Page 23 of Marked by the Enemy (The Binding Vow #1)

It was difficult to sleep, but sometime before dawn, my eyes must have closed because I was woken by a hand on my shoulder and the sharp whisper of Branwen’s voice.

“They’re still here.”

Mist crawled along the earth. Thirty had laid down in that circle. Only twelve remained, including Darian and me. I pushed upright. My throat was dry. My back ached from the stone beneath my bedroll .

Branwen gestured toward the battlements, where the two elder men, Ruen and Jack, stood like carved warnings. “One of the boys saw them. The remnants. They’re camped near the eastern wood, beyond the old ridge.”

My chest went tight. “No fire?”

“None.”

Darian was already standing, blade sheathed at his hip, speaking in low tones to Astrid. His hair was damp with sweat, though the air was cool.

I moved to him. “He’s still there.”

“He wants to scare us.”

“He succeeded.” I turned to face what little could be seen beyond the courtyard.

Somewhere beyond that mist, the Bone Seat waited and watched. I wondered who the ghosts had been. We remained in the largest fighting ring. Some awoke, some stayed asleep. Some with hands still stained from trying to gather the ash of their dead.

The woman with raven black hair, cut short under the ear, was still with us and sobbing. She was the mother of the little boy who had turned to ash. Her voice cut sharper than a blade. “You told us this was safe.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. I had already had an earful from her the previous night.

“You knew we didn’t understand,” the woman snapped. “You said we could stand with you. But my boy is gone. I held him in my arms only last night, before that evil… I don’t know what he is… with purple eyes came. You let him walk away.”

“They weren’t soldiers,” Darian said, stepping in. “They were weapons already wound. They used bond magic, which was manipulated and forced to do that. We didn’t know it was possible.”

“And what are we? What are we to become?”

Silence spread like a stain.

“You don’t have to stay,” Darian said.

“I don’t have a family to return to. I remain for the fight. I will die in my attempt to destroy him. ”

“The Bone Seat?” Astrid’s voice cracked as she sat on an old bench and rubbed her weary face. “You want to kill the Bone Seat?”

“Yes, of course I want to kill him. He killed my only child. Only five years old! It was going to be his birthday next moontide. He killed those two young men as well, and more! He made his vessels kill more.” The woman stood defiantly.

“Good. You stay with us. We need help. If he can kill them, there could be more. Are you marked?” Astrid said.

The woman pulled up her sleeve to reveal three intricately patterned silver circles. Astrid and Darian looked as shocked as I felt. The circles were already knotted together, and mine still were not.

“Please tell the bond your name,” Astrid said.

“My name is Lymseia Waestumal.”

Astrid looked up, and we followed her gaze.

The fog pulled apart above us, opening to a broken spiral of pale pink sky.

Willow’s mother’s chin dimpled as she held in her tears for Lymseia.

The broken spiral of sky faded as fog crept low over the valley and the Keep’s ruins.

It clung to stone and thorn, softening the outlines of cracked walls and patchy grass.

For once, the morning was cool. Chilled, even.

The blacksmith crouched by a nest of kindling. Beside him, the tall, quiet man with hair the color of straw struck flint over a bundle of dry moss. Sparks caught. Flame curled up like it remembered how.

“Flame’s a better sound than silence,” the blacksmith muttered. He had dark skin, broad shoulders, and short grizzled hair. A long scar trailed down the side of his neck.

The other man said nothing at first. Finally, he said, “Name’s Fen. Fen Arclay.”

The blacksmith grunted. “Ulric. Been mending hinges and shaping blades since before your voice cracked.”

Fen gave a nod, but his hands didn’t stop. Neat work. Precise. Too clean for someone used to ash and forge.

Ulric watched him for a moment. “You from the Borderlands?”

Fen shook his head. “East coast. ”

“Fishers there?”

“No.”

“Farmers?”

A pause. “Some.”

Ulric narrowed one eye. “You handle flint like a boy trained by a tutor—never touched by a father’s calloused hands.”

Fen didn’t answer. He coaxed the flame higher, sat back as it caught.

Ulric let out a breath through his nose. “East coast, trained hands, name like a parchment signature.”

Fen looked over. “Does it matter?”

Ulric picked up a branch and fed the fire. “Just rare to see someone climb down from a hall to sit in the dirt with the rest of us.”

I sat on the rim of the ring. Darian stood at the edge of the courtyard, arms folded, eyes far.

He spoke only when it mattered. That was part of it—his ease with silence, never reaching to disturb it. How he watched more than he explained. The argument still clung to me. I hadn’t forgotten the way his voice snapped. But I hadn’t forgotten the way he stood in front of me, either.

He was tall. Pale, like something carved from a different season than the rest of us. Pale eyes, too. I used to think I only liked bronze skin and darker features, the kind I knew from home. But I’d seen him shirtless—more than once now—and he had the kind of body that made my stomach catch.

It would be easier to hate him if he had the ego for it. But he didn’t. Or he hid it well.

Maybe he was right. Maybe he hadn’t been looking down on us at all. I’d been shaken too—learning that Half-Bloods and mixed-bloods weren’t just real, but once held more power than the courts ever admitted. Still, I couldn’t shake what the Bone Seat had said about Darian signing a treaty.

Gooseflesh rose along my arms. What was he hiding from me?

The others gathered slowly. The fisherwoman, Nessa Tidehook, came first, rubbing her hands against her skirt. Branwen walked beside her. They each held a sloshing clay jug of water, lifted from the cistern tucked between the old barracks and the eastern wall.

Willow came last. She stepped barefoot through the mist.

“You stopped them,” Ulric said to the little girl with a smile.

Willow nodded.

“Thank you,” he said.

She looked at her mother, who nodded back. Willow turned to all of us. “I saw them gathering fire in their fists. But it wasn’t real fire. It looked like fire. But it moved like a scream. It was going to eat more people.”

“And the bond spoke through you,” I said.

“It wasn’t the bond. He used the corridor to reach me.”

“He?” Ulric asked.

“The monster. The monster spoke through me. He looked like a monster, but acted like a nice one.”

An involuntary shiver ran through me. “A nice one? I think I met him in the forest when I first came to the Keep.”

“He asked me a question first,” she whispered. “If I was willing to carry him.”

“Did he have silver eyes? Marks carved into its face? Skin like wax?” I asked.

Willow nodded. “Four circles on his head, I think. One filled. He looked sad… but kind. Like he didn’t want to scare me.”

The baker woman spoke. She had creases around her eyes and flour still under one nail. “And you said you would carry the beast?”

Willow nodded.

Ruen leaned on his carved walking stick. “The creature chose right.”

“How many circles do you have, girl?” Ulric asked.

Willow glanced at her wrist and lifted her sleeve to show us the second, faint and fused.

Branwen said, “That might be why you’re still here. Some only had one.”

Nessa looked down at her palm. “I have two. One fresh. It burned last night, but it didn’t hurt.”

“It fused,” Darian said, finally walking closer. “The tether did that to you. ”

Fen nodded. “So it’s better that the others left. Most of them had one. A few had none.”

“I wonder who the creature was and why he wanted to help us.”

I shrugged. That was something the bond hadn’t told me.

Lymseia let out a sob, and Willow’s mother pulled her into a tight hug. I hadn’t seen them speak once before, but she held her anyway.

“They weren’t safe,” Ruen agreed, tucking a dreadlock behind a slightly pointed ear. “They thought the bond was just... light and dreaming. But it asks. And it answers. Some aren’t ready for what it says.”

Astrid nodded, and the bone beads in her gray braids rattled. “We aren’t safe either. But we stayed. That means something. We need wardstones.”

“Where do we get those?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

We sat for quite a while as the fire settled.

Branwen reached over and passed me a jug of water. “We should keep learning from Willow.”

Willow looked around, a little embarrassed. “I’m just a kid.”

Ulric barked a laugh. “You grew up fast last night.”

Fen crouched by the fire and added a branch. “So, what do we do now?”

I didn’t answer yet, but scanned the others. Twelve of us.