Page 81 of Marked By the Enemy
The woman stopped just short of it. “This is where the vow, used as a portal, had major consequences.”
Darian stepped forward. “When?”
“Hundreds of thousands of years ago. Before fae walked this world.”
“Fae weren’t always here?” Darian asked.
“No. Caldaen was never meant for fae. Vow-magic was only created to help the humans.”
“I saw a vision,” I said. “Here, in this place. They practiced the old ways—nature worship. They were drumming. A woman entered a trance. Something… blue possessed her.”
The old woman kneeled and pressed her hand to the scorched stone. “It came from Faerieland.” She didn’t look up. “A changeling crossed the veil and wore her like a skin. More followed after her. They were never meant to come through. The Keepers failed. The veil should have held.”
“The Keepers of the Vow?” Darian asked.
She nodded. “They were supposed to be the protectors. Mystics recorded what happened. It’s here, in Oxford. In the Bodleian Library.”
The tie rose like water pushed by wind. After it settled again, I stepped to the edge and placed a hand on the stone. It was warm from something older than the sun. And below it, something like a shaman’s drum beat slow and steady and far off, still calling.
We stayed in the ring until the light faded. The sun slipped behind the tallest spire. Shadows stretched long. Still, we stood, and the marked didn’t ask questions. The old woman hadn’t returned. The tie was the only thing thatmoved, sliding past breath and bare skin, winding like something searching for what had been lost.
Darian kneeled first. He pressed one flat palm to the edge of the vow-ring, and his black hair hung around his face as he bowed his head. “I can feel it.” His voice broke the stillness like a low note drawn from deep inside the stone. “This is where it split.”
“Split how?” Astrid asked.
He looked up at her and then at me, and for a moment. “The bond is split because it is grieving.”
The bond swung in circles beneath us. Something deep in the ring answered him in the form of a hollow tone that hung low in the bones. I stepped into the circle. The air changed. It pressed with knowing and remembrance.
I crouched low and laid my hand on the center stone. It was smoother and warmer. I didn’t expect the spark that followed. Memory shot through me, quick and gone before I could close my fingers around it. It was like trying to catch a butterfly with a net made of fog.
But I saw them. A different group of people gathered like we were now. Hands linked. A pale man with dark hair stepped forward. He had a strong jaw and silver eyes. His mark was a layered and complex network of interlinking circles from palm to inner elbow, not unlike Darian’s.
My breath caught. “He’s your descendent, Prince Darian.”
Darian moved closer. His hand brushed mine on the stone. “He looks like my father. But that’s impossible. This happened many thousands of years ago.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
His voice dropped, and so did his eyes. “I don’t. And I shouldn’t call him my father. He ran away like a coward and let the Bone Seat behead my mother, the Moon Queen.”
As I considered what it meant—his father being here, knowing about the fae and possibly the Bone Seats—the tie zig-zagged up my spine and disintegrated in my heart.
I gasped again, and the vision broke. I pulled back, mouth open, lungs slow to catch up. “He cut thevow himself.”
“To stop it from spreading?” Darian asked.
“No. To stop it from surviving.”
He was closer now, kneeling on the ground beside me and gently cradling my hands in his. The warmth of his touch seeped through my skin, and the subtle scent of cedarwood lingered between us. His shoulder lightly grazed mine, a touch so soft yet electrifying, and we both remained still. He was too close. Too close for someone I couldn’t afford to want—and already did.
“We’re what he tried to bury,” he said.
I looked at him. Really looked. “Perhaps the witchkin made a mistake, and he tried to fix it.”
Darian frowned.
The wind rustled through the courtyard, tousling the hair of those gathered around its edges. The walls caught the wind and flung it back sharper. As it moved, it stirred up dust and leaves from the ground, creating a temporary whirlwind that sent people’s hair flying in all directions. But as suddenly as it had started, the wind calmed and left a peaceful stillness in its wake.
