His gaze swept over the others—Eliam rigid with suppressed rage, Arion's face carved from stone, Thaine favoring his injured leg, Karse's scales dulled with exhaustion, Sian supporting Halian as best she could.
"So many pressure points," Malus mused. "So many ways to make youbegto help me."
They crested a small rise, and through the twisted trees, Briar could see the corruption getting worse. The very air ahead shimmered with wrongness, like heat waves rising from tainted ground. In the distance, something that had once been a bird cried out, but the sound was all wrong, too many voices in one throat.
"We're getting close to the border," Veroc said carefully. He and his surviving warriors had been silent through the confrontation, but now the old Drak's voice carried warning. "Beyond that ridge, the corruption is absolute. We can go no further."
"How unfortunate," Malus said with false sympathy. "I suppose you'll have to abandon your new friends. Unless you'd like to test how well Drak scales hold up against pure Unseelie taint?"
Veroc's jaw clenched, but he said nothing.
They walked on, the sounds of the battle-torn forest fading behind them, replaced by something worse—the soft whisper of corruption spreading, the rustle of things that shouldn't exist, and underneath it all, a rhythmic pulsing like a massive heartbeat that Briar realized must be coming from the seal itself.
"Can you feel it?" Malus asked her softly. "The seal calling? It recognizes what you carry. What you are." His hand pressed flat against her stomach, and she felt the warmth in her chest recoil. "All that power my brother hid inside you, yearning to return to where it belongs. Or rather, to whom it belongs."
"You’re a fool if you think you’ll succeed," Eliam said, his voice so cold it made the corrupted air feel warm by comparison.
"Am I?" Malus glanced back at his brother with that pleasant smile that never reached his eyes. "We'll see. After all, power flows to those who hold it, not those whoonce claimed it. And right now..." His arm tightened around Briar. "I hold everything that matters."
The ridge appeared through the twisted trees like a natural boundary between horror and something worse. The corrupted forest they'd been walking through seemed almost healthy compared to what lay beyond.
Veroc stopped at the crest, his ancient face grim. "This is where we leave you."
The other Drak warriors shifted uneasily, their scales dulling with what Briar recognized as fear. Whatever lay beyond that ridge, even these ancient predators wanted no part of it.
"Such loyalty," Malus observed. "Abandoning your new allies at the first sign of real danger."
"We go where we can survive," Veroc said simply. "Beyond this point, the corruption doesn't just twist—it unmakes."
"How poetic." Malus's tone suggested he found it anything but. "Run along then. Wouldn't want to lose such... reliable allies."
Veroc's gaze found Briar, regret in his eyes. "Shadow Walker," he said formally. "May you find the strength you need."
Then he and his remaining warriors turned and disappeared back into the twisted forest, moving fast enough that it was clear they wanted distance between themselves and whatever came next.
"Alone at last," Malus said with satisfaction. "How cozy."
They crested the ridge, and Briar's breath caught in her throat.
The land beyond didn't follow any natural laws. Trees grew downward into the earth while their roots reached toward a sky that flickered between colors that shouldn't exist. The ground itself seemed uncertain, shifting between solid earth, viscous liquid, and something that felt like flesh. In the distance, shapes moved through the wrongness—things that had too many limbs or not enough, creatures that seemed to exist in several places at once.
And beyond it all, perhaps another hour's walk through this nightmare landscape, she could feel it—the seal. It pulled at the warmth in her chest with increasing insistence, like recognizing like.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Malus said against her ear. "The Unseelie corruption in its purest form. This is what waits beneath every seal, pressing against the barriers, yearning to be free."
"It's an abomination," Thaine said, his voice rough with exhaustion and disgust.
"It's power," Malus corrected. "Raw, unlimited power that my ancestors were too frightened to harness. They chose to lock it away rather than learn to control it."
He started forward, pulling Briar with him. The moment they crossed the threshold, she felt it—the corruption trying to seep into her skin, to remake her into something else. The star metal pendant grew hot against her chest, and the warmth inside her contracted, building a barrier against the intrusion.
Behind them, the others followed reluctantly. She could hear Sian gagging at the smell—sweet rot mixed with metal and something organic that had no name. Karse's scales flickered with defensive heat, while Arion's light magic sputtered like a candle in poison wind.
Eliam walked in rigid silence, but she could see the way the corruption recoiled from him slightly, as if recognizing an enemy. Or perhaps recognizing what he'd once been, before the split, when he'd had the power to create seals like the one they approached.
"Tell me," Malus said conversationally as they picked their way through the unstable ground, "can you feel it calling to you? The piece my brother hid inside you?"
Briar didn't answer, but she didn't need to. The warmth was pulling harder now, almost painful in its insistence.
