Page 52 of Marked By the Enemy
My chest caught tight. I hadn’t expected him to defend me. Not after last night. Not after what I had said. He still wouldn’t look at me. But something in him had bent toward me or toward what I stood for. I swallowed hard.
The man hesitated. “You say you’re fae! But how can you prove it?”
Darian stepped into the light and pulled up his sleeve to display the three rings marked into his skin. The edges had thickened and woven. Fine lines now twisted between the circles like growing roots or braided thread, linking them in a way that hadn’t been there before. They twinkled silver and were beautiful, like him.
I couldn’t contain my surprise as I let out a yelp and covered my lips with a hand. I pulled up my sleeve to see if mine had changed, too. They hadn’t. The circle beneath my collarbone was still a simple ring as well.
He stared at the new patterns, frowning—as if he wasn’t sure whether to be disturbed or amazed. “I am the Fae Prince of the Moon Court. And I have seen what they’ve done to humans and also to the fae. To memory.”
Silence again. But this time, it felt thinner. Tentative.
Astrid staggered to my side and gripped my arm for balance. “For four hundred years, the Bone Seats of the ten Fae Kingdoms have rewritten minds. Blinded the unseeing. Twisted the tether that once let us name ourselves. But the borderlands… something’s always been different here.”
“None of you have to stay,” I said. “But if the bond has echoed through your dreams, then it’s already in you. And it’s not a curse. It’s an invitation.”
The anger didn’t vanish. But it softened. And confusion stayed.
Darian turned to me, voice low. “We should move them to the fighting ring. The grass is soft and there’s more space.”
We led them across the courtyard, into the wide training circle where the dirt still bore marks from where the bond had sharpened weeks ago. No one questioned it. They followed.
The sun had already set beyond the hills to the west. In the sky, amber melted to violet. The ring filled. Thirty-something souls, including the earliest arrivals, standing in a place that remembered magic. Darian stood at one edge, and I at the other.
And the bond—quiet all day—finally moved between us, waiting.
“Why did you try to kill the prince?” a little boy asked in a squeaky voice.
“I was offered money. A lot of money. I was told he and the nine other princes of the Fae Realms use their magic to control the humans beyond the Borderlands in all the landmasses of Caldaen.”
“Isn’t it true?” a man asked. “You obviously failed at what you set out to do.”
“The magic prevented Talia from stabbing my heart. It bound her to me instead.”
“I don’t think it’s magic anymore,” I said. “It’s memory. The mark chose me. Or I chose it. I walked through the corridor while awake.”
“What do you mean, you walked through a corridor?” a twin woodcutter asked.
I explained before adding, “I shattered a mirror that held no reflection. I opened a gate. I stepped through.”
There were no cheers. No kneeling. Only silence, the kind that pays attention.
One woman stepped forward. Her auburn hair fell in waves around her face, framing the brightness of her turquoise eyes. She was broad-shouldered and quiet, with hands shaped by work. Nothing in her posture asked to be noticed—but everyone noticed, anyway. “Can I walk it too?”
I didn’t lie. “I don’t know if it will let you.”
“But if I speak my name?”
“Say it.”
She looked down for a moment as though searching for something. When she finally lifted her head, her eyes met mine. “Branwen.”
The vow-magic thudded once. It was quiet but deep, and I could feel it in every chest. Everyone exchanged glances before looking up. The sky flickered. And for one breath, the world paused.
Branwen stepped back. “It heard me.”
I nodded. “Then maybe the door’s already open.”
Behind the circle, Darian stood with his arms crossed. He watched as the marked ones moved toward each other. They formed a loose circle. A few of the unmarked turned away and walked back toward the trees. But some remained. And the bond didn’t judge. It swung.
