"About what?"
"Eliam," Briar took another step, and Ferria actually backed up slightly, hand moving toward a weapon at her belt. "You think reuniting him will make him what you want. But you're forgetting something."
"And what's that?"
"The piece of him that's inside me." Briar pressed her hand against her chest. "You said I'm the catalyst. That means I'm part of the reunification too. Whatever happens when Eliam becomes whole, I'll be there. Part of it. Connected to it." She saw understanding dawn on Ferria's face. "You won't get him the way you think you will. Because I'm woven into what he is now. Into what he becomes."
It was a guess, a desperate theory formed from fragments of information. But she saw it land. Saw Ferria's expression shift from cruel amusement to something darker.
"Malus will extract you," Ferria said, but her voice had lost its certainty. "He'll separate the essence from your body, use it without yourinterference—"
"Will he?" Briar took another step. "Twenty-five years, Ferria. I've carried this essence for twenty-five years. It's not separate from me anymore. It's woven into every part of who I am. You can't extract it without extracting me. And if I'm part of the reunification..." She let the implication hang.
Ferria's hand closed around her weapon. "You're lying. Trying to manipulate—"
"Am I?" Briar felt the warmth pulse in agreement, felt it confirming what she'd guessed. "Or are you just realizing that your precious bargain with Malus isn't going to give you what you want?"
The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications neither wanted to voice.
“There’s one more thing,” Briar continued.
Ferria moved before Briar could finish, drawing her weapon in one smooth motion and lunging forward with intent that was unmistakably lethal.
Briar's body reacted before her mind caught up. The warmth surged in response to the threat, and she reached for it consciously this time, imagining the thorns she'd seen Eliam create, wanting them to manifest, to protect, to stop Ferria before—
Golden light erupted from her skin. Not formless and diffuse the way it had been before, but focused. Sharp. Deadly.
Thorns burst from the ground between them, three feet long and wickedly pointed. Ferria tried to dodge but she was already mid-lunge, momentum carrying her forward onto the spikes.
One went through her shoulder. Another through her thigh. A third caught her side, just below her ribs.
She screamed, the sound sharp and terrible in the enclosed space. Her weapon clattered to the ground, and she tried to pull herself off the thorns, but the movement only drove them deeper.
Briar stood frozen, watching golden light fade from her hands, watching Ferria struggle and fail to free herself. The thorns held her suspended, growing from stone that shouldn't have been able to support plant life, anchored with magic Briar had called consciously for the first time.
"I’m not weak," Briar said, her voice coming out steadier than she felt.
Ferria gasped, trying to respond, perhaps beg for mercy, but blood was filling her mouth, making speech impossible.
Briar watched her struggle, watched the light fade from her eyes as blood spread across her clothing, and felt nothing but cold certainty. This was necessary, this was survival.
When Ferria finally went still, Briar couldn’t let herself turn away, wouldn’t. She had made a choice, a terrible choice, and would not shy away from the truth of it. The thorns were already beginning to fade, returning to whatever place they came from when Briar's will no longer sustained them. Ferria's body slumped to the ground, blood pooling beneath her.
She looked down at her hands, still shaking slightly, and tried to process what had just happened and what it meant. What she'd become in a single act.
Time stretched strangely in the safe haven's artificial quiet. Briar stood frozen, staring at Ferria's body, at the blood pooling beneath it, at her own hands still shaking and stained red. The golden light had faded from her skin, but she could still feel the warmth pulsing in her chest, satisfied in a way that made her stomach turn.
Voices penetrated the silence, distant at first, then growing closer, calling her name with increasing urgency. The entrance to the safe haven shimmered into existence, that strange fold in reality that marked the boundary between here and the real world.
Eliam burst through first, shadows writhing around him in violent agitation. His eyes swept the space, taking in the blood, the body, finding her standing in the center of it all. The wildness in his expression shifted to something else entirely when he confirmed she was upright, breathing.
He crossed to her in three strides, his hands finding her face, fingers checking for injuries even as his eyes stayed locked on hers.
"Are you hurt?" His voice was controlled but she could feel the tremor underneath, the barely leashed violence looking for a target.
She shook her head, not trusting her voice. His gaze tracked over her anyway—noting the rope still binding her wrists, the bruising on her throat where Ferria had choked her, the blood that wasn't hers.
The others were crowding through the entrance now. Arion's light blazed bright enough to hurt, illuminating every corner of the space. Thaine had his weapon drawn, scanning for additional threats with professional efficiency. Sian emerged next, her water already gathering defensively around her. Karse hung back by the entrance, his amber eyes taking in everything with that unsettling stillness.
