Kael's POV
The first thing I feel when we emerge from the tunnels is rage.
Not mine—hers. Lyssara's fury burns through the bond like wildfire, and for a moment, I'm drowning in it. Her anger at her father, at Celestine, at everyone who betrayed her. It's so powerful I can barely breathe.
"Stop," I gasp, releasing her hand. The flood of emotion cuts off, leaving me gasping. "Your feelings—they're too loud."
"Sorry." She looks shaken too. "I felt yours for a second. All that emptiness. A thousand years of nothing." Her eyes meet mine. "How did you survive it?"
"I didn't. I just existed." I flex my fingers, watching the flowers beneath my skin bloom and fade. "But now I feel everything, and I don't know how to control it."
"Then we'll learn together." She squares her shoulders, looking toward the sounds of battle. "But first, we deal with Sariel."
We climb through the tunnel system, following the noise of fighting. With each step, my enhanced senses—sharper now after the binding—pick up more details. Steel clashing. People screaming. And beneath it all, the forest itself crying out in pain.
"They're burning the trees," I snarl. "Sariel's forces are setting fires to smoke us out."
"Can you stop it?"
"Watch."
I press my palm against the tunnel wall. Through the binding, I feel Lyssara's life magic flowing into me, mixing with my death magic. The combination is intoxicating. I send my power through the roots, commanding the forest to fight back.
Above us, I hear soldiers screaming as the trees themselves attack—branches wrapping around torches, roots tripping runners, thorns rising to block paths.
"It's working," Lyssara breathes. "I can feel what you're doing. It's like... like the forest is an extension of you now."
"Of us," I correct. "Your magic is what's keeping the trees alive while mine directs them."
We reach the surface to find chaos.
The clearing outside my castle is a battlefield. Sariel's forces—at least fifty soldiers—are fighting a losing battle against the forest itself. Trees grab at them. Vines trip them. Thorns pierce armor.
And in the center of it all stands Sariel, her face twisted with fury as she raises her hands. Dark magic—death magic, but corrupted, wrong—pulses from her palms.
"She's stealing from the forest," I realize with horror. "Using the old covenant's connection to drain power."
"I thought you were the only one who could do that."
"I was. But she's found a way to tap into the death magic I've been feeding the forest for centuries." My hands clench. "She's killing it from the inside."
Lyssara's eyes flash gold. "Then we stop her."
We step out of the tunnel together, and every head turns.
The fighting stops. Soldiers freeze. Even Sariel goes still.
"Impossible," she whispers, staring at us. "You should be trapped in the Heart Tree. The binding should have consumed you—"
"It did," I say calmly. "And we survived. Together."
Her gaze drops to our marked arms—my flowers, her thorns—and something like fear flickers across her face.
"You completed it," she breathes. "You actually finished the binding. But that means..." She stumbles back a step. "You're the covenant now. Both of you."
"Finally," Lyssara says. "You understand."
"This is abomination!" Sariel's scream echoes across the clearing. "The covenant was meant to sustain the kingdom through sacrifice! Not this—this perversion of life and death mixed together!"
"The covenant was always meant to be both," I counter. "You're the one who perverted it. Centuries of using fear and death to control people. But that ends now."
Sariel raises her hands, dark magic swirling. "If I can't have the forest's power, then no one will!"
She releases a blast of corrupted death magic straight at the nearest tree. It hits with devastating force—the ancient oak screams (yes, screams) as its trunk splits open, rotting from the inside out.
Lyssara cries out, feeling the tree's death through the bond. Without thinking, she throws up her hands and golden light bursts forth. It wraps around the dying oak, fighting the corruption, trying to heal it.
But Sariel's magic is too strong. The tree continues to rot.
"I can't—" Lyssara gasps. "It's too much death—"
"You're not alone." I move beside her, adding my power to hers. But not death magic—I pull from the flowers growing beneath my skin, from the life magic she gave me through the binding.
Together, we push back.
The oak stops rotting. The corruption burns away under our combined magic. And slowly, impossibly, the tree begins to heal.
New bark grows over the wound. Leaves sprout from dead branches. Within seconds, the oak stands whole again—stronger than before.
Sariel stares in disbelief. "That's impossible. Death magic can't heal—"
"Mine can now." I look at my hands, seeing both thorns and flowers. "Because I'm not just death anymore. We're balance."
"Then I'll unbalance you!" Sariel screams. She turns her corrupted magic on Lyssara. "Let's see you heal when your little witch is dead!"
The blast of dark magic flies toward Lyssara's heart.
Time seems to slow. I see her eyes widen. See her try to raise a shield. But she's exhausted from healing the tree, and the magic is too fast—
I move without thinking.
One moment I'm beside her. The next, I'm in front of her, my body blocking the attack.
The dark magic slams into my chest.
Pain. Worse than when I died the first time. Worse than anything in a thousand years. The corruption digs into me like acid, eating away at my power, my life force, everything—
"Kael!" Lyssara's scream tears through the bond.
I fall to my knees. The flowers beneath my skin wither and die. Black veins spread from where the magic hit, crawling toward my heart.
"No, no, no—" Lyssara drops beside me, her hands glowing gold as she tries to heal me. "Stay with me. Don't you dare die—"
"The binding," I gasp out. Blood fills my mouth. "If I die, you die too. Remember?"
Her face goes white. "Then don't die!"
But the corruption is spreading. I can feel it eating through the bond, reaching for her through our connection. If it reaches her, we both fall.
"You need to cut the bond," I say through gritted teeth. "Sever the connection before—"
"I'm not cutting anything!" She pours more magic into me, but it's like trying to fill a cup with a hole in the bottom. The corruption just eats it up. "There has to be another way—"
"There isn't." I grab her wrist, holding tight. "Lyssara, listen to me. The forest needs you. Someone has to stop Sariel. Let me go—"
"No!" Tears stream down her face. "We just found each other. You just started feeling again. I'm not letting you go back to being dead!"
Something in my chest—my newly beating heart—cracks at her words. This girl who I tried to kill hours ago, who every right to leave me to die, is fighting for me with everything she has.
"I don't want to lose you either," I whisper. "But I won't drag you into death with me."
Around us, Sariel is laughing. "How touching! The mighty Thorn King, brought down by trying to save someone. Did you forget? You're meant to kill, not protect. Death is what you are."
"He's more than that," Lyssara snarls, not looking away from me. "And I'm going to prove it."
She presses both hands to my chest where the corruption is worst. Her magic flares so bright I have to close my eyes.
"What are you doing?" I gasp.
"Something stupid." Her voice is strained. "I'm not just healing you. I'm taking the corruption into myself."
"No!" I try to push her away, but I'm too weak. "It'll kill you—"
"Maybe. Or maybe our bond will split it between us. Share the burden like we share everything else."
"That's insane—"
"You have a better idea?"
I don't. And the corruption is seconds from reaching my heart.
"Do it," I breathe.
Lyssara's magic surges. I feel her pulling the dark magic out of me, dragging it through the bond into herself. The pain in my chest eases—
But now she's screaming.
The corruption floods into her. Black veins spread across her skin, crawling up her neck, reaching for her face. She's shaking, her whole body convulsing as the dark magic battles her life force.
"Lyssara!" I force myself upright, grabbing her shoulders. "Let it go—"
"No." Her voice is barely a whisper. "Together, remember? We balance each other."
She's right. The bond—our bond—is humming with power. The corruption isn't choosing between us anymore. It's being split, shared equally.
And together, we're strong enough to survive it.
I pour my remaining strength into her. My death magic, which should make things worse, instead wraps around the corruption like chains. Containing it. Controlling it.
While her life magic burns away the parts we've trapped.
We're destroying the corruption from both sides—death to hold it, life to erase it.
Slowly, impossibly, the black veins begin to fade from both our bodies.
Sariel's laughter cuts off. "What? No! You should be dead!"
But we're not dead. We're standing—shakily, but standing—as the last of the corruption burns away.
The flowers return to my skin. The thorns return to hers. And through the bond, I feel what she feels: triumph. Determination. And underneath it all, something that might be the beginning of trust.
"We survived," she breathes.
"Together," I agree.
Sariel's face twists with rage. "Then I'll just have to try harder!"
She raises both hands, gathering so much corrupted magic that the air itself turns black. This isn't a careful attack—this is everything she has, meant to obliterate us both.
"This ends now!" she screams.
The magic builds and builds, a massive sphere of death that will destroy everything in the clearing—
Then a voice cuts through the chaos.
"Mother, stop!"
Everyone freezes.
A woman steps out of the forest. She's young, beautiful, with Sariel's sharp features but softer. Kinder. And she's wearing the robes of a healer, not an Inquisitor.
"Elara?" Sariel's voice shakes. "You're supposed to be at the capital—"
"I came as soon as I heard what you were doing." Elara walks forward, fearless despite the magic crackling around her mother. "This has to end. The burnings. The lies. The corruption."
"You don't understand," Sariel says desperately. "I'm protecting the kingdom—"
"You're destroying it!" Elara's voice breaks. "And you've destroyed yourself. Look at you—using corrupted death magic. The very thing you've executed hundreds of women for."
Sariel looks at her hands. At the black magic still swirling. For the first time, I see doubt flicker across her face.
"I did what was necessary," she whispers.
"You did what was easy," Elara says sadly. "You chose power over truth. Fear over faith. And now you're the very monster you claimed to fight."
The magic in Sariel's hands wavers.
"Elara, please—"
"Come home, Mother." Elara extends her hand. "Let them restore the covenant. Let the forest heal. Let yourself heal."
For a moment—just one moment—I think Sariel might surrender.
Then her face hardens. "No."
She turns all that corrupted magic inward, driving it into her own chest.
"Mother!" Elara screams.
Sariel's body convulses. The dark magic consumes her from the inside out. But instead of dying, she transforms. Her skin turns black as char. Her eyes burn red. Thorns—real thorns, not like mine—erupt from her flesh.
"If I can't control the forest," Sariel's voice echoes, no longer human, "then I'll become something that can destroy it."
She's turned herself into a monster. A creature of pure corrupted death magic.
And she's looking straight at us.
"Run," I tell Lyssara.
"Together," she corrects, grabbing my hand.
The monster that was Sariel roars.
And the real battle begins.