Page 78 of Marked By the Enemy
When Darian stepped forward, he looked at me instead of touching the stone. “It seems we’ve mistaken silence for peace.”
“And pain for failure,” I replied.
He scratched at his black stubble. “What now?”
I gazed at the blade, at the hands still resting beside it, and at the bond we’d all stepped into together. “Now we build the vow as it wasmeant to be.”
That night, no one slept, as we all stood ready. The Keep was peaceful, but it held sound differently now. The stones remembered. They passed small movements from one wall to another—footsteps in the training yard, a cup set down.
I sat by the fire in the hearth of the hall to ponder. The corridor hadn’t reopened since the blade’s return. I wasn’t sure if it would open again tomorrow or ever. And perhaps that was the point. The corridor wasn’t ours to summon. It opened when it chose or when we stopped demanding.
Darian leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. He hadn’t said much since sunset, but I felt him watching. I always did. He wasn’t guarding me anymore. He was watching for the shape of what came next.
“We need more than memory,” I said. “We need structure.”
“You mean rules.”
“No. Memory that can be taught. Passed. Built on. We need to know how the Forgotten Numbers before me failed. Abigail hasn’t come to me again. I think she’s angry that I lost the coin. But I have it again now. I only need to know what to do.”
“And that fae woman, Sael, wants part of her soul back,” Darian said. “We need to cut the binds from the demons in the Fissured Realm wherever that is.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
He came to the fire and crouched, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re thinking about what happens when you’re gone.”
“I’m thinking about what happens if I don’t plan for it.”
The fire cracked sharply.
He said, “So we write it down.”
“Words aren’t enough. They forget. They twist.”
“So we pass it through the bond. Mark to mark.”
“You’re saying we imprint it?” I asked.
“Yes. But we don’t imprint the stone. We imprint the people.”
“That’s what they’ve already done, the Bone Seats and their demons.”
“But those bonds were impure and forced,” he said. “Your bond is innocent.”
“It’s yours, too,” I said. “It chose both of us, remember?”
“You carry the dominant thread. You belong to the Echoed Chain. Forget the rest for now. The Bone Seats tried to seal it away—but you’re giving it room to grow.”
I agreed and leaned back, letting the heat chase against my spine. The bond magic used to be happy before it became fearful. What we made now wasn’t safe, but it was honest. And the bond seemed to favor honesty.
Willow appeared in the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I can help.”
“You should be resting.”
She shook her head. “Sleep doesn’t matter. The trouble’s elsewhere. It’s all the noise. I can hear people thinking. I can hear them remembering in my head.”
“Even now?”
She nodded. “Especially now.”
