Phoryne Rose's Arc

Chapter 15 of 5

Taio stiffened before Phoryne heard anything. His red leaves went gray. He pressed a hand flat to the nearest trunk, and the whole forest seemed to hold still. "Something changed," he said, low. "The rose. The one at your old home." He turned to her. "It died just now. I felt the pull it made." Phoryne's throat went dry. The cutting she had planted. The last thing keeping Alaric's hunter magic guessing. "It's dead," she said. "So he knows exactly where to look." "He waits at my treeline," Taio said. "Right where I turned the other woman out. He cannot come in. But the moment you step past my cover, he takes you." His jaw worked. He would not lose another this way. Koot shot up from the moss, wings buzzing hard. The tiny fairy had guided Phoryne to this forest and stayed near ever since. Her pink eyes were furious, which was how they always looked. "Then she doesn't step out, tree-man," Koot snapped. "Simple. She stays. We keep her safe from in here." "My forest is your safety," Taio said. He looked at Phoryne. "Stay inside my domain. Do not let him bait you out." But Phoryne was already walking toward the edge. She had run so long. She wanted to see the thing that hunted her with her own eyes, once, while a wall of trees still held it back. Taio caught her arm. "No," he said. "I'll stop at the last tree," she said. "I promise." She stopped where the trunks thinned. Alaric stood on the open grass beyond, dark coat still, runes black on his hands. His blue eyes found her at once. "Phoryne," he said. His voice was soft and flat, the way it had always been. "Your rose is dead. That means you come home." "I'm not yours," she said. "One step," Alaric said. "That is all the binding needs." He held out a gloved hand and waited, patient as stone. He knew she could not stay in a forest forever. Taio stepped in front of her. His voice dropped to a bass growl that shook the ground. "She walks my path now. You get nothing here." Roots lifted from the soil and knit into a wall between the trees, thick and black with earth. Alaric did not flinch. He simply looked past the roots at Phoryne, marking that she was here, that she was real, that the wall would not last her whole life. "I can wait," Alaric said. The roots sealed shut. Phoryne could not see him anymore. But she felt the change settle in her chest like a stone. The cutting was gone. Her hiding place had a clock on it now. She turned to Taio and Koot. "Then we don't wait," she said. "You give me the the bloom. Today." Taio's leaves flushed red again. "Today," he agreed.