Crown of withered thorns

Chapter 9: The contract of thorns

The sky over the City of Black-Iron didn't just turn dark; it turned predatory. The Star-Shard’s beam acted like a hook in the gut of the heavens, pulling the wrath of the High Lords down upon us.

"Cyprian, we’re trapped!" Elowen’s voice was nearly lost in the shrieking of the city’s alarm bells. "The gates are melting! I saw the guards—they didn't even fight. They just turned to salt when the light touched them!"

I gripped the hilt of the Void-Steel, the black metal pulsing against my palm. Around us, the mercenary hub was a hive of panic. Sellswords who had killed for a copper were now weeping on their knees, praying to the very Sun-Lords who were currently aiming a cosmic execution at our heads.

"They aren't here for the city, Elowen. They're here for the glitch," I said, my eyes tracking the six streaks of fire screaming through the clouds. "And as long as we’re on foot, we're just targets in a shooting gallery."

"Then what do we do? You can't fight six of them! Not after the tournament!"

I looked at her. Her face was smudged with soot, her eyes wide with a terror that no weaver’s daughter should ever have to carry. I reached out and grabbed her hand, my skin burning with the golden heat of my marrow.

"There is one way. But you’re going to hate me for it."

"I already hate you for dragging me into this!" she snapped, though she didn't pull her hand away. "Just tell me!"

"The Contract of Thorns," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "It’s a soul-binding ritual. Forbidden by the Warden Council, erased from the archives. It links our life forces. My Ichor becomes your shield; your life-breath becomes my anchor. We can jump through the folds of space—teleportation—but it comes at a price."

"What price?"

"Pain. The kind of pain that makes death look like a mercy," I said. "And once the knot is tied, it can't be cut. If I die, you wither. If you fall, I break. Our fates become a single thread."

A massive boom shook the ground. A Sun-Spike, a literal pillar of solidified divine wrath, slammed into the tavern thirty yards away. The building didn't collapse; it simply ceased to exist, replaced by a crater of white-hot slag. The shockwave threw us against a stone wall.

"They're zeroing in!" I yelled, pulling her up. "Elowen! Look at me! You want to die as a weaver’s daughter in this shithole, or do you want to live as a queen of the Briar?"

Elowen looked at the pillar of fire, then at my hand. The silver mist of her Witch-Sight was leaking from her eyes like tears. "Will it save us?"

"It will give us a fighting chance."

"Then do it!" she screamed over the roar of the approaching fire-streaks. "Bind us, damn you! Just don't let the light take me!"

I didn't hesitate. I bit my thumb and drew a jagged, glowing rune of golden blood across her palm, then pressed it against the Sun-Spike brand on my own chest.

"By the blood of the Warden and the breath of the Witch," I intoned, my marrow beginning to boil. "I sow the seeds of the Withered Thorns. Bind the root! Bind the branch!"

"Cyprian!" Elowen shrieked as black, obsidian-like thorns began to erupt from the air around us. They didn't grow from the ground; they tore through the fabric of reality itself.

The pain hit us both. It was like having my skeleton replaced with molten lead while my soul was dragged through a field of broken glass. Elowen’s scream merged with mine. I felt her heart beating inside my own ribs—rapid, terrified, but holding.

"Hold on to me!" I roared. "Don't let go of the thread!"

Through the haze of agony, I saw the first Executioner land. He was ten feet tall, clad in armor made of mirrors that reflected the burning city. He raised a hand, and a sphere of "Holy Fire" began to form, capable of erasing every soul in a five-mile radius.

"Target identified," the Executioner’s voice boomed, a sound that felt like it was erasing my very thoughts. "Deleting glitch."

"Not today, you hollow bastard," I spat.

I triggered the contract.

The black thorns wrapped around us, tighter and tighter, until we were cocooned in a sphere of jagged shadow. The space around us buckled. I saw the Executioner launch the Holy Fire—a wall of white heat that turned the cobblestones to gas.

But we weren't there anymore.

The last thing I saw was the City of Black-Iron being swallowed by a dome of pure, silent white light. Then, the thorns snapped shut, and we were plunged into the screaming void between worlds.

^^^^^

We slammed into the ground with the force of a falling star. The air here was different—cold, thick with the scent of wet iron and rot. I coughed, tasting copper. My vision was a blurred mess of gray and shadow.

"Elowen?" I rasped, trying to move my arm. It felt like it was filled with jagged glass.

A groan came from a few feet away. I crawled toward the sound, my fingers digging into soil that felt like crushed bone. I found her hand, still linked to mine by a faint, glowing thread of black ichor.

"I’m... I’m alive," she whispered, her voice cracking. "But I can't feel my legs, Cyprian. And I can't see the sun."

"Good," I said, forcing myself upright. "That means we made it. Welcome to the Abyssal Reach."

I looked up. There was no sky, only a ceiling of jagged rock dripping with glowing moss. But the silence was short-lived. From the darkness of the tunnels ahead, a low, rhythmic chanting began to echo.

It wasn't the Sun-Lords. It was something much older.

"Who’s there?" Elowen gripped my sleeve.

"The ones who have been waiting for the Warden to return," I whispered, drawing the Void-Steel. The blade didn't just glow; it hummed with a hungry, murderous intent.

Figures began to emerge from the gloom—shambling husks wearing the rotted remains of Oakhaven armor. At their head stood a man I thought I’d buried a lifetime ago.

"The contract is signed," the man said, his voice a hollow rattle. "Now, give us the girl, and maybe we'll let you keep your soul."

I stood in front of Elowen, the black thorns of the contract beginning to swirl around us again. "You'll have to take it from my cold, dead marrow first."