Page 21 of Marked By the Enemy
His eyes widened. “You were an unseeing?”
“Yes,” I hissed.
“Do you think the bond is older than they say?” he said, changing the subject.
“I think the palace is older than your court admits. I think the court remembers only what it wants to. And someone else remembers the rest.”
“Not me,” he said.
“You don’t control it?”
“No. Neither did my parents.”
The truth struck sideways, like a blade meant for someone else that still drew blood. If he hadn’t been steering the ship, had anyone ever fought for him? My breath hitched, and I decided I would wait for him to tell me about them when he was ready. I stepped closer and looked up at him. “Are you sure this isn’t you holding the reins?”
His eyes met mine. “I never claimed I did.”
There was a pain at the back of my throat, and all the hatred toward him loosened, its target unclear. My chin quivered. If he held no power, the blame for enslaving the unseeing didn’t fall on him.
The bond wavered between us, witnessing my guilt and regret, quiet like breath. I wanted to hate him. But the bond didn’t let me lie to myself.
“I won’t be shaped by this palace,” I said. “Not by the Bone Seat. Not by the court. Not by your silence.”
“And me?”
“You’re a weapon dressed like a prince.” But even weapons had a glint to them. And I hated that sometimes, I wanted to reach for his. “If I let you shape me, it’ll be into something sharp enough to break us both.”
“Talia,” he said as I turned away.
I frowned at him.
“You’re correct. But that doesn’t mean I want to see you break.”
“You think I’m close?”
“I think they do. And that’s more dangerous than what I believe.”
I brooded alone in my chamber for two days. The comb and book held their secrets, but they weren’t what dragged me down. The heaviness came from the memory the Councilors had taken—pressed into the bond during the rites.
My darkest memories had bubbled up to the surface again from the shadows where I’d drowned them.
I drew the curtains and let the room stay dim. Light came in anyway, slipping between the seams, never quite enough to warm the stone. I left the meals untouched. Even the bond held back. The mark on my wrist pulsed bright the first night. The burn of silver was so sharp that it lit the entire chamber. By morning, it had dulled, but it didn’t fade. It never did now.
The bond didn’t reach for Darian. It didn’t tug or throb or whisper his presence. It curled back into itself, quiet and alert, like a creature watching from beneath the floorboards.
I didn’t light the fire. I sat on the rug with parchment spread around me and tried to draw her again. The woman from my dreams—the one with the vow mark across her brow. The five circles never joined, though, as if the ink and quill had a combined consciousness of their own.
I had no trouble drawing her face and hair. She sometimes appeared young, laughing, her hair braided with silver thread. Other times she appeared elderly, her face lined like bark, her mouth open in a silent cry.
The fifth circle never closed. It didn’t matter how steady my hand was or how many times I tried. The final line slipped. Broke. Refused to seal the vow-mark. The bond, the mark, or whatever power bound them together refused to let me draw it.
I pushed the pages away and pressed my palms to my eyes until blinding white bloomed behind them. Still the snow came. The memory that they had watched. My secret memory. The teenage boy’s name had been Ryn.
I gathered the pages in silence and folded them until the faces vanished beneath the creases. I fed them one by one into the hearth and watched the flames curl through them, burning the woman into ash.
Her identity was unknown to me. I only knew she was dangerous. And if anyone saw the mark I kept trying to copy—those five interlocking circles—there would be questions I wasn’t ready to answer.
When the last edge blackened, I wiped the ash from my palms and stood. The air in the room grew colder, but the bond had warmed beneath my skin, like something resting with its eyes open.
