Page 28 of Marked by the Enemy (The Binding Vow #1)

Chapter nineteen

Fed to the Demon

B y the next day, the sun was blazing overhead. The still air pressed down on us. Many of the marked had taken shelter in the hall, where the stones still held the night’s cool.

Nessa and Lina moved through the space with rolled sleeves and smudged hands, scrubbing at benches and sweeping out corners.

They’d made half a dozen trips between the village and the Keep, dragging sacks, jars, and crates.

With Ulric’s quiet strength, Fen’s sure footing, and Branwen’s sharp eye, they’d hauled blankets, dried herbs, firewood, knives, bundles of rope, even a stack of fishing nets braided with old charms.

“We ain’t living in a tomb,” Nessa had said that morning, slinging a basket of apples onto the table with a grunt. “These legs still work. We’re living.”

And it was working. The place looked less like a ruin. More like it might keep us.

When I stepped outside, the light hit hard off the stone.

Rainer was by the east gate, the one set between the arch and the fighting ring, where the path to the village ran down through the pines.

She and Ulric worked side by side, patching the frame with scrap iron pulled from the forge. The clangs echoed off the walls .

Old man Ruen sat on an overturned bucket near the gate, eyes half-lidded but tracking every sound. Rainer paused in her work, straightened, and looked past the forge, shading her eyes from the sun’s glare.

Across the meadow, beyond the line of trees, a shape moved. A boy. Alone. He walked barefoot down the worn path that cut through grass and thistle. His skin was as pale as sanded wood. His hair was near white.

Willow ran out of the Keep as if she’d sensed him. She stood beside me. “That boy. He’s from Abigail’s memories. From the corridor.”

Ruen frowned. “He looks only twelve years old. What is he doing all by himself? From the village, perhaps.”

“He was at the riverside,” I said, the image still vivid—though it hadn’t come from my own past.

He walked without hesitation. Everyone came out from the courtyard to greet him. No threat came off him, only a familiarity I couldn’t place. His silver hair caught the sun. His eyes were too old for his face.

He stopped a few feet from me and held out a hand. But it was empty, with nothing to accept.

“I’ve come for what was lost.”

The tether turned over once in my spine.

Slow. Curious. I took a step forward. “What’s your name?”

He dropped his hand down by his side. “I gave it away when I passed you the coin.”

“The coin?”

“You lost it. But it remembers you still.”

I swallowed. “Did Abigail send it?”

He nodded once.

I wanted to ask who Abigail was. But Darian moved beside me, studying the boy like a puzzle already missing its edge.

“Are you staying?” I asked.

“No.” The boy looked past me, toward the Memory Circle and corridor that no longer showed. “It was a mark left in metal. That’s all. But metal keeps heat.” He opened his hand again, and this time the silver coin was there. He offered it to me.

I took it. “Thank you.”

He smiled faintly. “Have you seen a pure fae woman with golden braids and skin?”

I tilted my head to the side. “No. No one is pure fae.”

“Some are. Abigail seeks them.”

“There is no one like that here.”

He nodded and pointed at the sky. “Abigail cries in the Fissured Realm.” After that, he turned and stepped through something no one else could see. He was gone.

Willow’s eyes bulged. Branwen muttered a word I didn’t catch.

Darian’s fingers brushed mine, only barely. I turned. He was already looking at my face. My breath caught in the wrong place. I kept it there. I should’ve stepped into his touch. But I didn’t. I let it pass like it meant nothing, even as my pulse recorded the moment like a memory already fading.

Ruen whispered, “He wasn’t alive.”

From the far edge of the Keep, another figure stepped into view. A woman. Real. Watching. She was a young woman—like me, but not. Her golden hair was tied in a dozen braids that swung past her shoulders. Her skin caught the sun like bronze. Her legs were bare. Long.

I glanced at Darian without meaning to. My stomach twisted tight. Pointless, I know. But it happened.

She stopped at the gate and rested one hand on the stone. She joined the circle without asking. “My name’s Sael.”

“Are you pure fae?” I asked.

She sat in the dust and hitched up her crossed legs. “Yes. Why?”

“A ghost was looking for you.”

“I’m not surprised,” she said. “You opened something.”

“Yes,” I said.

“And it opened back.”

“It did.”

She nodded slowly. Her voice was hoarse from disuse. From holding words too long in the back of her throat. Everyone was here now, sitting with the newcomer in the Memory Circle, and waiting for answers to their unspoken questions.

“I have a favour to ask you, Talia of Tarnwick.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I ask you to let me live here with you and your friends. This Keep has a protective energy, and a fae man with black hair and golden wings told me to come here. I cannot remember why, but I remember he said I would be safe here.”

Me and my friends exchanged confused glances, but we shrugged and let it be.

Branwen stood with her palm on the hearth. The flame rose without spark. “Would you like some tea? We brought provisions from the village, and we have fermented red tea from the caves of Yunna.

“That would be lovely, thank you.” Sael tossed her braids, and I noticed her pointed fae ears.

“Who are you?” I asked as I studied the ugly half-formed marks on her forearms.

She whispered one word: “The Seventh.”

The air pulled tighter, though no one moved. The marked ones glanced at each other, then at me. Willow walked across the circle and sat beside the stranger, Sael.

I frowned. Branwen spoke first. “What does that mean? The Seventh of what?”

Sael’s eyes swept the circle, pausing only when they found mine. “I was bound after the Fifth group of rebels vanished… and after the Sixth group failed.”

Around us, the fire crackled softly, and somewhere in the orchard, a bird let out a plaintive cry.

“The Bone Seat of the Star Court tried to feed me to a demon in the Fissured Realm. ”

My breath caught, but she kept going.

“He opened the red gateway and pushed me through.” She looked away, jaw clenched. “But I managed to escape—with help. The rebels in the Seventh group pulled me back.”

She touched her chest lightly, where her vowmark had once glowed. “Still… the demon took part of my soul. That’s how it happened. That’s how the demon used the Star Court’s Bone Seat as a vessel.”

A few of the marked shifted where they stood. Someone whispered, “She’s a Pure-Blood?”

Sael nodded and sighed. “That’s why I can’t walk the corridor. It won’t open to me.”

Astrid frowned. “How do you understand what’s inside it?”

Sael’s voice was calm. “Because I’ve witnessed what it does to those who can, and I’ve seen the frustration of those who cannot. The vow used to link us all so we would be compassionate about our differences and see others’ shadows to gain that compassion. But the Bone Seats twisted it.”

“We are aware of this,” Ulric said.

She accepted her beverage with a smile and sniffed the steam. “You are very well-informed. That is good. This fermented red tea smells good.”

Branwen nodded. “What did the Bone Seat do to you?”

“He fed part of my soul to his demon. That’s the piece I’m looking for.”

Fed to the demon.

No one spoke. The phrase hung there, heavier than any curse. What kind of vow allowed that? Murmurs rose, uncertain, uneasy.

“Demons, you say?” There was a nervous twitch under Darian’s eye as he crossed his arms tightly against his chest.

The Seventh nodded slowly and stared at him. “Yes, Prince Darian of the Moon Court.”

Lina set her mug of tea down on a flat stone with a thud and tied up her blonde curls anxiously. “What happens if you find this part of your soul? ”

“If I can take it back, it might be the start of undoing what he’s built. We can take back the other souls he has stolen, too, without killing everyone tied to him.”

“You mean the innocents?” Rainer said. “The ones who don’t even realize they’re bound?”

Sael looked into the flames and nodded. “He’s buried them under silence. Whole families. Whole kingdoms. Most don’t even understand what they serve.”

Branwen topped up Jack’s cup with more tea. “So why won’t you tell us everything?”

Sael’s gaze sharpened as she frowned at the fire. “Because the more you understand, the louder you become. And the louder you become, the faster he hears you.”

Sael said little for the rest of the day.

She simply observed the movement of the marked ones without comment or interruption.

Lina brought her bread, fruit, and meat.

She accepted it with a nod. Willow poured her water.

She drank without thanks, but not ungratefully.

It wasn’t reverence that settled around her. It was attention.

The marked ones didn’t speak to her. The bond didn’t press. It catalogued her shape among us. I peered at her from the shade of the Keep. Sael remained rooted to the spot when the vow-magic passed through her. That told me more than any declaration. She had known this current before.

Branwen joined me under the eaves. We moved deeper into shadow so no one outside would see her marks. She carried two small bundles wrapped in cloth and set one of them down on the stone ledge. “She was demon bait.”

I turned, alarmed. “What’s that?”

“I have no idea. The ancestor who told me wouldn’t explain. It was one of the tales she told me about the Vowborn of the past.”

“Vowborn?”

“Like us. Chosen by the binding vow. The Bone Seat was never a Vowborn. He forced it.”

“And Sael?”

“I don’t think she’s one either, from what she told us. She was one of the ten fae used as demon bait.” Branwen whispered in my ear. “Did you notice her four marks are purple and unattached like the remnants?”

I nodded and swallowed. “So maybe all the forced have that violet color, whatever fae court they are from. What else did your ancestors tell you?”

Branwen sniffed. “Only bits and bobs. The last generation of the Echoed Chain—“

“Wait. The what?” I asked. “What does the Echoed Chain mean?”

“Leaders of the Vowborn, like you, who tried to rebel the Bone Seats.”

“There have been others?”

“Many generations.” Branwen’s marks started illuminating in fluorescent green, and we stepped closer to the hall so no one outside would see.

“The First, The Second, The Third, The Fourth, The Fifth, The Sixth, The Seventh, The Eighth. All rebel leaders against the Bone Seats and their demons. All failed leaders of the Vowborn.”

“So I’m not so special?” I sucked in a long breath and blew it out between tight lips. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected it. How many have there been?”

“This is only what my ancestor told me. The first generation had ten. This generation has produced five so far. You are the Fifth. The ones before are also known as the Forgotten Numbers.”

“Known by who?”

She shrugged. “Ancestors, spirits of the Otherworld, guardian spirits. Angels. Call them what you will.”

Fourteen Vowborn had tried this before me. Fourteen had failed. Most never got close enough to choose mercy. “You know more than me. Who are these ancestors you’ve been talking to?”

“Royalty from the Summer Court.”

“You have fae royalty for ancestors?”

She shrugged. “Mixed-blood, not pure fae. Like all the true courts.”

“I never asked. But are you from here?”

“Me? Oh, no!”

“You’re not from the same village as the elders, Nessa, Lina, and Ulric? ”

“No. No!” Branwen laughed.

“I’d been working in the borderlands over the summer to make more money so I can buy my son a house. He’s newly wed.”

“Where did you come from?”

“The West of the Borderlands, where land meets sea.”

“How long did it take you to walk here?”

“In all honesty, my feet just walked, and I was in some kind of trance. It was as if you—the Fifth and the Forgotten Numbers of the second chain—were a magnet.”

There was so much I didn’t understand. Why was I chosen as the Fifth instead of Branwen? Because I didn’t fear death? “What about Sael?”

“She came to reclaim part of her soul, exactly like she said. I think we can trust her. At least, I hope that we can.” Branwen untied the cloth bundle and held it out.

Inside, a thin strip of navy blue velvet, pinpointed with small sequins of cut glass.

“She left this at the offering stone this morning.”

I touched the edge of the fabric. It vibrated faintly under my fingers, like a line from a spell long since unspoken but still known. “She’s not asking to be marked properly,” I said. “She’s asking to remain.”

The tie stirred in support of it.

Darian entered the courtyard and then the hall. “Do you trust this fae woman?”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to say I didn’t trust anyone. But I was already trusting him, wasn’t I? “I don’t know. But she stays.”

Without challenging me, he stood there, jaw flexing, like he wanted to ask more but didn’t. That restraint—maybe that was trust, too.