Page 35 of The Arrow and the Alder

“I never forget my place,kith,” she spat. “Every day of my life, I am reminded of it. I watch men who think they are better than me take what I’ve earned with my cracked and bleeding hands while my family starves and dies.My placehas no power to stop them, so survival is all I’m left to fight for, because no one fights for me.”

He looked at her, and…

Looked at her.

Marks leaned his head back a fraction, as if to better see her face. A crease formed between his brows before he glanced past her, at the mist, where his gaze grew distant. He was like a hearth grown cold, as if her words had splashed water over flame.

“No one will fight for you here, either,” he said at last. Something softer laced his words this time, but he still took a giant step around her and walked on.

For a moment, Seph watched him go, knowing he hoped she’d give up and go east. Instead, she clutched his coat close and followed. He didn’t look back again, or speak, though she still trailed him. Seph had so many questions, but she was too weary to ask them, or talk anymore. She was depleted of both physical and emotional strength. All the running, and surviving, and the basic lack of sleep was catching up to her, and it required all her attention just to keep pace with him, to not succumb to exhaustion.

The night dragged on, and Seph wondered if Marks intended to travel straight till dawn. She would’ve asked, but she was too tired and didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. She made every effort to keep up, but her steps began to drag, and it wasn’t long before a boot caught and Seph collapsed.

Get up,she told herself, groaning as she shoved herself up. Her motions were sluggish and lazy, and by the time she climbed to her feet, she half expected Marks to be gone.

He wasn’t.

He was standing a dozen paces ahead, studying her, though his expression was indecipherable. “There is an old watchtower ahead, about an hour away. Can you make it?”

Seph could not hide her relief, and she nodded with heavily lidded eyes. “Iwillmake it.”

He studied her a moment more before turning to walk on.

Seph couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to have slowed his pace a little too.

They eventually reached a wide stair, cut out of rock, that hugged the side of a sheer granite wall. Marks took one fleeting glance back at her before ascending, and Seph staggered after, trailing her hand along the wall for support. The stair ended at a small lawn, where an old stone tower stood, partially obscured by mist.

The tower looked like it hadn’t been used in a century. Vines and grasses climbed the outer walls as though trying to drag the structure back into the earth. The windows were dark and broken, and moss carpeted the fissures and cracks upon the outer wall. It was like looking at a memory, a ghost of the past, forever haunting its perch.

As Marks neared the door, Seph noted the symbols etched into the lintel, though she could not read them. He stopped at the threshold, surveyed the shadows within, and ducked inside, taking his enchanted light with him. Seph clutched his coat tight and followed.

The tower had been hollowed out inside, providing a single cylindrical room with dirt flooring, narrow windows, and a winding wooden stair that led to a hatch in the roof above. More kith symbols had been etched into the wooden rafters, upon the shutters, and into the stones surrounding the windows. Enchantments, Seph presumed. Altogether, it was very simple, its function no more than the name: a secure tower for keeping watch. An old weapons’ rack sat off to one side, though it was empty and blanketed in thick cobwebs, and a single broken bed frame stood beside it. There was no pallet to sleep upon. Only rotting slats of old wood.

Marks crossed the room and let his pack slide down his arm and fall to the floor. He unhooked the bow and quiver from his shoulders, leaning them carefully against the weapons’ rack. Now that they weren’t walking, she noted the symbols etched into his bow and quiver. Seph might have liked to get a closer look, but she was so tired, she slumped to the ground beside the bed frame and closed her eyes. She knew she should have taken more precautions for their safety, but right then, she was too weary to care.

A moment later—or at least it felt like a moment—wood creaked and groaned. Seph forced her eyes open a sliver and spotted the kith climbing the stairs. “Where are you going?” she asked sleepily.

“To keep watch. Go to sleep,” he answered, but she didn’t hear.

She was already asleep.

It was the silence that woke Seph. The utter completeness of it. There had always been sound in Harran, from creaking walls to Nora’s coughing to Mama’s soft snores to a distant infant’s cry, but here there wasnothing—nothing but the sound of Seph’s breathing and the beating of her pounding heart.

She didn’t recall falling asleep. In fact, it took her a moment to remember where she was. That she wasnotsleeping beside Linnea in their loft in little Harran, and the enchanted stone glowing near her feet reminded her that she wasn’t even in Kestwich.

She was on a dirt floor in a tower, in Canna—the kith lands.

With akith.

Only…Seph didn’t see any sign of him.

She sat up. Had he changed his mind? Had he left her for dead after all? Seph glanced around, spotting his bow and quiver still leaning against the weapons’ rack. She exhaled, feeling a moment’s relief while gazing at the bow and its elegant shape, smoothed to a shine, like polished onyx. She hadn’t been able to appreciate the weapon before, with all her surviving and exhaustion, butsaints, it was exquisite. It surprised her that this wild kith would arm himself with something so refined, and not for the first time, Seph wondered who he was beneath all of that hair.

A name did not reveal very much.

She didn’t believe for a second that Marks was his true name, but since he was her only way through this foreign landscape and impenetrable mist, she let it go. For now.

Unable to help herself, Seph crawled over to his bow and plucked it from the weapons’ rack. It was featherlight, the wood grain as smooth as glass, accented only by the little enchantments engraved onto the surface. Seph wished she knew what they meant. Their language commanded the power of a god, and it was carved all over this world. The bowstring had been made of woven, silken black hairs, and with one great and straining effort, Seph drew it back, careful not to fire it dry. Her arm and shoulder trembled from the sheer tension of it—its draw weight far greater than anything she was accustomed to—and Seph thought of her own bow, so crudely composed out of sheer willpower and desperation. Just like her.

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