Lyssara's POV
Pain.
That's the first thing I feel when the light fades. Not the arrow wound in my shoulder—this is deeper, like something inside me is being pulled apart and rewoven.
I'm on my knees, gasping. My hands are pressed flat against warm earth that pulses with a heartbeat. The Thorn King is beside me, also doubled over, his breathing ragged.
"What—" I can barely speak. "What did we just do?"
"Look at your hands."
I do. And my heart stops.
My skin is marked with thorns. Not drawn or tattooed—actually growing beneath the surface, black vines that wind from my wrists to my elbows. They move. Shift. Like they're alive.
"No, no, no—" I try to scratch them off, but they don't budge.
"Stop." The Thorn King catches my wrist. His touch doesn't shock me anymore—it feels right, like our hands were made to fit together. "Look at mine."
He extends his arms. Where thorns have always covered his skin, golden flowers now bloom. Roses growing through shadow, life threaded through death.
We've been marked by each other.
"The binding." His voice is rough with wonder. "We're connected now. Truly connected."
I pull my hand away, standing on shaking legs. "You should have warned me it would hurt."
"I didn't know." He rises too, studying his flower-marked arms like they're weapons he doesn't understand. "I've never bound myself to anyone. The covenant never—"
An explosion rocks the garden.
We both spin toward the tunnel entrance. Smoke pours through, and with it comes Sariel's triumphant laugh.
"Found you!"
She emerges with a dozen armed soldiers, all carrying torches. The flames reflect in her wild eyes.
"Did you really think you could hide in the forest's heart?" She spreads her arms like she's giving a blessing. "This place is an abomination. The old magic that should have died centuries ago. But don't worry—I brought enough fire to cleanse it properly."
"You'll destroy everything!" I shout. "The Heart Tree is what keeps the forest alive—"
"Good!" Sariel's smile is mad. "Let it die. Let this cursed place burn until nothing remains but ash and memory. Then we'll build something pure on top of its corpse."
The Thorn King steps in front of me. "You'll have to go through me first."
"Gladly." Sariel gestures, and her soldiers raise crossbows. "Though I'm curious—why protect the witch? She's the reason your precious covenant failed. She's the contamination that broke a thousand years of tradition."
"The tradition was already broken," he says coldly. "It's been dying for centuries, and you knew it. That's why you're so desperate to stop us from fixing it."
Something flickers across Sariel's face. Fear.
"You don't know anything," she hisses.
"I know you're terrified of losing control." The Thorn King's thorns begin to writhe. "For decades, you've used the sacrifice to maintain power. The kingdom fears the forest, so they need you to protect them. But if the covenant is restored, if the forest becomes something other than a death trap, you become irrelevant."
"That's a lie—"
"Is it?" I step out from behind him, my own magic flaring gold. "How many women have you burned, Sariel? How many girls did you call witches just because they threatened your authority?"
Her face twists with rage. "Your mother deserved what she got! She was healing people for free, teaching others her magic. If we'd let her live, life-mages would have spread like disease. The kingdom would have stopped needing the Inquisition, stopped needing me—"
"So you killed her." My voice breaks. "You murdered my mother because she made you obsolete."
"I killed her because she was dangerous!" Sariel screams. "Just like you! Just like everyone with your cursed power!" She levels a finger at me. "And now look what you've done—bound yourself to the Thorn King, corrupted the Heart Tree with your filthy magic. You're destroying the natural order!"
"The natural order is balance!" I yell back. "Life and death together! Not your twisted version where only death matters!"
"Enough talk." Sariel signals her soldiers. "Kill them both. Burn the tree. End this."
The soldiers advance with torches raised.
The Thorn King's hand finds mine. The moment we touch, power explodes between us.
Not just his death magic or my life magic—both combined into something new. The thorns from my arms burst outward, creating a barrier of living vines that catch fire but don't burn. His flowers glow so bright the soldiers stumble back, shielding their eyes.
"I can feel your magic," I gasp. "It's flowing through me—"
"And yours through me." He sounds shaken. "This is what the binding means. We share power now."
Sariel recovers first. "Then you'll die together! Archers—"
The arrows fly.
I throw up my hands instinctively. Golden light flares, and the arrows... stop. Suspended in mid-air, wrapped in vines that catch them gently and lower them to the ground.
"How did I—" I stare at my hands.
"You used my magic," the Thorn King says. "Thorns. And I used yours—the light."
We look at each other, and in that moment, I understand. The binding didn't just connect us. It made us stronger. Together, we're what the covenant always needed—perfect balance.
Sariel sees it too. Her face goes white with fury.
"Formation!" she screams at her soldiers. "Surround them! Don't let them touch the Heart Tree!"
But it's too late.
The Heart Tree itself has been watching, waiting. Now it responds to the completed binding. Roots burst from the earth, wrapping around Sariel's forces. Branches reach down like protective arms, shielding us.
And from deep within the trunk, a door opens.
Not carved—just appearing, like it was always there but hidden. Light spills from inside, golden and silver mixed together. And with it comes a voice. Not words, but feelings so powerful they drive us both to our knees.
Enter. Complete the covenant. Become what you were meant to be.
"No!" Sariel breaks free from the roots holding her, sprinting toward us. "You can't! If you finish the binding, if you become the bridge—"
"What?" I challenge her. "What happens if we complete it?"
"You'll become immortal!" she shrieks. "Bound to the forest forever, just like he is! You'll lose your humanity, your freedom—everything! Is that what you want? To be trapped in this cursed place for eternity?"
I freeze. Immortal. Trapped. Forever.
The Thorn King's hand tightens on mine. "She's telling the truth," he says quietly. "If we complete the binding through the Heart Tree, we'll become part of the forest itself. Guardians. Eternal." His storm-gray eyes meet mine. "Is that what you want?"
"I don't—" My voice cracks. "I don't know."
Because yesterday I was nobody. The family shame locked in an attic. And now I'm being asked to bind myself forever to a man I barely know, to a forest that might consume me, to a future I can't imagine.
"You don't have to do this," the Thorn King says, and I hear real concern in his voice. "We can fight them. Try to escape. I won't force you into eternity with me."
"But if we don't complete it, the forest dies," I whisper.
"Yes."
"And the kingdom dies with it."
"Eventually, yes."
"And Sariel wins."
His jaw clenches. "Yes."
I look at Sariel, mad with power and fear. At the soldiers who followed her orders without question. At the burning torches meant to destroy everything.
Then I look at the Thorn King. At his flower-marked arms. At his face, no longer empty but filled with emotion—fear and hope and something that might be the beginning of trust.
"I've spent my whole life being small," I say slowly. "Being nothing. Accepting scraps and calling it kindness." I turn to face the Heart Tree's open door. "I won't do that anymore."
"Lyssara—"
"I choose this." I step toward the light. "I choose life. And death. And balance. And you."
The Thorn King's expression transforms—shock melting into something fierce and grateful.
"Together, then." He matches my step.
We walk toward the door hand in hand. Behind us, Sariel screams orders. Arrows fly. Fire roars.
But the Heart Tree protects its chosen ones.
We cross the threshold into light.
And everything changes.
The garden vanishes. The soldiers vanish. Even Sariel's screaming fades to nothing.
We're standing in a place that isn't a place—pure light and shadow swirling together, warm and cold, life and death dancing around us.
And before us, taking shape from the light itself, is a woman.
She's made of starlight and tree bark, flowers and thorns, everything the forest is and was and could be. Her eyes are ancient beyond measure.
"Welcome," the Forest Spirit says, her voice like wind through leaves. "You have chosen to bind yourselves as guardians. But before I complete the covenant, you must understand what you're accepting."
"We understand," the Thorn King says.
"Do you?" The Spirit's gaze pins us both. "You will be immortal, yes. But immortality means watching everything you love die. It means centuries of loneliness. It means sacrifice."
"We've already sacrificed everything," I point out. "What's left to lose?"
"Each other."
The air freezes.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
The Spirit gestures, and images appear in the light—visions of possible futures. In some, the Thorn King and I stand together, hands clasped, ruling the forest in harmony. In others, we're fighting, our powers turned against each other, tearing the forest apart.
"The binding is powerful," the Spirit explains. "But it is also dangerous. You are opposites—life and death, light and shadow. You will balance each other or destroy each other. There is no middle ground."
"Then we'll balance," the Thorn King says firmly.
"Can you promise that?" The Spirit looks at him. "You, who have felt nothing for a thousand years? You're just learning to feel again. What happens when grief comes? When anger? When jealousy or fear or despair? Your emotions will be weapons you don't know how to control."
He falters.
The Spirit turns to me. "And you, child of life—can you carry the weight of death? Because that's what he'll bring you. Darkness. Shadow. The memory of every kill he's ever made. Can you love someone with blood on his hands?"
"I don't know," I whisper honestly. "But I'm willing to try."
"Trying isn't enough. The forest needs certainty."
"Then it's going to be disappointed," I snap, surprising myself. "Because I'm human. We don't do certainty. We do hope and fear and terrible choices. And right now, my terrible choice is this: bind me to him or let Sariel destroy everything. Those are the options."
The Spirit studies me for a long moment. Then she smiles.
"Good answer."
She reaches out, touching both our chests where the marks appeared. Light blazes—gold and silver mixing, thorns and flowers intertwining.
"Then I bind you," the Spirit says. "Life to Death. Light to Shadow. Two halves of one whole. You will share power, share pain, share everything. And if one of you falls, the other falls with them. This is the burden and the gift of the covenant."
The light intensifies until I can't see anything but brightness.
Then it all goes dark.
I wake up gasping.
I'm lying on soft grass. The garden is whole again—the Heart Tree glowing with renewed life, its rot completely healed. The soldiers are gone. Sariel is gone.
And beside me, the Thorn King sits up, looking as disoriented as I feel.
"Did it work?" I ask.
He holds up his hand. The flowers beneath his skin bloom and fade in rhythm with his heartbeat. When I check my own arms, the thorns shift and curl with each breath.
"It worked," he says.
We're bound. Truly, completely, eternally bound.
I should be terrified. Instead, I feel... whole.
"What now?" I whisper.
The Thorn King helps me stand. Beyond the garden, through the tunnels that lead back to the surface, I can hear sounds. Shouting. Fighting.
"Now," he says, his voice harder, "we deal with the people who tried to kill us."
His hand finds mine, and power surges between us—ready, willing, dangerous.
"Together?" I ask.
"Together."
We walk toward the tunnel, toward the sounds of battle, toward whatever comes next.
Behind us, the Heart Tree whispers its blessing: Balance restored. The covenant lives. Long live the King and Queen of Thorns.