Chapter 38: The Crown of Thorns

Chapter 38: The Crown of Thorns
(Evelyn POV)
The chalice pulsed in my hands, its remaining tears swirling with urgent visions a forest choked with thorns, a diadem hanging from gnarled branches, and screams. So many screams.
"There." I pointed at the vision's location burned into my mind. "Three miles north, past the Elder Mire. That's where the next relic is."
Tristan adjusted the straps on his pack, still moving stiffly despite Morgana's healing draughts. The brown had returned fully to his eyes, but shadows lingered beneath them. "A forest? After everything with those marshes, you want to walk into another cursed woodland?"
"Azrael's echo legions are already mobilizing." Rowan leaned against the infirmary's doorframe, his shirt open to accommodate the bandages covering his expanded shadow scar. The black veins sprawled across his chest like twisted roots, pulsing faintly. "We need offensive power, not just defensive relics. The chalice purifies, the orb shields but we need something that strikes back."
"He's right." Torren checked his sword, his expression grim. "My scouts report villages burning in Eastmarch. Duplicated soldiers marching in formation. We're losing ground fast."
Lila appeared with travel cloaks and provisions, her usual efficiency masking the tremor in her hands. "I'm coming with you."
"No." I took the supplies from her. "You're needed here. Someone has to coordinate"
"Someone has to watch your back when these two are busy trying to out-martyr each other." She jerked her chin at Rowan and Tristan, who both had the grace to look away. "Besides, you'll need someone level-headed when whatever's in that forest tries to twist your mind."
She wasn't wrong. I nodded reluctantly. "Fine. But stay close and follow orders."
We left within the hour the four of us plus two of Torren's best guards. The crypts would have to wait. Whatever called to me from those depths would keep; the civilians dying in Eastmarch wouldn't.
The journey to the forest took us through scorched farmland where Azrael's forces had passed. Homes stood empty, their doors hanging open. In one yard, a child's toy lay abandoned in the mud a carved horse, its painted mane faded but still bright enough to hurt looking at.
"Keep moving." Torren's voice was rough. "Nothing we can do for them now except end this."
The forest rose ahead like a wall of thorns. Not normal brambles these were thick as a man's arm, twisted together in impossible patterns, their thorns black and gleaming like obsidian. As we approached, I heard it: voices, whispering through the branches.
"I should have told her the truth..."
"If only I'd been braver..."
"I killed him. Gods forgive me, I killed him..."
Lila grabbed my arm. "Are those"
"Regrets." The chalice showed me more: echo vines that fed on remorse, strangling anyone who ventured too deep with the weight of their own failures and the failures of everyone who'd died here. "They replay what people wish they'd done differently. Over and over until"
A skeleton hung in the thorns ahead, its bones wrapped in vines, mouth frozen in a scream.
"Until that," Tristan finished grimly.
Rowan stepped forward, his shadow scar pulsing. "The crownwhere exactly is it?"
I consulted the chalice's vision. "Center of the forest. There's a clearing with a dead tree. The crown hangs from its branches."
"Of course it does." One of Torren's guards a young woman named Serra laughed nervously. "Because finding a cursed crown in a normal place would be too easy."
We pressed into the forest, blades drawn. The whispers intensified immediately, wrapping around us like physical things.
"Why didn't you save them?" A voice that sounded like my father's.
"You left me to die." My mother's voice, accusing.
I gritted my teeth, pushing forward. Behind me, Tristan stumbled, his face going pale. "Evelyn, I'm hearing they're saying I abandoned you. That I let you marry Rowan because I was too coward to"
"It's not real!" I grabbed his arm, steadying him. "The vines are using our guilt against us. Don't listen."
But the voices grew louder. Rowan clutched his head, the shadow scar flaring. "You threw her off that cliff. Monster. Betrayer. She'll never forgive you."
"I know!" he shouted at the empty air. "I know what I did!"
The vines reacted to his outburst, whipping toward him with frightening speed. I slashed with my dagger, but the thorns were too thick. One wrapped around Rowan's ankle, yanking him off his feet. He hit the ground hard, and immediately more vines surged forward, winding up his legs.
"Rowan!" I hacked at the vines, but for every one I cut, two more appeared. The whispers became screams his screams, replaying his regrets in an endless loop.
"I never wanted to hurt her! I was weak! I was so weak!"
Tristan grabbed my shoulder. "Evelyn, we need to keep moving! If we get bogged down here"
"I'm not leaving him!" I channeled power through my rune, and it flared with silver light. The vines recoiled slightly, hissing. "Everyone, form up! Back to back!"
We clustered together, weapons out, as the echo vines closed in. They moved like serpents, their whispers now a deafening cacophony of every regret, every failure, every moment of weakness we'd ever experienced.
Lila swung her rose-thorn whip, its druidic enchantments crackling. "There! I see the clearing!"
She was right. Through the mass of thorns, I glimpsed open space and the skeletal silhouette of a dead tree. And hanging from its branches
The Crown of Thorns.
It was beautiful in a terrible way. Black thorns woven into a delicate circlet, each thorn tipped with something that looked like dried blood. It pulsed with dark power, calling to my rune, to the Westfall magic in my blood.
"I need to reach it." I pushed forward, the vines grabbing at my legs, my arms. The whispers targeted me specifically now.
"Your people are dying because you're weak."
"You loved the wrong man."
"You'll fail, just like Aeloria failed."
"Shut up!" I screamed, slashing wildly. My rune burned white-hot, and I used that pain to fuel my advance. One step. Another. The clearing was so close
A vine wrapped around my throat, cutting off my air. I clawed at it uselessly as it lifted me off the ground. My vision spotted. The whispers became a roar.
Then Rowan was there, his shadow scar blazing. He grabbed the vine with his bare hands, and where his corrupted flesh touched it, the plant withered. "Go!" he choked out, his own neck bleeding from thorn wounds. "Get the crown!"
I dropped, gasping, and ran. Tristan and Torren covered my flanks, cutting through vines. Lila's whip kept the worst at bay. We burst into the clearing, and I lunged for the dead tree.
The crown seemed to float just out of reach. I jumped, my fingers brushing thorns, and pain lanced through my hand. But I caught it, yanked it down, and
The world exploded with agony.
Not physical pain something worse. I was drowning in emotion, in the raw, unfiltered feelings of everyone around me. Rowan's crushing guilt, sharp as broken glass. Tristan's jealousy, a bitter poison he'd been swallowing for years. Lila's fear that she wasn't enough, that she'd fail when I needed her most. Torren's grief for every soldier he'd lost. Serra's terror of dying alone.
It was too much. Too much. I fell to my knees, screaming, the crown clutched in my hands. The thorns dug into my palms, drawing blood, and with my blood came power the crown activated.
Vines erupted from the ground, but these were mine. Silver-traced, controlled, responding to my will. They lashed out at the echo vines, entangling them, ripping them from their roots. But the emotional onslaught didn't stop. I could feel myself fracturing under the weight of so much pain.
"Evelyn!" Rowan's voice, distant. Then his hands on mine, covering the crown. His shadow scar flared, connecting with the relic, and suddenly the burden split between us.
His guilt flooded me fully the moment he decided to betray me, the sick feeling as he led me to the cliff, the horror as I fell. But also his love, buried deep beneath the corruption. Real love, twisted by Azrael's influence but still there, still fighting.
And he felt my pain the betrayal, yes, but also my lingering affection for him, the part of me that wanted to forgive despite everything.
"I'm sorry," he gasped, his forehead pressed against mine, blood from both our wounds mixing on the crown. "I'm so, so sorry."
The shadow scar pulsed, amplifying the crown's power. The vines I'd summoned grew stronger, forming a barrier around our group a dome of thorns that nothing could penetrate. The echo vines screamed and retreated, their whispers fading.
Slowly, painfully, I pulled back from Rowan, breaking the connection. The emotional assault dimmed to a manageable throb. I looked down at the crown in my hands, its thorns now slick with our blood.
"It works," I said hoarsely. "I can command vines. Create barriers. But the cost" I looked at Rowan, at the haunted expression on his face. "We shared everything. Every feeling."
"I know." He stumbled back, the shadow scar pulsing erratically. "I felt... I felt how much I hurt you. The full weight of it."
Tristan helped me stand, his expression carefully neutral. "Can you walk?"
"I have to." I secured the crown to my belt, not willing to wear it again unless absolutely necessary. "Let's get out of here before"
Lila's scream cut me off.
She was on her knees at the clearing's edge, one hand pressed to her temple, the other outstretched. A thin vine barely visible, almost translucent had wrapped around her wrist. As I watched, it sank into her skin, leaving a mark like a silver bracelet.
"Lila!" I ran to her, but the vine had already disappeared. The mark remained, pulsing faintly.
"I'm fine," she gasped, though her face was pale. "It didn't hurt, it just" Her eyes rolled back, and she went rigid.
"Lila!" I caught her as she collapsed. Her eyes were moving beneath closed lids, rapid and frantic. "What's happening to her?"
Torren checked her pulse. "Steady. She's breathing. But"
Lila's eyes snapped open, glowing with that same silver light as her bracelet. When she spoke, her voice was distant, dreamy. "I see it. I see what's coming."
"See what?" I gripped her shoulders. "Lila, what do you see?"
"The spirit." Her voice cracked. "It's... splitting. Not one form anymore. Multiple. Three of them, maybe four. Each one targeting someone different." Her glowing eyes found mine. "One has Tristan's face. Another wears your mother's. The third" She shuddered. "The third is coming for the castle. For the children in the village below."
The glow faded, and she sagged in my arms, unconscious but breathing.
"The vines cursed her," Rowan said quietly. "Gave her prophetic sight. She'll see the future now fragments of it, at least."
"Can we remove it?" I looked at the silver mark on her wrist.
"Not without killing her." He met my eyes. "I've seen curses like this before. They're woven into the life force. Part of her now."
I gathered Lila in my arms, standing despite my exhaustion. "Then we use it. If she can see what's coming, we can prepare." I looked at each of them in turn Tristan, still recovering from corruption; Rowan, marked by Azrael's scar; Torren and Serra, exhausted but determined. "We have the crown. We have warning. And we have each other."
"The spirit's splitting itself," Tristan said. "That means it's getting stronger, not weaker. Strong enough to divide and still maintain power."
"Or desperate enough to spread itself thin." I adjusted my grip on Lila. "Either way, we need to get back to Rosehaven. Prepare defenses. Because if those forms attack simultaneously"
"We'll be fighting on multiple fronts," Torren finished. "Against enemies wearing the faces of people we love."
We started back through the forest, the crown's power keeping the echo vines at bay. But as we walked, I couldn't shake the weight of what I'd felt through that crown Rowan's love and guilt tangled together, Tristan's jealousy eating at him like acid, everyone's pain layered on top of my own.
The spirit fed on broken vows and betrayal. And we were giving it plenty to feast on.
Lila stirred in my arms, her eyes fluttering. "Evelyn," she murmured. "The dream... one of the spirit's forms... it's already at Rosehaven. It's waiting for us."