"Oh, she didn't tell you." Malus's smile widened. "She came to my chambers wearing your colors. Kissed me with such enthusiasm, letting me explore every inch of her while she moaned so prettily. And her blood when aroused—exquisite. Like honey and copper and complete submission."
Briar felt Eliam's arms turn to stone around her. The temperature dropped further, but this cold came from him, from fury so complete it changed the very air.
"Given time," Malus added, almost conversationally, "I plan to train her properly. Teach her to crave my touch instead of just enduring it. She was already on her way to learning, weren't you, dear one?"
She couldn't look at anyone. Couldn't see their faces. The shame burned worse than the wound on her throat.
"Get close to me," Eliam said quietly. Too quietly.
Karse moved first, understanding danger when he heard it. Thaine stumbled over, his hand finding Karse's shoulder for support. Ferria hesitated, then stepped near, her face carefully blank.
"Karse." Eliam's voice stayed level, controlled. "How much fire do you have left?"
The Drak flexed his burned hand, scales scraping. "Enough. If you need it."
"I'm going to need it."
Malus laughed again. "Planning something, brother? While you can barely stand? While holding your bleeding pet?" He gestured, and the Withered began moving forward. "Take them. Don't harm the girl—she's mine. The others are disposable."
The Withered glided across the floor, their robes trailing through puddles of blood and ash. That sweet-sick smell of decay grew stronger, thick enough to choke on.
Eliam set Briar down, carefully, propping her against Thaine who caught her with his good arm. She wanted to protest, but her legs wouldn't hold her. The blood loss made everything feel distant, underwater.
"When I say run," Eliam said under his breath, "you run."
The floor beneath them groaned.
No—not groaned. Grew.
Thorns erupted from the stone, black wood spiraling up between them and the advancing Withered. Not a wall—a maze of brambles, each thorn as long as her hand, weaving and spreading with violent speed. The Withered hit the barrier and immediately began their work, decay spreading wherever they touched.
"Karse," Eliam said. "Now."
Fire roared. Not the controlled bursts from before, but everything Karse had left, a wave of flame that caught the brambles and turned them into a blazing wall. The Withered recoiled—even they couldn't walk through that inferno.
The heat washed over them, so intense Briar's eyes watered. She could hear Malus shouting something, but the roar of flames drowned him out.
Eliam grabbed her again, pulled her tight against him. "Everyone hold on."
Ferria gripped his arm. Karse grabbed Thaine and Eliam's shoulder. The shadows at their feet began to move, to rise, to wrap around them like living things.
"No," Malus's voice cut through the fire's roar. "You don't get to—"
The world tilted.
Shadow-walking felt like drowning in reverse. Like being pulled up through black water, unable to breathe, unable to see. Briar's stomach turned inside out. Her lungs burned. The wound on her throat tore wider from the pressure.
Then air. Cold, clean air that tasted of pine and night.
They collapsed in a heap on frost-covered ground. Trees surrounded them—not the twisted things near the palace but healthy pines, their needles rustling in wind that didn't smell of decay.
Briar rolled onto her hands and knees, dry heaving. Nothing came up—there was nothing in her stomach—but her body tried anyway. Beside her, Thaine was actually vomiting, his body rejecting the violence of shadow travel.
"We're not far enough," Eliam gasped. He was on his knees too, shaking from the effort. Shadow-walking that many people, even just to the forest edge, had cost him. "He'll follow. We need to—"
"Move," Karse finished, dragging himself upright. His burned arm hung useless at his side, but he pulled Thaine up with the other. "Can anyone run?"
"I can." Ferria was already standing, illusions shimmering around her. "I'll hide our trail."
