Page 22 of Marked By the Enemy
I moved to the washbasin and held out my left hand, the one with the vow-mark carved deep into the skin. The silver ring shimmered faintly in the candlelight.
“Lift,” I said.
The bond answered. Water lifted from the bowl in a single rising strand and climbed like thread pulled from cloth. The column hung in the air, narrow and unbroken, wavering only slightly.
I focused, sending my consciousness deeper. The water shifted at my command. The column flattened, split down its length. Three narrow blades peeled away, thin as needles, suspended like knives mid-throw. They held for one full breath.
They dropped. The splash was quiet. The basin rippled. My hands stayed steady at my sides, but my mind burned with awareness. The bond had obeyed.
Chapter seven
A List of One
By the second evening of that low, gray fog I couldn’t climb out of, I let Darian in. The sun was sinking in the west, and the room smelled faintly of ash and ink. The fire had burned low, the last sketches still smoldering in the grate. He stood inside the threshold, saying nothing, watching my hand as I lit a taper with breath alone.
“You’ve gained control,” he said.
“No,” I answered, not looking up. “Just clarity.”
He stepped closer. His presence didn’t carry heat or sound, but the bond stirred like something alert. Waiting.
“The bond listens differently now,” he said.
“It doesn’t argue.” I set the taper in its holder and turned toward him.
He glanced at the table, where new parchment lay in uneven stacks. Some burned, some only marked with half-circles, half-answers. “You’ve been trying to draw a mark.”
“Have you found any mention of this in the history books?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
I wanted to ask if his parents had been bonded, and whether they’d had marks, but I didn’t. “It changes every time. It refuses to settle.”
He met my eyes, and his face was calm. He was so composed, I almost believed it. If I hadn’t trained with the Boundless—hadn’t learned every story about the ten fae princes of Caldaen and their cruelty—I might have perceived him as kind. Even gentle.
I didn’t want to pity him. That was the danger of silence—of softness—that let you forget who the enemy was.
He had told me in the library that he wasn’t in control and neither were his parents, and he nearly had me fooled. My nerves were raw, and I saw danger symbols in everything. Let him think he was gaining my trust so he might slip.
The softness in his voice made it worse. The stillness in his movements, the careful way he didn’t reach too fast or speak too loud. It felt designed. Measured. A prince pretending to be tame. I’d been taught what tamed things were capable of.
“It chose you,” he said, pulling my mind back to the subject at hand.
“Or I chose it.”
The bond twisted. He must have perceived something, because he flinched.
“Perhaps someone else chose me for the bond. A fae, perhaps. A sorcerer. Whoever wrote my name in that book and left the comb on my pillow.” I wondered what the redhead from the visions in the pools meant.
I crossed the chamber to the table, the ache in my shoulders still present from the trial. My fingers hovered above the parchment. I didn’t reach for the quill. I didn’t need ink. The bond was already twisting beneath my skin. “Let’s test it.”
Instead of commanding the bond, I offered a memory. I was ten that summer. Five years before the massacre. We were still in Riverell, Northwest Tarnwick. Dad was still with us, so my life appeared perfect—a bittersweet memory.
I hadn’t crossed into the Borderlands yet. I was still unseeing. Still soft in ways I’d learn to carve out later. We were poor, but we were happy. So if what the Boundaries taught me was true—about the fae princes taking our power and keeping us poor—we were happily ignorant.
The meadow behind our cottage ran wild that year. My mom always warned me against wandering too far, but I liked the tall grass. I went with a jar and abroken-lidded tin, looking for crickets. I remember crouching near a patch of yarrow, the sun baking the back of my neck. And then I wasn’t alone.
One moment, the grass was empty. The next, he was there—standing barefoot, hands loose at his sides, a single silver coin resting in his palm. His skin was too clean, his shirt stitched with a pattern I didn’t recognize. His hair was pale, and his eyes were older than his face.
