Malus noticed immediately. "Fascinating." He moved closer, watching her internal struggle play out. "It's helping you resist. How much, I wonder?"
He grabbed her wrist, squeezing until Briar could feel the bones grinding against each other, forcing her fingers to continue undoing the dress. The autumn silk pooled at her feet, leaving her in the thin shift beneath. In the firelight, the bite wound on her throat was clearly visible, already beginning to close far too fast for human healing.
"Look." He turned her toward the mirror, standing behind her. "Watch what happens."
He pressed his fingers against the bite wound. She expected pain, but instead felt the warmth recoil violently from his touch. Not just pulling away but actively fighting, pushing against his autumn magic.
"There," he breathed against her ear. "Do you feel it? How it recognizes me as wrong?" His fingers traced the wound's edges. "It knows I'm not the one who should be touching you."
She tried to pull away but he held her still, one arm around her waist, the other hand at her throat.
"When he marked you," Malus continued, his fingers finding the autumn leaves at her throat, "what did you feel?"
"Pain." The word came out without compulsion—her own bitter truth.
"And when these changed? When they became mine?"
She remembered the sensation, the pulling, the way the warmth had raged. "Like being torn in half."
"Because part of you belongs to him." His hand moved to press against her sternum, where the warmth pulsed strongest. "This part. Hidden inside you like a seed."
The warmth flared at his touch, hot enough that he pulled his hand back with a hiss. When she looked in the mirror, she could see a faint golden glow beneath her skin where he'd touched, there and gone in an instant.
"Show me," he commanded. "Make it manifest."
"I can't control it—"
He spun her around, slamming her back against the mirror hard enough to crack it. "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not!" She pushed against his chest, and the warmth responded, golden light flickering across her palms. They both froze, staring at her hands.
"So you can control it," he said softly. "When you're angry enough. When you're threatened enough." He leaned closer, his weight pinning her against the cracked mirror. "What else can it do?"
"I don't know."
His hand wrapped around her throat, not squeezing yet, just present. "Let's find out."
He began applying pressure slowly, watching her face. The warmth responded immediately, golden light spreading from her chest outward, trying to push him away. But it was weak, unfocused, like something not fully awakened.
"More," he murmured, increasing the pressure.
She couldn't breathe. Her hands clawed at his wrist, and the warmth surged stronger. Golden light began seeping from her skin, not just flickering but steady, growing brighter as her need for air became desperate.
Just before she would have passed out, he released her. She collapsed, gasping, the golden light fading as quickly as it had come.
"Interesting." He crouched beside her, tilting her chin up to examine her eyes. "It responds to mortal danger. To protect you." His thumb traced her jaw. "My brother hid something in you. But what? And why?"
She couldn't answer, still trying to breathe properly. Everything hurt—her throat, her scalp, the bite wound that was somehow both healing and burning.
“What bargain did you strike with him?”
“To save my sister,” Briar whispered, her hand resting on the bruises forming like a macabre necklace around her throat. “My life for hers, but—”
“But? Speak.”
Briar tried to fight it, but the words forced their way out. “He’d already claimed it, my mother made a bargain with him, she thought it was for her life, but it wasn’t. It was mine.”
“When?”
