"I retrieved you." His tone carried no particular emotion, as if they were discussing weather. "The hunt ended. You belong to the Forest Court."
"I belong to no one." The words came out rough, her throat still raw from whatever he'd hit her with. "You had no right—"
"I had every right." He still didn't turn, navigating the forest path with unconscious ease. "My lord wants you back. That's all the right I need."
"Your lord cast me out." She shifted, trying to find a position that didn't make her head spin. "Made me prey. Let them hunt me like an animal."
"Yes." Simple agreement, no attempt to soften it. "And now he wants you back."
"And that's enough for you? His whims, his tantrums, his—"
"Yes." Thaine stepped over a fallen log without breaking stride, the vine conveyance following, lifting slightly to clear the obstacle. "I serve the Forest Court. Not his moods, not his reasons, not whatever complicated thing you two have between you. I serve."
The motion of climbing over the log made her stomach lurch. She pressed her bound hands against her mouth, willing herself not to be sick. The last thing she needed was to vomit while trapped in a moving cage with nowhere to escape the smell.
"Are you going to tell him?" The question escaped before she could stop it.
That made him stop. He turned, finally, and she could see the bruises still shadowing his jaw, the healing cuts from his fight with the Withered. His dark eyes studied her curiously.
"Tell him what?"
Heat flooded her face but she forced herself to hold his gaze. "About Karse."
He tilted his head, considering. The morning light caught the edges of his dark hair, showing threads of silver she hadn't noticed before. How old was Thaine really? How long had he served the Forest Court, done Eliam's bidding without question?
"You mean am I going to tell my lord that you fucked a Drak on a balcony while the Star Court slept?" His tone remained conversational, but she saw something flicker in his expression.
The crude summary made her stomach turn for different reasons. She looked away, unable to hold his gaze.
"He cast you aside," Thaine said, and his voice carried an odd note. Not sympathy exactly, but understanding. He paused, stepping closer to her moving prison. "I understand why you did it. The Drak was there, willing, and you wanted to feel something other than pain."
She looked up, startled by the accuracy of his assessment.
"I'll make you a deal," he continued. "You don't mention my... extended stay as the Star Court's prisoner, and I don't mention your evening activities. My lord doesn't need to know that his best hunter spent three days failing to retrieve one human woman, and he doesn't need to know what that woman did when she thought she was free."
"You're protecting your reputation."
"Obviously." He turned back to the path ahead, starting to walk again. The vines resumed their wave-like motion, carrying her forward. "I have no interest in being seen as incompetent. You have no interest in Eliam knowing about the Drak. We both benefit from selective silence."
The pragmatism of it, the casual way he reduced her pain and rebellion to a simple transaction, should have made her angrier. Instead, she found herself oddly grateful for his lack of judgment. He understood what she'd done and why, without trying to excuse it or condemn it.
"He's not well," Thaine said suddenly, still walking ahead. "Since you've been gone."
Something in her chest tightened—the warmth responding to even this distant mention of Eliam. "What do you mean?"
"Volatile. More than usual. The court walks carefully around him, never knowing what might set him off. That first morning a servant brought him morning tea with the wrong flowers—not purple, but white. He destroyed half the morning room before I couldcalm him."
Purple flowers. Her memory supplied the image immediately. Eliam bringing her tea and breakfast, the delicate bloom decorating the tray, his fingers gentle in her hair. The warmth in her chest pulsed, reaching eastward with painful intensity.
"The strange thing is," Thaine continued, navigating them around a massive oak, "he couldn’t explain why the purple flowers matter. Just kept insisting they're wrong. That everything's wrong. That’s when I had to stop him from leaving to go after you."
Frederick chose that moment to appear, his tiny form rising from a puddle beside the path. He kept pace with her moving cage, his bubble throwing tiny rainbows in the morning sun. Thaine glanced at the sprite but didn't comment.
"And then there's you," Thaine said. "Growing thorns that attack anyone near you. Creating flowers that burn. Magic that responds to threats without your control..." He stopped again, turning to face her fully. "How long has this been happening?"
Briar hesitated. How much did she tell him?
"It started when I first arrived," Briar said at last, watching Frederick maintain his position beside her moving cage. "The golden flowers that grew in the Oubliette, leading me out when I was drowning in the dark. I thought I was hallucinating at first, but they were real. Eliam saw them too."
