"I didn't ask if you were hungry." His tone was gentle despite the words. "You haven't eaten properly in days."
"He hasn't woken up."
"He will." Thaine moved to check Eliam's pulse, a ritual he'd performed every few hours. "His body just needs time to adjust. The reunification was traumatic."
"What if he doesn't—"
"He will."
The certainty in Thaine's voice should have been comforting. Instead, it just highlighted how uncertain everything else felt. The court without Malus's supporters—scattered or dead. The seal, cracked and weeping corruption. Arion, gone but not gone, existing now only as part of Eliam.
A sound from the bed made them both freeze.
Eliam's breathing had changed. His fingers twitched against the covers. His brow furrowed, and he made a soft sound of confusion or discomfort.
Relief flooded through Briar so intensely her knees went weak. She leaned forward, reaching for his hand. "Eliam?"
His eyes opened slowly, unfocused. He blinked several times, and his gaze found Thaine first.
"Thaine?" His voice was rough from disuse. "What are you doing here? Why are you in my chambers?"
"My lord," Thaine's relief was audible. "You've been unconscious for three days. How do you feel?"
"My head is pounding." Eliam started to sit up, wincing. "Three days? That's not—" His eyes landed on Briar for the first time.
She smiled, tears of relief already gathering. "You're awake."
His expression went cold. Not the controlled coldness she knew, the kind he used as armor. This was the flat disinterest of looking at a stranger. He looked from her to Thaine, confusion clear on his face.
"Who is this?" His tone was sharp, annoyed. "Can someone explain why there's a human in my bed?"
The words hit her like physical blows. She stared at him, waiting for the cruel joke to end, for his expression to crack into that smirk she knew so well.
It didn't.
"You don't..." Her voice came out small. "Eliam, it's me."
"I don't know you." He said it with such matter-of-fact certainty that her chest caved in. "Thaine, why is there a strange woman in my private chambers?"
This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. She reached for him, needing to touch him, to make him remember.
His hand shot out, slapping hers away with enough force to sting. He immediately shifted away from her on the bed, putting distance between them. The movement was instinctive, the way someone recoils from an unwanted stranger's touch.
"Don't touch me," he said coldly.
Her hand stayed suspended in the air where he'd struck it, her mind unable to process what was happening. Her heart hammered against her ribs, screaming denials her mouth couldn't form.
"My lord," Thaine said carefully, his huntsman's instincts recognizing something was very wrong. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Eliam's brow furrowed. "I was in the forest. Near the western border. There was..." He paused, concentrating. "Something about a disturbance. Report of an accident involving humans near the veil." His frown deepened. "Why can't I remember what happened next?"
Thaine's expression grew grim. "The night you went to investigate the humans. That was over two centuries ago."
"That's absurd." But uncertainty flickered across Eliam's face. He looked around his chambers, and Briar saw him notice small differences. Things that had changed. Her clothes draped over a chair. A glass of water on her side of the bed.
"You made a bargain," Briar said, her voice shaking. "With my mother, I was payment. Then you made a bargain with me for my sister’s life."
He looked at her with complete incomprehension before grabbing hold of her wrist and holding it up, his grip so tight she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out. "If we’d made such a bargain, where are the marks? Where is the proof?”
