Page 8 of Marked By the Enemy
The faintest curl touched her lip. “Do you believe I’d be aware?”
“You’re fae.”
That earned a laugh, short and dry. “Yes. So are the dust piles that the bond leaves behind.” She pressed the cloth into my palm. “It’s dangerous. Old. Powerful. It...” She stopped.
“What?” I leaned forward, heart thudding quickly and lightly. “Did Prince Darian’s parents bond this way? Is that why they’re gone?”
Color touched her cheeks. She looked away. “That answer belongs to someone else.”
“But you understand something.”
She picked up the discarded robe and smoothed the hem between her fingers. “If you have questions, Consort, you ought to bring them to the prince.”
She left before I could ask more. I looked down at the water in the bowl. Steam curled from the surface. My reflection rippled. The bond had chosen. That much was clear. What wasn’t clear was why. Or who else did the bond choose and erase before me?
The palace gardens surpassed most villages in size. I stepped through a side door without permission, walking into soft light and air that didn’t feel owned.
Stone paths curved through hedges shaped into moons, stars, wings. Water flowed along channels carved into the ground, sparkling in the sunlight. It moved like consciousness, like a soft whisper of secrets being shared, winding between trees that hadn’t been planted, only persuaded to grow here.
I kept to the paths. The guards let me. The bond might have suggested I wouldn’t travel far. Yet how would they know what the bond thought? What did their history books say about the victims of the bond? Everyone appeared frightened, except the prince; this seemed odd, since he surely understood it would end us both.
Above me, the sky appeared blue, the clouds like swirling white whirlpools. Flowers opened along the walls, petals wide. I didn’t know the names, but if they were anything like the Fae Kingdoms of Vyrelen, I knew their purpose. Beauty. Power. Control. The scent clung to my skin.
I passed a stand of silver birch and noticed a single path leading into its center. Inside, I found a round pool, set in the ground and surrounded by smooth moonstones carved into the shapes of crescent moons. Every single one glimmered with pastel rainbows inside, reflecting the sunlight.
The water remained still, yet my reflection trembled. Two faint circles on my skin: the first on my palm, the second near the bone of my left wrist. They didn’t shine now, but they never faded.
The bond wasn’t burning. It was observing.
Suddenly, the pool bulged up from its center. I stared at it, my mouth gaping open. When the water flattened again, an image formed.
She, a lovely fae woman with short red hair, cried profusely on her hands and knees. Five interlinked circles appeared on her forehead. They shone silver like the circles on my palm and wrist when they were burning.
But despite her pointed ears, it struck me how old she looked for a fae. She looked like a human woman would in her mid-forties. I touched my wrist without meaning to.What happens when the bond doesn’t stop?
The vision disappeared, but I continued to gape, breathless. I stood there for a long time, my mind billowing with questions.
I sat beneath a tree with its white, papery bark. Priestess Jinth had declared the Silver Birch a witches’ tree. Her words lingered in my mind, challenging my beliefs. I wasn’t a witch, or so I told myself, as my rational mind clung to science and Earth. Yet, a part of me wondered if there was truth to her words.
I rolled my neck, trying to shake off the doubt, and stared at the grass, caught between two worlds. Everything instantly seemed unreal. The fae’s magic, the bond, the vision of the redhead in this pool. This otherworldly nonsense wasn’t for me.
During my decade of training, the talk about the fae and their magic had always been the hardest to digest. This bond—it didn’t need a name. It already knew mine.
I let my thoughts go quiet. I didn’t trust this peace, but I took it. Rest provided fuel. To observe meant to survive. Let Darian think I was getting comfortable. Let the court think I was adapting.
I would attempt to kill him again. Even if becoming dust was the outcome, I would try to kill him again. I had been prepared to die from the beginning. Let other assassins kill the other fae princes of Caldaen. Let them get seasick, travelling to other lands.
I sensed his presence before the knock. It was a pressure, like a coin pressed to the back of my spine. Warm and deliberate. I opened the door for a breath before his knuckles touched it. Darian stood there alone. Just a dark tunic, sleeves rolled to the elbow. He wore his hair tied back. His eyes looked rinsed of meaning.
I stepped back. He entered. The door clicked shut behind him. His gaze swept the chamber like a soldier, checking the room for exits. He walked once around the space.
“You walked the garden,” he said.
“Were you spying on me?”
“The bond leaves impressions.”
“The bond leaves impressions of what?”
