Page 6 of Marked by the Enemy (The Binding Vow #1)

Chapter four

The Edge of Control

I slept after lunch for two hours. The Trial of Control had taken more than it gave back.

My magical energy wasn’t depleted; rather, something more profound was lacking—concentration, perhaps, or the mechanism preventing overwhelming fear.

Holding still while fire howled and ice shattered had demanded more from me than most fights.

When I woke, the bond had quieted, settling like a slow, deep, and rhythmic breath. I stood by the window for a long while, staring at the comings and goings of soldiers in the courtyard and wondering what battles they were going to or returning from. I half expected the prince to knock. He didn’t.

The maid arrived instead. The same one as yesterday.

She brought snacks–lemon cake, dates, and coffee, set the tray down, and left without words or glances.

I ate. Slowly. I chewed and swallowed and made each bite count.

Fed like someone they didn’t want dead. When the tray was empty, I left the room. No one stopped me.

I stayed above ground, strolling along corridors without aim. I walked where the walls narrowed and then widened again, where staircases spiraled and archways led to alcoves and doors that hadn’t been opened in years. I wasn’t escaping. I was observing. Measuring what they’d let me see .

Two servants crossed my path. One dipped low in a bow, lower than needed. The other didn’t bow at all. “Consort.”

I moved on.

Later, I found a window seat tucked between two white-pillared columns.

The view looked over the eastern garden—a different stretch than before.

This part was quiet, shaped like a grove, ringed with tall, pale trees.

They weren’t silver birch. The trunks were thick and didn’t have papery bark.

Their long sleeves didn’t even flutter when the breeze picked up.

I wondered about the redhead in the pool. The one with five circles on her forehead. Could she have been a bounded, too? Had the vision come from the bond, the moonstones, or the witches’ trees?

The bond stirred again, shifting in awareness and wanting me to be ready.

The next day, they brought me to the arena at dawn. A wide circle opened to the sky, and its edges had tiers of carved stone and veined glass.

I shivered in my black shirt and leather tunic. Wind tugged at my sleeves as I stepped inside. The six council members sat above, arranged like statues in their colorful attire. Silent. Watching. I wondered why they didn’t wear their invisibility cloaks this time.

Darian stood tensely alone at the ring’s edge, arms folded. His black shirt failed to conceal the form of his muscles. His pallor made me question his life. The tester with the sparkling rod stood opposite Darian, on the other side of the ring.

The bond coiled tighter the moment I crossed the chalk line. The tether stayed empty. Fearless. Blank. Silent. As if he’d trained himself to disregard my presence.

A clang rang from the far gate when it opened. What stepped through wasn’t human. The thing formed a construct—built of armor and spell-fire, shaped like a warrior. Ten feet tall, faceless, wielding a sword the size of a door. Its presence rippled across the arena.

My heartbeat held steady.

“You are to engage until it breaks,” called the Flame Seat from above.

“Or I do?” I asked without lifting my eyes.

“Either suffices.”

I pondered their gleeful intent to end my life. Surely the prince would die, too. Or perhaps I misjudged, and the prince’s survival hinged on my demise by fae magic.

The construct raised its blade, and I sucked in a quick breath. I shifted my stance, weight balanced. The bond billowed with anticipation, wanting to protect me. It wanted to act and lead. I let the vow-magic ride my focus instead of steering it.

My breath stayed even as the first strike came down. I dodged, rolled, came up swinging. My fist hit the thing’s knee joint. The gloves sparked on impact. The construct reeled, metal groaning under its weight.

The bond purred.

Another strike followed. I slipped around it, clipped its shoulder, and sparks scattered across the ring. But this time, the vow-magic inside me surged without my permission. The bond pressed outward too much and too fast.

I flinched when flame leapt from my fingers. I didn’t intend for that to happen. The construct stumbled, its chest plate blackened.

“Stop,” Darian snapped from the sidelines.

But the bond didn’t stop.

My legs moved without my command, driven by something deeper. I rejected the notion this event unfolded, horrified it proceeded outside of my influence. I struck again, harder. I couldn’t stop.

“Talia!” Darian bounded into the ring, flushed and gasping to control his breath.

This was when I first saw true emotion on his face and the color in his cheeks.

The construct turned toward him .

I blinked. The bond hesitated, and that hesitation gave me enough time to act. I dropped to one knee, grounded myself on the stone, and forced every wild thread of magic back down.

Pain shot through my strained limbs. But I kept pushing through that inverted triangle I imagined in my womb and hips, exhaling the energy down through my thighs and knees, into the ground, lower, deeper, until the power quieted, and the magic coursed into the center of Mother Caldaen.

It was a grounding routine taught to me by one of my Boundless masters.

The bond went still.

The construct froze.

I glanced at the Earth seat, who nodded and smirked at me, possibly impressed with how I had grounded the magic.

Then the tester tapped his rod. A red flash. “Trial ends. She passed.”

I rose slowly, every breath a command to stay upright.

Darian crossed the circle toward me. “You have to learn to hold it.”

“I am,” I snapped through clenched teeth. “That’s not a weapon of my choosing.”

“No,” he said. “But it’s one you wear. And that means the binding vow answers to you—or no one.” He turned and walked away.

He didn’t look back, and I hated how much I noticed.

I told myself it was better that way. That if he turned around, I wouldn’t know what to do.

I followed, breath tight, fingers still tingling from the last flare.

Council members did not speak. I was aware of their eyes on my back, sharp as blades.

Midday came quickly, and the sun blazed down, quickly heating the air and filling it with birdsong.

I wandered the garden paths, fists tucked into my sleeves, trying to shake the charge still clinging to my skin.

The magic had gone quiet, crouching low in my womb like an animal that didn’t need to growl to remind me it had teeth.

I marched without direction, past stone urns and silver-tipped hedges, ignoring the guards who stood out of sight.

The trial had ended. I had passed. But the feeling hadn’t been one of triumph.

The bond had moved without me and taken my will like a handle, steering it toward violence.

And I hadn’t stopped it until I saw Darian enter the ring.

As I glared at the trees, flowers, and streams I passed, angry thoughts looped through me like punishment.

I darted down a narrower path. The air was cooler here and shaded by hanging branches with red leaves. A pool waited near the western wall, tucked beneath a stone arch. I’d seen it once before, from above, as round as a scrying mirror, its surface dimpled with floating leaves.

Now I stood at its edge, breathing slower.

The still water reflected back a face I didn’t recognize.

Not because of the tunic or the bruises blooming faintly across my cheek.

What unsettled me was something deeper. There was a memory the water was trying to tell me.

The woman, who had had short red hair in the other pool, now had long red braids. She looked younger this time.

I fidgeted, frustrated at not knowing who she was or what this meant. I attempted to speak to her, but she didn’t see me. She smiled into the distance. There was a pressure beneath my skin. A presence I failed to shake. The bond was awake, watching the woman, too.

A koi flicked its tail near the surface. Its movement left a ripple across the reflection, breaking her face into segments. The water glimmered where the fish passed—a shimmer of magic woven into every scale.

Everything in the Moon Court shimmered, even the animals and shadows.

It dissolved the image of the woman, though, and now the water reflected only the occasional cloud.

I dipped my fingers into the pool. It was warm, faintly electric.

A current passed through me that didn’t come from the pool. The bond jerked intensely.

I yanked my hand back .

It wasn’t trying to attack. It wasn’t even rising. But it had noticed my curiosity.

“I’m not yours,” I whispered.

There was a bench facing the pool. It had been carved into the stone wall, half-covered in moss. I sat and let my shoulders fall. I wasn’t tired exactly, but my body was drained. Like something had run through me, borrowed my strength, and left the shell behind to figure out what it meant.

I closed my eyes for a breath. And I saw fire curling around my arms, licking at my collarbone, lighting the arena floor. My heartbeat spiked. I opened my eyes again.

The pool was still. But the bond had flickered. I jumped to my feet, and a breeze caught my hair, tossed it across my face. Somewhere behind the wall, bells rang—three chimes. A signal I didn’t recognize. I turned back toward the palace.

Someone caught my arm. The hand was worn by time and marked by rings.

“Hello, Consort. I was wondering if I could have a word.” The Bone Seat councilor stood beside one of the courtyard arches, his robes gray and lined with threadbare fur.

A priest in politics. His face was long, his head bald.

His eyes looked sickly with white irises.

My gut felt tight, but I didn’t pull away.

“You fought well. Better than expected.”