Page 89 of Marked By the Enemy
I thought of Astrid’s Summer Court rune on the bone comb Grott had gifted her. The edges were gilded, and a pale green ribbon wrapped it closed, sealed with a knot of living ivy that moved.
Magic soared from Branwen’s left arm and palm before she even spoke. It didn’t crack or flash—it bloomed like an oak tree in full leaf. A bright green surge lit from elbow to fingertips, pouring down into the ledger. Her eyes flashed the same green, sharp as glass, and stayed that way as she turned to face us.
“This ledger holds my family line,” she said. Her voice didn’t shake. “I retrieved it from my great-grandmother Queen in the Corridor. She was the Queen of the Summer Court before the Bone Seats took control.”
The ribbon untwined at her touch. Ivy fell to the floor and turned to ash.
“I saw her burned at the pyre with her sons and her husband, the King—my great-grandfather. The Bone Seat erased it.” She opened the ledger with both hands. “I’m rewriting it here.”
My jaw locked.
She blazed with the kind of power that wrote memory back into stone. I watched the green in her hand flicker and vanish like it had never been there. And I was still here, unsure where Abigail had gone, unsure why the redhead in the pool had chosen me. I hadn’t heard from her since.
Branwen glowed like summer didn’t die. And I still didn’t know what tied me to the Moon Court or why the Fifth ever whispered to me at all. I swallowed hard and looked away before the envy showed. Darian still hadn’t moved.
“Are you adding one?” I asked, quiet.
He looked down the ridge toward the skiffs. “Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because the thing I refuse to lose—I don’t know if it’s mineto keep.”
I didn’t ask what he meant. I already knew. His name. His mother. His place in this war.
I waited until last and descended to the ring. I offered a single thread from the cloak I’d worn the day I first entered the corridor. I tied it to the iron ring and pressed it into the bowl. I didn’t speak.
The vow already had it memorized.
And somewhere far beyond the firelight, in high towers none of us could see, the nine other Bone Seats stirred in their sleep. And in those dreams, unseeing children no longer answered them.
Chapter twenty-five
The Corridor’s Child
By late afternoon, the snow fell in soft, heavy flakes, gathering on the awnings before sliding off in wet clumps. It melted as it touched the puddles and packed earth of the courtyard.
The old smithy became a sort of second hearth. Awnings stitched from oilcloth and old canvas stretched wide above it, held firm with rope and metal stakes driven into the half-frozen ground. Woven carpets, some worn, some new, lay beneath the awnings.
On top of these, they placed long rows of soft sheepskins. The fire pit burned hot, fed hourly by memory and ash. Several of Lord Fen’s carriages arrived that morning, their wheels slick with mud, and the drivers brought more than food.
One carriage carried linens and rugs. Another, dried meat and root vegetables. But the last one held three wide-eyed boys and a girl with a birthmark across her temple. One of Fen’s far cousins. She awoke with three rings burned beneath her skin and dreams of a corridor made of stone and thread. Her mother sent a crow, but its flight wasn’t solely instinctive.
Lord Jeyin stood at the edge of the battlements two nights before, eyes closed, hands resting on the falcon’s back. He’d seen the house Fen described usinghis bond-sight. That was enough. The bird had flown straight, landed at dusk, parchment tied tight. The carriages followed the next day.
Now the courtyard felt lived in, almost warm. Children sat beneath the awnings, stitching coats or chewing bread. The youngest played tag, slipping and skidding across wet patches of stone before collapsing in laughing heaps onto the rugs, and being told off by adults for forgetting to take their boots off.
Lina stood near the embers. She possessed no children of her own, but the little ones pressed close anyway, drawn to her voice and the warmth of her stories. The baker from the village downriver, now displayed neon pink flower marks blooming along one cheekbone. One vivid flower bloomed faintly from her chest, the center of her vow-mark hidden beneath her apron. The forge suited her. Heat and story seemed to rise from her together.
Workers pulled the last loaves from the ovens. As her helpers swept crumbs from the long stone counters, Lina brushed her hands on her skirt and nodded to the children. A few wolves lay stretched out on the rugs, too, runes shifting black and white along their bellies. The children leaned against their sides, stroking fur and whispering words of comfort into the wolves’ ears.
I waited at the edge, shadowed by the lowest beam, wondering why the wolves’ runes were not the bright red of Lord Jeyin’s. Surely Ember Court wolves should carry red as well—bold and burning. These were something else.
Lina began her story.
“There used to be thirteen courts, each one located inside its own kingdom. The residents weren’t only fae. They were mixed-bloods. Actually, the Elemental Seats needed to be mixed-blood, because only part-fae-blood along with part-human-blood can walk the corridors,” she said. “I know this from our binding vow, like you may learn things, too.”
Some children exchanged wide-eyed glances, while others nodded frantically. Some threw their hands into the air, desperate to share their stories.
