Page 10 of Marked by the Enemy (The Binding Vow #1)

Chapter seven

A List of One

B y the second evening of that low, gray fog I couldn’t climb out of, I let Darian in.

The sun was sinking in the west, and the room smelled faintly of ash and ink.

The fire had burned low, the last sketches still smoldering in the grate.

He stood inside the threshold, saying nothing, watching my hand as I lit a taper with breath alone.

“You’ve gained control,” he said.

“No,” I answered, not looking up. “Just clarity.”

He stepped closer. His presence didn’t carry heat or sound, but the bond stirred like something alert. Waiting.

“The bond listens differently now,” he said.

“It doesn’t argue.” I set the taper in its holder and turned toward him.

He glanced at the table, where new parchment lay in uneven stacks. Some burned, some only marked with half-circles, half-answers. “You’ve been trying to draw a mark.”

“Have you found any mention of this in the history books?”

He shook his head. “Never.”

I wanted to ask if his parents had been bonded, and whether they’d had marks, but I didn’t. “It changes every time. It refuses to settle. ”

He met my eyes, and his face was calm. He was so composed, I almost believed it. If I hadn’t trained with the Boundless—hadn’t learned every story about the ten fae princes of Caldaen and their cruelty—I might have perceived him as kind. Even gentle.

I didn’t want to pity him. That was the danger of silence—of softness—that let you forget who the enemy was.

He had told me in the library that he wasn’t in control and neither were his parents, and he nearly had me fooled. My nerves were raw, and I saw danger symbols in everything. Let him think he was gaining my trust so he might slip.

The softness in his voice made it worse. The stillness in his movements, the careful way he didn’t reach too fast or speak too loud. It felt designed. Measured. A prince pretending to be tame. I’d been taught what tamed things were capable of.

“It chose you,” he said, pulling my mind back to the subject at hand.

“Or I chose it.”

The bond twisted. He must have perceived something, because he flinched.

“Perhaps someone else chose me for the bond. A fae, perhaps. A sorcerer. Whoever wrote my name in that book and left the comb on my pillow.” I wondered what the redhead from the visions in the pools meant.

I crossed the chamber to the table, the ache in my shoulders still present from the trial. My fingers hovered above the parchment. I didn’t reach for the quill. I didn’t need ink. The bond was already twisting beneath my skin. “Let’s test it.”

Instead of commanding the bond, I offered a memory. I was ten that summer. Five years before the massacre. We were still in Riverell, Northwest Tarnwick. Dad was still with us, so my life appeared perfect—a bittersweet memory.

I hadn’t crossed into the Borderlands yet. I was still unseeing. Still soft in ways I’d learn to carve out later. We were poor, but we were happy. So if what the Boundaries taught me was true—about the fae princes taking our power and keeping us poor—we were happily ignorant.

The meadow behind our cottage ran wild that year. My mom always warned me against wandering too far, but I liked the tall grass. I went with a jar and a broken-lidded tin, looking for crickets. I remember crouching near a patch of yarrow, the sun baking the back of my neck. And then I wasn’t alone.

One moment, the grass was empty. The next, he was there—standing barefoot, hands loose at his sides, a single silver coin resting in his palm. His skin was too clean, his shirt stitched with a pattern I didn’t recognize. His hair was pale, and his eyes were older than his face.

He held the coin out. “Do you want it?”

I nodded, stunned, wanting to know why I felt like I already owed him something. But he closed his hand around it instead and stepped close enough to tap his knuckle lightly between my eyebrows.

“Keep your eyes open. Some things are illusions—but even illusions can speak the truth.” He dropped the coin into my hand.

I looked down. When I looked up again, he was gone. He had been so silent. The coin was shaped wrong—oval instead of round. Smooth on one side, and on the other, a tiny broken spiral, etched so fine I had to tilt it toward the light to see.

I never told Mom. Never showed it to anyone. I kept it in the lining of my jacket until the lining tore. I must’ve lost it after that. But the memory stayed.

Now, as I gave the memory to the bond, it swished like watery waves inside of me. It seemed familiar. Like it had been waiting for that story. Like it remembered the boy before I did.

The parchment shivered. It hissed softly as the edges browned, curled, and burned without flames or sparks. Three rings—wide, exact, overlapping but distinct—etched themselves into the fibers. When I pulled my hand away, they remained.

I stared at them. “They keep coming.”

Darian’s boots squeaked when he stepped closer. “What are those circles?”

I shook my head once. “I suspect they are connected to our vowmarks. Do you have one or two circles now?”

He stepped beside me, close enough that I detected a subtle warm fragrance—possibly sandalwood. He reached toward the mark on my arm. This time, when his fingers brushed the silver ring beneath my skin, the bond didn’t flinch. It didn’t flare or recoil.

My hands moistened, and I stared at the fire.

“I have two ring marks, like you.” He showed me the inside of his wrist and his palm.

“The circles have been in my dreams. And in my drawings.”

He looked at the page, then at the marks faintly glowing beneath my skin.

I drew a slow breath. “They mean something. They must.” I wanted to tell him about the woman in the water, but I didn’t trust him.

He was quiet for a moment before speaking. “The only thing I’ve ever read that comes close… the few who were said to have been ‘blinded’ by the bond—that’s the word used—they bore scars, never circles. It has chosen to show you these circles.”

“It didn’t show me. It remembered.”

He frowned in thought. “Perhaps this fae magic is older than we realize.”

“Fae magic which chose a human,” I whispered.

I drew the five interlinked circles again, but this time with charcoal.

The fifth never closed—or detached itself too quickly from the others.

The chalk stuttered across the page. Darian and I stared at the unfinished mark.

The sun dropped behind the windows. A last breath of gold, and then it was gone.

Somewhere in the corridor, footsteps passed. A knock came. I opened it and accepted the dinner tray containing letters. The summons came sealed in gold. Darian received one too. We opened them at the same time.

“Demonstration,” I read. “Of unity.”

“They want us to fuse.” He folded his letter without expression. “If we do it now, we lose the chance to shape it.”

I shot him a glance as a knot formed in my belly. Why did he want to shape it? To enslave more? To have more power? Or he might have he’d lost control and wanted it back. There seemed to be a game of power between him and his Councilors.

The throne hall had been cleared, and the arc of Councilors sat at the far end, high on the dais. The Bone Seat sat the tallest, ultraviolet lightning occasionally flickering under his gray robes, and eyes as death-white as ever.

Guards lined the walls. Darian and I entered through separate doors. The tie was quiet.

The steward gestured. “Step forward. Let the bond join.”

Darian met me halfway. We stood at the center. He stretched out a hand toward mine.

I didn’t take it. “No.” The word echoed in the vaulted silence.

The council murmured. The Bone Seat frowned. I lifted my arm and rolled up the sleeve. Showed them the mark inside my wrist. Gasps followed—real ones this time, not court theater. I turned my palm outward and called the tie to reveal itself.

A ripple moved through the air. Silver light spilled from my hand, edged like shattered mirrors. The space behind us morphed, and three images materialized in the air, suspended like smoke. One for each of us.

Mine: the riverbank. Darian’s: a training yard soaked in sun and sand, blood streaked across the dirt, a fae boy with dark hair falling, sand catching on his cheek as he hit the ground.

A name floated up from the bond—Ranen. Darian’s older brother.

The brother he’d lost. And the third: a pedestal.

The tether mark glowing. My hand pressed to the stone.

The Bone Seat rose. “That is enough!”

The images vanished. The bond stilled.

I lowered my arm. “I did not give you fusion. I gave you truth.”

The council broke into whispers again. The Bone Seat’s voice cut through them like a blade. “You used something forbidden.”

“No. I survived it. And it remembered.”

He stepped down two stairs. “You are certain the bond obeys you now.”

“Yes.”

He stared at Darian. “And him? ”

“Still himself. Still beside me.” I turned to Darian and held out my hand, giving him steady eye contact. Was the bond making me empathetic toward my enemy?

He took my hand. The link between us agreed as silver light spiralled around our wrists, tying us together.

The Bone Seat dragged his hands over his bald gray head. “You’ve disrupted centuries.”

“Then your centuries were weak.” I pivoted around on my heel and marched toward the exit.

Darian followed. Before we opened the doors, an unfamiliar and echoing whisper came from behind the dais: “You hold no claim.”

Every councilor went still.

We said nothing as we turned back to the doors and walked. The bond stretched behind us like a rope dragged through ash.

When we arrived at the tower, Darian locked the door behind us. I opened the window. Let the wind pull the heat from my skin.

He stood behind me. Silent. Waiting.

Part of me wanted his warmth against my back, and to curl those hands around my waist. I was tired, and I needed a hug. Though a strong assassin, exhaustion overcame me. I longed to cry into his chest.