Page 3 of Marked By the Enemy
My skull was as fragile as an eggshell, but I forced my head up. “You deserved it.”
His hand brushed my wrist, and he stared at my left palm. I flinched.
“You’re bound by vow-law now. We are both bound together.” A shadow came over his face. “You are my consort.”
“I’d rather die,” I hissed through gritted teeth.
His smile was empty. “You’ll get that, too. The vow will probably kill both of us.”
I lowered my head and gazed into the once-black pool.The vow? The bond? What were they?
“Take her friend in for questioning,” the Water Seat said. “Call for the interrogator.”
Priestess Jinth screamed as guards manhandled her and forced her out through the door. More guards approached me. The knife was gone. A mysterious vow had tied me to the prince, and I was to become his consort.
My fingers curled at my side. He thought this vow had saved me, but he had no idea what I would do to break it. The court was watching. I didn’t look back as they led me from the circle. Darian walked ahead of me, his shoulders straight.
The guards brought me to a chamber in one of the east towers. The walls were carved stone and polished glass. Even without bars or chains, I was not free. A bowl of fruit sat on the table. Too ripe. Sweet enough to rot.
The energy—this so-called bond—thudded through my core with desperation. It was a relentless drumbeat, deep and insistent, thrumming beneath my skin like a caged beast. I strained to decipher its demands, but its purpose eluded me, leaving me on edge, teetering on the brink of understanding.
I faltered to the mirror at the far end of the room, where the flickering candlelight caught the glass. My reflection stared back at me, distant yet close. My hair, tangled from the journey, framed my face in unruly waves, the brown strands almost indistinguishable in the low light.
My eyes had once been sure of the kill. Now they looked like they’d forgotten why I came. I didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me. She was both familiar and strange, the same hired assassin who had walked into this place without hesitation, but someone—a mere Borderlander—who the fae had become mystified by.
I tried to soften my expression, but it wouldn’t change. The face was mine. But still a stranger. And the silence between us was deafening. My heart felt like it was shrinking. I had failed. Ten years of training, every scar and strike, and it had come to nothing.
The Boundless taught me to see the fae as parasites draped in elegance—ten courts, ten princes, ten targets of strategy. But only one mattered: Prince Darian. Kill him, and a hundred chains might loosen. That had been the pitch.
I had failed even on the first try, and now this strange parasitic magic lurked inside me. Something they called the bond. Did the Boundless know about the bond? Did they call themselves the Boundless because the bond didn’t tie them?
If Priestess Jinth’s magic didn’t work, if we both died doing it, so be it. I was only a weapon.
When the maid came in with bedclothes and fresh robes for the morrow, I said nothing. She was a fae with a typically smooth face. She didn’t look me in the eye, though they flashed amber when they caught the light of the lanterns. Her hands trembled.
“Do they fear me?” I asked.
She recoiled slightly. “They fear what it means.”
I wanted to ask why. I wanted to ask her about the bond. But maybe it was safer if the fae didn’t know that I didn’t know. She would probably tell them about anything we discussed. I let her go instead.
I heaved an old woman’s sigh and staggered to the window. Below, the courtyard stirred with soldiers in silver-plated armor, their movements crisp andrehearsed. Torches lit the stonework, flames catching on polished plates and narrow blades.
Most bore black banners stitched with twin crescents and a full moon between them—symbol of the Moon Court, sharp and proud. The formation looked ceremonial, but I didn’t believe for a moment it was just for show.
I absentmindedly traced the faint scar where the vow had marked my palm. I should have felt free and rich with coin, fleeing as planned. Would the spy-witch be tortured? It had sounded as if she would.
I rocked back and forth on my feet. I should have felt untouched. Instead, my fingers drifted from my palm up to my left wrist, where a second circle had appeared, fine as smoke, blazing silver against the skin.
My face remained a plank of wood, my shock hidden by a slow breath. It hadn’t been there before. I stared at it for a long time, wondering what it meant, wondering if it meant anything at all. Darian’s court rose around me like a luxurious prison. I even had a fire in the hearth.
He would come to me soon—I sensed it in the quiet, in the way the walls seemed to hold their breath. He would offer words dressed as kindness. I would answer none of them. This so-called bond had bound us, but I would cut free.
Chapter two
The Bond That Shouldn’t Be
The door opened after midnight. Darian stepped in alone. He kept his hands behind his back and looked at the far wall like it was worth more than I was. “You had one chance.”
