Page 93 of Marked By the Enemy
Abigail’s voice echoed through the corridor. “I am the Water Seat of the Moon Court, and I release the Binding Vow from the ten Bone Seats and their meddling ways.” As she spoke, the rune on her palm flared.
Water surged as a column of silver-blue light. It beamed from her chest and palm into the center of the circle. The circle tremored, pulled into motion by her words.
To Abigail’s left stood a woman crowned in gold, her curls a nest of flame-bright ginger beneath the circlet. Her robe shimmered with threads of pale pink and soft yellow silk, the fabric so fine it caught the corridor’s light.
Tiny citrine and rose quartz jewels rimmed her sleeves, sparkling even under the stormy sky. Her crown glowed with pink sapphires and diamonds, nestledbetween gold leaves that curled like petals. She lifted her palm. A pale pink flower sigil burned from its center.
Lina drew a sharp breath. “That was my court.” Her voice cracked. “It isn’t a kingdom anymore. Holt gave me a comb with runes representing it.”
I turned. “He gave you a comb, too?”
She smiled proudly and nodded.
“From the Flower Court?”
She nodded, and her expression changed. her jaw was tight. “They slaughtered her family—sons, husband, everyone. Burned the garden palaces to the root. She lived. But the court didn’t.”
“The lost kingdoms,” I murmured, startled by the heat in her voice.
“There were three,” Lina said. “Ours fell first.”
The queen stepped into the center, across from Abigail. Her voice rang out, even and bright. “I am the Queen of the Flower Court, and I release the Binding Vow from the ten Bone Seats and their meddling ways.”
The sigil in her hand glowed brighter.
Pink light laced with gold streamed from her palm into the circle. It met the water-column Abigail had called.
A man stepped forward. His robe rippled with soft whites and pale blues, like clouds pulled through wind, and the hem whispered as it shifted across the corridor floor. Wisps of breeze curled through the fabric, as if his body was half-air. His hair was electric blue, standing wild above sharp brows. His eyes matched—bright, almost glowing.
He raised his palm. The shape of a wind-bent tree stretched across it in shadow—deep and sharp, even under the corridor’s silver glow. The mark moved with him and threw a long, reaching shadow across the grass and stone at his feet.
“Wind Seat of the Shadow Court,” he said. “I unbind the vow.”
Holt staggered back a step, breath caught. The burn scars down one side of his face stayed still, unreadable, but the unburned side twisted with something close to awe. “My great grandfather.”
He looked down at his own hand. So did the marked around him.
There, on Holt’s palm, the circle cracked open and turned. A tree appeared. Wind-twisted. Rooted to his skin. And just like the older man’s, it cast a shadow—one that spread across Holt’s hand and across the grass, where it stretched and curled around the Wind Seat’s feet.
“I thought it was a trick of light,” Holt whispered.
The Wind Seat of the Shadow Court shook his head. “It isn’t a trick. You carry it. As I did.”
Elders Jack and Ruen, one Black, one white, stood close, arms rigidly at their sides.
Stepping forward, the tall woman’s skin was the color of rich earth. The fabric of her silver and black robes rippled like liquid metal, as if still being forged. Her eyes were pure black with stars swimming inside, and she had braids which cascaded down to her ankles.
She raised her palm. A rune glowed there—two blacksmith tools, a silver hammer crossed with a pair of tongs, encircled by a twisting loop of turquoise ivy. Ruen’s mark answered. So did Jack’s. The sigils bloomed across their palms, arms, and even their foreheads. Verdant and Iron.
“I am the Iron Seat of the Verdant Court,” the woman said. “And I allow the Binding Vow to be free of the ten Bone Seats and their meddling ways.”
Ruen exhaled. “That was her. That was our ancestor.”
Jack touched the new rune at the center of his brow. “In the past I would have been surprised to have an ancestor with skin so dark when mine’s so pink and white!” He gave a hearty chuckle. “But now I’m more in awe of being related to the old Iron Seat of the Verdant Court.”
“I wonder how we’re related,” Ruen said.
They both shrugged and exchanged a laugh. The ground beneath their feet hardened, as if the roots below had struck metal.
