Page 58 of Marked By the Enemy
“Where do we get those?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
We sat for quite a while as the fire settled.
Branwen reached over and passed me a jug of water. “We should keep learning from Willow.”
Willow looked around, a little embarrassed. “I’m just a kid.”
Ulric barked a laugh. “You grew up fast last night.”
Fen crouched by the fire and added a branch. “So, what do we do now?”
I didn’t answer yet, but scanned the others. Twelve of us.
Chapter sixteen
The River Holds
Mid-morning was still thick with cloud above the hills. Branwen and Nessa had gone for water after breakfast, two jugs tucked under their arms, their boots already streaked with mud.
When they returned, Branwen brushed past the firepit and gripped my arm. “The river’s gone still.”
She pointed beyond the tree line. I followed her down past the outer wall. The path curved with wet roots, and the quiet only deepened as we neared the bend. There weren’t any birds singing or the trickling sound of the river.
Darian arrived behind us when we stood together at the edge of the water. The current had vanished as though someone had held it in place with an invisible palm. The reeds barely stirred. The reflection in the surface didn’t ripple.
My chest tightened when I realized my own reflection didn’t appear. “The bond is holding it.”
Darian crouched low, dipped two fingers into the surface, but the water stayed still. “It isn’t frozen. And there’s no dam.”
“No.” I crouched lower, watching how the surface held still without reason. “It’s the bond.”
He glanced at me. “Ours?”
“The Bone Seat’s.” I shook my head and stood. “The piece of it he’s twisted. He’s using it to hold the water.”
“To what end?”
“To cut us off.” The words landed before I understood them. But they felt right. “He’s isolating us to stop what we’re building here.”
Branwen fidgeted beside me. “But we still have water. We drank from it this morning. I boiled oats in it. We can still cook. What kind of trap lets us live through it?”
Down at the river, the current slept. The peace remained. The surface shone flat as glass, but something below it felt wrong.
“It’s not the water,” I said. “It’s what the bond does with water. It carries memory. Sound. Change.”
Branwen sniffed and looped an arm through mine.
I let out a sharp breath through my mouth. “The bond echoes through what’s alive. Through whatmoves.He’s locked the current to keep the tether from traveling. From reaching anyone else.”
Branwen said slowly, “He’s starving it.”
I nodded. “He doesn’t care if we live. He cares if the bond grows.”
“If the bond can’t travel… does that mean fewer will come?” Darian asked.
I didn’t turn. The river held my focus. Still unmoving. Still wrong.
