Page 73 of Marked By the Enemy
“I’d been working in the borderlands over the summer to make more money so I can buy my son a house. He’s newly wed.”
“Where did you come from?”
“The West of the Borderlands, where land meets sea.”
“How long did it take you to walk here?”
“In all honesty, my feet just walked, and I was in some kind of trance. It was as if you—the Fifth and the Forgotten Numbers of the second chain—were a magnet.”
There was so much I didn’t understand. Why was I chosen as the Fifth instead of Branwen? Because I didn’t fear death? “What about Sael?”
“She came to reclaim part of her soul, exactly like she said. I think we can trust her. At least, I hope that we can.” Branwen untied the cloth bundle and held it out. Inside, a thin strip of navy blue velvet, pinpointed with small sequins of cut glass. “She left this at the offering stone this morning.”
I touched the edge of the fabric. It vibrated faintly under my fingers, like a line from a spell long since unspoken but still known. “She’s not asking to be marked properly,” I said. “She’s asking to remain.”
The tie stirred in support of it.
Darian entered the courtyard and then the hall. “Do you trust this fae woman?”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to say I didn’t trust anyone. But I was already trusting him, wasn’t I? “I don’t know. But she stays.”
Without challenging me, he stood there, jaw flexing, like he wanted to ask more but didn’t. That restraint—maybe that was trust, too.
Chapter twenty
The Memory That Waited
The frost came early, like a fine, glittering layer of diamond powder that settled on the stone. It dusted the outer walls before dawn, catching on the training ring’s edge, clinging to the woven cloaks of those who rose first.
I stood at the western watch, one hand on the cracked archway. Darian was strolling carefully along the courtyard’s edge. The Keep wasn’t restless, but tense. Behind me, the corridor waited for a decision still to be made by any of us.
Branwen joined me silently on the ledge, her shoulders tense and jaw jutted. She’d seen the same signs as me—too many birds flying east, too much silence in the nearby stream, a faint shimmer in the torchlight that wasn’t magic but memory, hanging in the air like unfinished breath.
Below us, the marked ones gathered in their layers of cloth and shared memory, stitched tighter each day. Their breath rose in clouds, proof that autumn was early—and didn’t plan to wait for winter. Willow placed a flat stone in the center of the courtyard, and the rest stood around it in a ring.
Darian crossed to the stone and stood at the edge. I loved that about him. Despite growing up as a prince, he never attempted to lead. I pitied him for what he witnessed as a child. I descended the steps to join him and the others.
“They aren’t waiting for you anymore, Talia.” He peered at his feet.
“I know.”
“That isn’t a bad thing.”
“I know that, too.”
The tie whirred between us, counting something. “They sense something’s coming.”
“It’s already here.”
“From the Bone Seat?”
He looked east, where the frost didn’t melt. He turned finally and met my dark eyes with his pale ones. He scanned my face as if searching for something on a map. “Perhaps.”
Sael lingered near the corridor’s shimmer, arms folded, eyes sharp.
“The corridor’s getting ready for something,” Willow said.
A tremor moved through the ground, and the stone in the center cracked. I kneeled beside it. The seam ran unevenly.
