Page 78 of Eternal Thorns

Kai tried to look away, but Silas wouldn't let him. “You really think titles matter to me? After everything we've been through? That day in the woods when we first met - you didn't see an Ashworth heir. You saw some idiot noble kid holding his bow wrong.”

A ghost of a smile touched Kai's lips. “You were going to shoot your own foot off.”

“Probably. But you didn't care about my family name. You just helped. No judgment, no social climbing, just...” Silas's voice roughened with emotion. “Just my best friend telling me I was being an idiot.”

“Still are, sometimes.” Kai's hands stopped reaching for the false path, his eyes clearing slightly.

“Yeah, well, that's why I need you here. Someone has to keep me honest.” Silas felt the shadow entity's influence weakening as truth cut through its lies. “You're not just my friend, Kai. You're my brother. The only person besides my grandmother who's always seen me, not my title.”

Tears slid down Kai's face as the corruption's hold broke completely. “Fuck. I hate magic that makes me feel things.”

“I know.” Silas pulled him into a rough hug. “But that's how we beat it.”

“Still an idiot noble,” Kai muttered against his shoulder, but his voice held familiar warmth. “Getting us both killed chasing after your terrifying forest spirit boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” Silas grinned as they broke apart. “But you wouldn't have it any other way.”

“True.” Kai wiped his eyes, straightening with renewed purpose. “Someone has to tell this story later. 'The day my best friend fell in love with living shadow and we all nearly died.' It'll be great at parties.”

The shadow entity shifted tactics,abandoning subtlety for raw psychological assault. It pulled images directly from Thorne's memories now. But each scene twisted halfway through, showing how that trust could corrupt, how that love might poison everything.

“Stay focused,” Silas told Kai, who kept flinching at shadows that wore familiar faces. “It's learning our weaknesses. Testing what hurts most.”

“Easy for you to say.” Kai's attempt at humor sounded brittle. “Your true love's noble sacrifice protects you. Some of us just have regular old friendship to work with.”

But even as he spoke, Agnes's protection charm flared around his neck, pushing back a particularly vicious illusion.

A sound like Thorne's laugh echoed through twisted trees, carrying traces of genuine warmth that made Silas's heart ache.

“It's getting stronger,” Silas realized, watching corruption spread in their wake.

“Then maybe we should-” Kai's suggestion cut off as darkness coalesced into Thorne's form ahead of them.

The apparition looked perfect. But its eyes held wrong shadows, and its smile curved with cruel purpose.

“Everything changes. Everything corrupts. That's the natural order of things.” It said in Thorne’s voice.

But the bracelet pulsed once, weakly.

“Nice try,” Silas said, stepping forward. “But you still don't understand. Real connection isn't about staying pure or perfect. It's about choosing each other even through darkness.”

Time was running out. But somewhere in this twisted nightmare, Thorne waited - changed but not destroyed, corrupted but not lost

The change hit without warning.One moment they were navigating twisted shadows, the next they stood in perfect sunlight. Silas's breath caught as he recognized where they'd emerged - their sacred grove, untouched by corruption, exactly as it had been the first time Thorne showed it to him.

“Silas.”

The voice struck him. He turned and saw Thorne stood in the grove's heart, crown of branches catching sunlight exactly as it should, luminous patterns flowing across his skin in their original silver beauty. No trace of corruption marked his ethereal form as he moved forward with familiar grace.

“This isn't...” Kai's warning faded as protective magic flared around him, pushing him back toward the grove's edge. “Shit. Silas, don't-”

But Silas barely heard him. Everything he'd been fighting toward, everything his heart ached to reclaim, stood before him whole and perfect. Thorne's hand reached for him with such achingly familiar gentleness.

“It's alright now,” Thorne said softly, his voice carrying all the warmth and wisdom Silas remembered. “I found a way to contain the corruption. We can stay here, safe in our sacred space. Just take my hand.”

“I've missed you,” Thorne murmured. “Missed teaching you, watching you work with forest magic. We can have that again. Just accept what I'm offering.”

Silas's hand lifted unconsciously, drawn toward that promised comfort. But as their fingers nearly touched, something caught his attention. A detail so small it almost slipped past.

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