Page 46 of Marked By the Enemy
“That’s what makes it worse.”
“The bond didn’t stop me.”
“Because it’s evolving. Past us.” His white-eyed gaze locked with mine, and violet lightning flickered through the irises—not silver, not royal blood of the Moon Court. A muscle twitched in his jawline, and his eyes were plain white with pinpoint pupils once more. “Did it choose you?”
“It opened for me.”
He stepped forward, close enough to read the fourth circle on my chest. “You stopped testing it,” he said. “You’re becoming it.”
I didn’t answer.
“When it echoes in enough minds,” he said, “it won’t need consent. It will act.”
“I know.”
“You have until the new moon. After that, others will come.”
“Others like you?”
“No,” he said, already turning. “Others worse.”
My breath caught, but I held my face still as stone.
“If you took my advice, you would leave it well alone and enter no more gateways.”
The bond within me flared, one, twice, three times. It didn’t like what he had said.
We strolled back, and his envoy turned beside him. Together, they walked the long path east with dust lifting behind them, yet without a final glance.
I stood until the silence settled. “He thinks I was wrong to enter the corridor.”
Darian’s voice came from the shadows. “You weren’t. You did something the Bone Seat’s unable to control. That’s why he’s worried. You walk through truths I have to beg to remember.”
The fire inside the Keep still burned. But something colder had arrived.
Later, after the silence had stretched too long, I sat across from Darian near the fire in the largest fighting ring. The storm had gone three days ago, and the moon was full. The gentle yet powerful energy of the Moon Mother on my face and in my heart, and the vow-magic blossomed within me with feminine energy.
Darian frowned into the flames while I bathed in the lunar bliss while it lasted. Mom worshiped the old goddess of moon and water, and it had always confused me since the unseeing usually worshiped one God, who they called ‘he.’
I didn’t want to increase Darian’s anxiety, but I couldn’t presume he understood the Bone Seat’s message, particularly as he’d informed me he only sensed my emotions and no one else’s.
I cleared my throat. “He said others would come. Worse than him.”
Darian didn’t answer right away. He stared at the flames like they could give him back something he’d lost. “He isn’t bluffing.”
I squinted at him.
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “He knows powerful fae from the ten courts.”
I frowned. “How do you know that?”
“I don’t. I can’t tell if they are new memories or old fabrications. Everything’s layered now. But one thing I am sure about is that the Bone Seats aren’t singular. They move together. They’re at war together.”
“Then they’re not a threat.”
“Enemies can band together. Look at us.” He said it without irony, but his gaze didn’t soften. It landed hard on mine, slow and sure, and something unspoken passed through it. It flared behind his eyes before he blinked it away.
I felt the flicker of heat, anyway. It lit low in my spine, and the bond stirred. We watched each other. Something inside me stepped forward. Something that wanted to be seen. He looked away first, and I was glad he had, because if he hadn’t, I might have kept looking.
