Page 26 of Marked By the Enemy
“Who else is bonded?” I finally blurted. “Who forced the bond into themselves?”
He shrugged. “I remain as ignorant as ever.”
“Does the Bone Seat control everything?”
“I think so,” he said. “The other Elemental Seats act like they’re all in charge, but he seems to be the puppeteer.”
My heart thumped, and I stood back, scrutinizing him.
“You don’t trust me.”
“You’re right.”
“You still want me dead?”
“No, but I might if I find out you are lying to me.”
“Fair enough.”
Tears welled. “I wasn’t supposed to bond. It only listens to me because I wasn’t meant to survive it.”
The tower creaked. The bond sank low in my chest.
“The court doesn’t want us to fuse anymore,” I said. “The Bone Seat is scared.”
Darian’s lips pressed together. “They want to see what breaks first.”
“Then we don’t break.”
He gazed into my eyes.
I hated the way something quickened inside me when he looked at me like that. Like we were already on the same side.
“We rewrite it. From the inside. Together,” he said.
He could be lying. But if I was trapped in this thing, I’d rather reshape the binding vow than let it reshape me.
Chapter eight
The Keepers’ Warning
Astrange sensation settled behind my ribs as I prepared to sleep that night. I tried to ignore it. I even put out the candle and lay back down. But it pressed again, and it squirmed around in my heart. It wanted to take me somewhere and now.
I dressed without thinking. Plain tunic. My worn boots. The blade at my side. I didn’t braid my hair. I didn’t leave a note. I let the tether guide me.
It led through halls meant for servants, stairwells layered in grime, corridors where the torches had long gone out. I passed crates of linens, chipped washbasins, cobwebs laced like old lace across low beams. Then I saw it—an old tapestry, skewed at the bottom. Torn edge and fraying. It had a door behind it. A poorly hidden door.
The bond meandered in agreement when I pushed the door open. Stone stairs curved steeply downward. Torches and lanterns were absent, but luckily the marks on my skin shimmered with vow-light, casting silver shadows alongthe walls. The air became damp the lower I descended. At the bottom, a chamber opened around me, where seven cloaked figures stood in a half-circle.
One wore feathers along the shoulders. Another had vines sewn into the hem. The tallest figure’s cowl glowed a little. Their faces were half-seen and difficult to hold in the eye. They blurred when you tried too hard.
“Consort. You came without being called,” said the one in the center.
“I followed,” I said.
“That’s all the bond ever asks.”
“Who are you?”
