Page 6 of Marked By the Enemy
“You wanted to hurt me. The bond noticed.”
“And if I want you dead?” I snarled.
He strode forward and pressed his blade against my neck. He wasn’t only training me. He was testing himself. Testing whether I could survive him.
“You’ll have to try harder.” He stepped back and lowered his sword.
My pulse thudded in my ears. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
He tilted his head and frowned. “Because it would’ve made me a liar.”
“To who?”
“The vow.” He turned and walked away. “Same time tomorrow.”
After a silent meal, a new maid entered without knocking. She moved like the room belonged to her, dropped a folded set of dark blue clothes at the foot of the bed, and turned. “After you’ve eaten, wear this.”
I looked her over. Shorter than most fae, my height exactly, but she carried herself like she outranked the walls.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Is that a suggestion?”
“No. The prince is summoning you to the High Hall.”
I dressed slowly, feeling the weight of the ceremonial fabric against my skin. The material was thick and meticulously lined. Its purpose was ceremony. The fabric hugged my waist and left no room for casual movement. I extended a hand into my sleeve and retrieved the leather cord I had hidden away, a small act of rebellion that I clung to fiercely.
I tied it around my hair. Small defiance. All I had left.
Two guards waited at the end of the hall. One stepped forward. “This way, Consort.”
They led me through unfamiliar corridors, past more runes and wards carved into stone. This wing was older. This was where decisions were made. The High Hall opened like a mouth. The stone columns were so pale they seemed lit from within. The floor, glass or similar, appeared dark, smooth, flawless. I expected my boots to squeak on its surface, but they remained quiet.
Six thrones stood in a half-ring before the far windows, each one occupied. I recognized only one councilor, though I had studied the other elemental seats before. The Boundless hadn’t only taught me how to fight and kill, I had studied as well.
The Water Seat with sea-foam curls was scrutinizing me. Her robes moved like tidewater. Droplets shimmered at the hem of her sleeves as if the cloth remembered storms. To her left, fire. The Flame Seat’s robes licked and curled in colors that changed from ember to amber, restless as breath on a match. He sat forward, hands steepled. His eyes burned gold.
Wind wore white. Wisps floated off his sleeves like smoke that forgot how to rise. His pale eyes stretched thin. His throne didn’t touch the floor. Earth looked stillest. Her robes bore the texture of bark, moss, and vine. Brown and red and green threaded together in the intricate patterns like those you find in nature. Her brown skin looked carved.
Iron gleamed. Silver and black wrapped around her like armor melted and re-forged. Her gaze flicked to me once and moved on, pupils star-pinned, wide and sharp. The Bone Seat’s robes stirred like ash and fog, grey layered with something that might have been bone and might have been light. Occasionally, ultraviolet veins like a neural network flashed through the cloth. His eyes were white; his pupils, tiny.
I looked away before he caught my gaze. I knew that robe from my training. The Boundless had taught me to fear it. The ten Bone Seats of the Fae Realm apparently communed with spirits. Death-watchers. Deal-makers. I masked my fear with false bravado and anchored my feet wide apart. Hardly the stance of a noblewoman, especially in finery. Let them stare.
I wasn’t a noble. I certainly wasn’t a fae. I was a trained assassin, taught to hate them and kill their ruler. And there he appeared. Darian stood in the center. He didn’t look at me. That made it worse.
“Talia of the Borderlands,” the Flame Seat said. “Approach now. Don’t be shy.”
I walked the way I had walked to witness executions. Slow and controlled. The last thing I’d ever wanted was to be in this room. Now I was the reason it existed.
Tension filled the air, as if time stood still. Darian tilted his head just enough for me to glimpse the sharp edge of his profile. His face was a stoic mask, devoidof any emotion, with only the strong line of his jaw offering a glimpse of his formidable presence.
“This council requires a declaration,” the Wind Seat said calmly. “Your binding was unorthodox. Rushed.”
“The vow doesn’t wait for protocol,” Prince Darian said.
“It does wait for truth,” the Iron Seat replied as she scraped her silver hair over one shoulder. “Why did you choose her?”
The prince wrinkled his nose at me. “The vow-magic chose her. I didn’t. Tell me, why would I choose a stranger, and a human stranger at that? However, aren’t the rules that the bonded marry?”
The Bone Seat nodded. “Well, your parents certainly did.”
