Page 85 of Marked By the Enemy
The young woman with pale brown skin and a cloud of black hair down to her hips stepped forward, silent but smiling, a bundle of folded cloth in her arms. “Yours,” she said, placing it in my arms. “We washed and dried what we could. Traded out the rest.” She motioned to the others. “Your friends too.”
“Thank you…”
“Colleen. My name’s Colleen.”
“Thank you, Colleen.” I held the fabric up to my nose and inhaled.
It smelled of smoke and crushed sage. Unlike our travel clothes, it wasn’t patched together. Linen, wool, even soft leather bindings for feet still sore from the hike. I found Darian slipping into a clean tunic nearby, the edge of it still steaming from the heat. His hair was damp. He looked taller in dry clothes. Lighter, too.
“They have hot springs,” someone whispered behind me. “Close enough to walk, deep enough to sink.”
Willow tugged on my sleeve. “They’re letting us go in groups. Women first.”
I didn’t argue. We followed a narrow trail lit by torches jammed into the ground. The grass along the path had been flattened by time. The further we went, the more the bond settled, content. Steam rose ahead, curling in ribbons against the dark. The pool opened like a basin carved straight into the land, lined with pale stones and woven with veins of quartz that shimmered in the moonlight.
And it was a full moon. Round and quiet. Watching. The women disrobed behind a curtain of reeds, their laughter soft but real. I stepped into the water and nearly dropped from relief. Warmth closed around me like a second skin, and the moon hung there, bright and unbothered, mirrored on the still surface.
I didn’t speak for a long while. Just listened to the trickle of water between stones and the low murmur of others. Willow hummed to herself as she braided strands of her wet hair. Astrid sat in the shallows, her stick propped beside a flat rock, her feet bare and her chin lifted toward the sky.
Later, when we’d wrapped ourselves in clean cloaks and pulled on the new clothes they’d left folded nearby, the men took their turn. Darian met my gaze as we passed them by. He looked at me long enough to leave my chest unsteady.
I slept that night inside one of the stone houses on a pallet of straw and wool. Willow curled near the wall. Rainer by the door. I could hear snoring outside and imagined it to be the wolves. Above us, the moon still hung.
The bond didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. It knew. We were clean, fed, watched by the sky. And tomorrow, we would carry the memory forward.
Chapter twenty-four
Memory Magic
We walked home with the sun at our backs. The ash-man caught up and showed me four flat stones with white spirals on them. “These are the wardstones, Princess. They will protect us at the Keep and its surrounding lands.”
The name “Princess” surprised me. That name was unfamiliar to me, but I smiled and nodded. “Thank you for helping us.”
By midday, the trees thickened. Moss swallowed the sound of footsteps and conversation. Fog pooled at the roots. Branches stuck out like blades. These weren’t like the trees near the Keep. These trees were older, rough-skinned and sloping, the ground soft with moss and old leaves.
I stayed near the front at first, walking with Darian, but the crowd behind us grew denser, louder, more restless with each hour.
By the second day, we weren’t twenty-five anymore. We were thirty. Then thirty-nine. A girl carrying a sling. Two cave women from the western cliffs. A trio of boys who didn’t say where they came from, but their marks gleamed in the dark. By the third night, we were fifty-five.
We camped in shallow hollows. Under trees. Between crags. Darian stopped us when the children dragged. There was one woman, too, with a round belly and tired eyes who refused to stop until someone forced her to sit.
I kneeled beside her. “How far along are you?”
“Far enough.”
The wind cut through the trees. Rain fell sideways. I woke in the dark once, soaked and shivering, and found Darian crouched beside me.
“You didn’t pitch your tent right,” he said.
“It collapsed.”
He sighed and tugged his own cloak loose, draped it over my shoulders. I didn’t say thank you. He didn’t ask for it.
The fifth morning, Nessa collapsed. It happened fast. One moment she was helping Ulric pack the canvas. The next, she stumbled sideways; her face gone pale, her lips dry. Sael caught her before she hit the ground.
I dropped to my knees. “What is it?”
“Pneumonia,” said Lord Jeyin’s voice from behind.
