Page 20 of Marked By the Enemy
Lunegard was across the river from our village, Riverell. I had loved it in the Deltara Lands, living by the great white river called the Northern Run. Everything went wrong after we left to journey to the Borderlands.
I let out a small yelp. Had whoever left the comb in my room known I had family from Lunegard? The third meant marriage. I stared at the page, pulse tapping under my skin. If these runes were human in origin… how had the ten fae courts built their power from them?
My mind froze, searching for answers, and my stomach fluttered. The bone combs referenced here also had human origins. How did the comb get carved by the fae and have human runes? It made no sense. It must have made sense to whoever left it in my chamber, though.
I turned back to the page, double-checking the listing the second rune. It was definitely the sigil for the Valari Tribe in Lunegard, across the Northern Run from Riverell. In the corner of the page, inked sideways along the margin, was a handwritten name. I squinted and held it closer:Talia of Tarnwick.
My whole body stilled. Cold spread down the backs of my arms.
The ink seemed fresher than the rest of the page. It looked as though someone had come back years later and decided to leave a message that only I would find.
I traced it with my finger. It couldn’t be a coincidence. This volume was at least four hundred years old. I turned it again. Checked the spine. Checked the layers of the entry. No date or origin of the comb appeared.
I covered my mouth with a palm and stared at the writing—Talia of Tarnwick.I marked the page with a ribbon torn from a fraying scroll and closed the book.
On the way back to the upper wing, I passed a balcony that opened onto the sparring yard below. The breeze pushed against my side, cold and sharp, and I might have kept walking, except I saw them.
Two fae men stood in the yard, talking. Darian and the Bone Seat councilor. Their stances were informal. Darian said something I couldn’t hear. The councilor responded. His head turned upward. He saw me. Darian followed his gaze. We locked eyes. Distance, stone, height, it didn’t matter. The tension coiled between us instantly. He didn’t look surprised.
Neither of them moved. When I finally turned and walked on, I did it slowly. Let the bond wonder what I had found. Because I couldn’t tell what was worse:that the book had known my name before I was born, or that someone in this palace had wanted me to find it.
I waited until night when the palace softened, when the last guards at his chamber doors let their shoulders ease. That was when I moved. I didn’t knock. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Darian sat by the fire, boots off, robe loose at the collar, a half-full glass resting in one hand like he’d barely remembered to hold it. He looked up, unsurprised. It almost broke me that he wasn’t startled. As if he’d been waiting, expecting me to come back—even after everything.
“You saw me,” I said.
“Yes.”
I closed the door behind me and crossed the room until the table stood between us. “What were you discussing with the Bone Seat?”
His hand froze around the glass and set it down carefully. “The city’s unrest.”
“Lie again and I walk.”
His jaw tightened. “He asked if I still trusted you.”
“And you said?”
“That I never did. But the bond is forcing me to learn.”
I didn’t flinch. “Someone left a gift in my chambers. A comb. Bone-carved and crafted by the fae, but with northern etchings of human runes. Do you know anything about it?”
“Only that those kinds of gifts haven’t been used in centuries.”
“There’s a book in the archive,” I said. “Eighty years old. My name is written in it, in the margin.”
He stood abruptly and grabbed his cloak. “Show me.”
The archive was colder than the upper halls. Scrolls lined the stone, and dusty air hung heavy. The steward didn’t question us. He barely looked up.
I led Darian to the back, where I had tucked the volume between two crumbling records. I pulled it out and handed it over.
He opened the page slowly, reading the margin like it might shift. “Talia of Tarnwick.” He closed the book, silent for a long time.
“I thought you were Talia of the Borderlands.”
“I wasn’t born in the Borderlands. I was born in Tarnwick.”
