Page 12 of Marked by the Enemy (The Binding Vow #1)

Chapter eight

The Keepers’ Warning

A strange sensation settled behind my ribs as I prepared to sleep that night. I tried to ignore it. I even put out the candle and lay back down. But it pressed again, and it squirmed around in my heart. It wanted to take me somewhere and now.

I dressed without thinking. Plain tunic. My worn boots. The blade at my side. I didn’t braid my hair. I didn’t leave a note. I let the tether guide me.

It led through halls meant for servants, stairwells layered in grime, corridors where the torches had long gone out.

I passed crates of linens, chipped washbasins, cobwebs laced like old lace across low beams. Then I saw it—an old tapestry, skewed at the bottom.

Torn edge and fraying. It had a door behind it. A poorly hidden door.

The bond meandered in agreement when I pushed the door open.

Stone stairs curved steeply downward. Torches and lanterns were absent, but luckily the marks on my skin shimmered with vow-light, casting silver shadows along the walls.

The air became damp the lower I descended.

At the bottom, a chamber opened around me, where seven cloaked figures stood in a half-circle.

One wore feathers along the shoulders. Another had vines sewn into the hem. The tallest figure’s cowl glowed a little. Their faces were half-seen and difficult to hold in the eye. They blurred when you tried too hard.

“Consort. You came without being called,” said the one in the center.

“I followed,” I said.

“That’s all the bond ever asks.”

“Who are you?”

“Keepers,” said another in a spritely voice. “Of the vow.”

I flinched and frowned, wondering where they lived, since they were already in the palace.

“The bond is not spellcraft,” added a third in a very slow and more elderly voice. “It is memory. Memory turned inward. Made alive. It forgets nothing—“

“Except what it’s been ordered to forget,” interrupted another. “Ordered by the Bone Seats.”

I sucked in a quick breath and nodded frantically. That made sense. “Why me?”

“For reasons beyond your understanding.”

“And that means you’re our last chance,” the tallest one said.

“For what?”

The youngest of them stepped forward. Hands ink-stained, the hem of their robe torn. “To remember what was taken. That’s the reason you are bonded with the prince.”

One of the others touched the wall. A glowing line lit under their palm—five broken circles.

“The bond was once open and shared across thresholds. It never had controllers. Many held it. Everyone had access after puberty. But it became vulnerable. We couldn’t protect it anymore, like other things we failed at protecting. It became twisted.”

“In the oldest songs,” one murmured, “the bond was a river. Everyone drank from it until the locks dammed it dry. They used to see the memories of their ancestors, so they would understand what to do should tragedy befall. Now they are clueless, and we are trapped in the courts and the Rootwells.”

I wondered what a Rootwell could be. I wondered how they could be trapped in more than one court at once, but let it slide for more important information. “Who locked it?”

“You know who. The one you fear.”

My mouth went dry. “The Bone Seat?”

“Ten Bone Seats. They took control,” said the one with feathered shoulders. “Four hundred years ago.”

“But they were only the puppets,” said the youngest. The Triad behind them acted as the masterminds. The Triad curated the fusions.”

I wondered who the Triad could be, but noticed the Keepers of the Vow getting anxious.

“They became,” the youngest continued. “They burned the rest over time. Memory by memory. Their wars are pretend, to feed the minds with fabricated truths and fill the voids they created.”

“These voids,” I asked. “Are they only in the minds of humans?”

“Humans? Fae? Is there one or the other?” said the one with vines. “It is rare.”

I didn’t understand him at all, but he continued. “Everyone is the Unseeing. Everyone in all of Caldaen. However, those in the Borderlands can glimpse ancestral truth.”

“What about Prince Darian?”

The tallest one had a low voice. “He was born after the Triad opened the red gateway and after the demons possessed the Bone Seats. He became the first to be marked. But the bond chose you both. And now it listens again.”

A long pause.

The youngest stepped close enough that I could see the outline of a scar above their brow. “The bond is waking. If it fuses fully with him here, in this palace, the lock will hold.”

“But if we leave?”

“It will lead you. The Borderlands are old. Their memory is older.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You want me to escape? ”

They did not nod. They did not deny.

“How long do we have?” I asked.

“Tonight.”

I steadied myself against the wall. “Why me?”

“Because of your ancestral lineage,” said the one with feathers. “And because we won’t. In fifty minutes, awareness will return to the guards and the Elemental Seats. Leave within that time.”

“How did you buy an hour to help me? How did you plan to do that when your memories are already manipulated?”

The oldest smiled sadly. “We have a different type of magic. We were supposed to be the protectors of Caldaen. We failed.”

“Not fae?” I asked. “How can that be? Are you human? Are you from the Borderlands?”

“You are running out of time, Talia of Tarnwick. You must escape before the Bone Seat forces you and the prince to fuse or to break.”

I went straight to Darian, whose shirt was half-buttoned and all muscles and ripples underneath, blade already belted.

He looked up the second I stepped inside. “I saw your conversation with them. The ones who call themselves the Keepers of the Vow.”

“Did you know about them?”

“No. I’m incredibly ignorant. It worries me what they say about the fae, and I can’t help but wonder if I am just as ignorant despite having royal blood.”

I realized it would be a stupid thing to ask, but I asked it anyway. “Do you think the bone Seat has manipulated your memories?” I hated asking. Hated the softness in my voice when I did. “What happened to your parents?”

“They turned to dust after they were bonded.”

“Did they choose the bonds? ”

“No. The bonds chose them.”

“But the Bone Seat said that fae only choose the bond, and I was the first case he’d seen where the bond chose me. Can you remember your parents?”

“Yes. But only glimpses of memory. They died when I was five.”

“Was the Bone Seat around then?”

“Why, yes. The Elemental Seats live far longer than the typical fae, even more than royalty. Oh… maybe my parents did choose the bond.” He rubbed his head. “I don’t know.”

“Did you hear everything the Keepers of the Vow said?”

“I didn’t hear anything. I just... knew. I saw images, but they were blurry. Their faces were blurry.”

There was no point in finding out exactly what Darian understood about what they revealed. It didn’t matter if he understood the Bone Seats’ ability to disrupt his memories. It wouldn’t save us. “We have to leave. I’m ready.”

His brow lifted. “The bond showed me your echoes about having to leave. I have prepared a lot. But we can’t have horses or guards.”

“We don’t need them.”

His gaze flicked past me. “So we pack and run.”

I didn’t argue. We moved quickly, cloaks already in hand.

He’d packed everything. Bedrolls, tied tight and slung over his shoulder.

Two water flasks. A satchel with dried fruit, hard cheese, and flatbread wrapped in linen.

Daggers sheathed on both hips. A short sword strapped to his back.

My fae-forged sword he had given me was tucked beside it.

“I’ve been listening,” he said, catching my glance. “Your echoes. What you eat. What you ignore.”

“My figure?”

He looked confused.

I shook my head. “Never mind.”

He led us through the back halls only the staff used.

Quiet paths with no patrols, no eyes. He scampered like he’d memorized every turn before I arrived.

I moved when the bond tugged. He moved when the stairwells widened or narrowed, always ahead of the silence.

Silence reigned in the palace. Even the guards at the thresholds had disappeared.

We descended. The servant tunnels opened into a drainage culvert behind the northern wall. Darian ducked out first. I followed close, slipping out into the night. The culvert emptied into a walled alley, slick with moss and pungent with jasmine. Darian led without speaking.

Silence was absent from the Moon Court’s streets.

The capital never slept entirely—some windows glowed with firelight, some corners whispered with low voices and clinking bottles.

But this district was merchant-clean and lantern-lit, far from the slums, with polished stone and gold filigree on the awnings of closed shops.

We passed a fountain shaped like a spine of thorns. Moonlight silvered the water. The bond twitched, interested. It was listening to the city. It knew these streets better than I did.

Darian veered left at the gatehouse. His fingers brushed mine once as we ran. Not by accident, but enough for me to notice. I didn’t pull away. I told myself it was an accident because we were in a hurry. But the warmth stayed, long after the contact broke.

Ahead, a wide court opened, flanked by shuttered inns and the dark hulls of market stalls. He only slowed when we arrived at the far side.

“Through here,” he murmured, pulling back a canvas tarp.

It was the rear of a stable. Empty, aside from a sleeping dog and the strong scent of hay. We moved through it quickly, stepping over pitchforks and broken tack. On the other side, a stairwell descended into a dry well shaft. He led us down without pausing.

Only when the final step fell away into packed dirt did we stop. He dropped the pack and lit a low taper. “We’ll rest here for an hour.”

We didn’t sleep. Only rested for an hour or two, trading off turns watching the tree line. The bond stayed alert the whole time, as if it didn’t trust the dark .

By dawn, we were moving again. The woods thickened with each mile. The farther we got from the palace, the clearer the bond became. The bond felt calmer in the forest.

By mid-afternoon, we arrived at the treeline. Darian didn’t ask if I wanted to stop, and I didn’t ask if we were lost. The bond still tugged gently westward, guiding us toward something we hadn’t seen.

The path narrowed as we entered the forest. Pines gave way to broader trees, their trunks thick with moss and bark scored by old claw-marks. The air smelled of earth and fading rain. It was colder here, but less biting than the wind off the cliffs.

Darian adjusted his pack once, twice, then handed me a bundle of wrapped cloth from his pack. “Food. And an extra flask. I brought more than we needed.”

“You planned for this.”

“I listened to your echoes. And packed when I sensed that they’d stopped.”

I unwrapped the cloth. Smoked meat, dried berries, two wedges of hard cheese. He’d taken more than was allowed from the palace kitchens and wrapped it in linen stitched with a royal seal. “You’ll be blamed for this.”

“I already was.”

My cheeks flushed, and I swallowed. I had blamed him, but I still didn’t trust him.

We kept walking. My legs had gone past aching and settled into a dull, persistent throb.

Each step felt the same—flat, forgettable.

I heard my own footfalls in the soft earth, steady but slow, like the rhythm of someone too tired to trip.

At a fork in the trail, the bond nudged faintly.

I veered left. Darian followed without asking.

“Are you sure you weren’t trained to track?” I asked, my voice low from disuse.

“No. But you were.”

It didn’t sound like flattery. A truth dropped between us like something neither of us had the strength to carry.

Branches thickened above us. The light thinned until it was a smear through the canopy. When we found the ridge—flat stone, a riverbed below, a shallow overhang—I stopped walking without meaning to. My body had made the decision first.

Darian dropped his pack, slower than usual.

He kneeled to undo the bedrolls he’d tied hours earlier, fingers fumbling slightly at the knots.

I crouched beside him, knees creaking as I bent.

The silence wasn’t tense anymore. Our hands brushed once over the canvas.

Neither of us pulled away. Neither of us said a thing.

Then he glanced at me. “Do you think they’ll chase us?”

“No. I think they’ll pretend we were never there. Easier to erase what they can’t control.”

He peered down at the silver rings on his palm, wrist, and forearm. “And this?”

I shrugged, pulled out the dagger from my boot, and placed it on the stone beside my bedroll. Darian didn’t comment. He did the same. Neither of us reached for the other. We reached for knives instead. It was the language we trusted.

“You don’t trust me,” he said after a long time.

“No,” I replied. “But you haven’t earned it.”

“Fair.”

“You don’t trust me either.”

He hesitated, and one corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “No. But I trust the bond will protect me from any attacks you plan.”

We didn’t speak much after that. The last of the light died behind the ridge. Stars appeared, faint through the gaps in the canopy. He laid back. I didn’t. I sat upright, arms resting on my knees, eyes open, knife still close.

The blade stayed quiet beside me. Like him. Like the bond. The bond didn’t echo or pull. But in the silence between breaths, I could feel it drifting outward like a hand brushing the edge of a map.