words. The copper leaves turned sharp as blades, pressing into her skin with brutal force. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. Her hands flew to her throat as though she could somehow stop what was happening through force alone.
Eliam's own marks flared in response, burning across her shoulder and arm where he'd claimed her. Fire meeting constriction, two competing magics warring for dominance while her body became the battlefield.
She tried to scream but no sound came out. The marks were squeezing tighter, tighter, cutting off air, cutting off everything. Her vision started to gray at the edges, black spots dancing across her sight.
Through the agony, she felt Eliam's hands on her face, heard him shouting something, but the words were distant, underwater. The warmth in her chest was thrashing,trying to help, trying to fight, but it was too weak, too depleted from everything they'd already endured.
The autumn marks squeezed harder.
Then Eliam's magic surged.
It poured through their connection with violent force, shadows and thorns and forest power crashing against the autumn marks like a wave against stone. Not trying to destroy them but to force them back, to make them loosen their grip just enough for her to breathe.
