Page 14 of The Arrow and the Alder

S eph was freezing . She couldn’t remember ever being so cold, and she knew cold, yet the kith—Marks, or so he said—did not appear to be in any sort of hurry.

To be fair, he had informed her that he had time.

Marks tipped his head, studying her with that keen gaze of his. “Yes, as I said. I will help you, for a price.”

Seph stared at him, not understanding. Perhaps the cold was getting to her and turning her thoughts to sludge. “I did what you asked. I gave you my story, and now?—”

“And you offered it freely,” he said, like a parent to a child.

“No, you specifically said my story for your aid.”

“Ah, but you never accepted my terms. If that was your notion of assent, you should have been more definitive.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake…

Seph cursed and kicked the pit’s wall, but she was so angry that she kicked the wall harder than she’d intended and jammed her toes instead. Now she was cursing for other reasons. Meanwhile, Marks observed her with an amused expression.

“So what is your bargain , you abominable kith?” Seph hissed.

Oh, yes, Marks was definitely smiling now. And he seemed to be enjoying her fury, his eyes flashing as he leaned forward a little. “The coat, of course.”

Seph glanced down at the coat in her hands, at the iridescent mahogany and golden embroidery that shimmered faintly in the kithlight’s glow. She raised a brow. “And what is it you plan to do with it?”

“Suffice it to say that anything of interest to Massie is of interest to me.”

Seph did not believe for a second that was the whole of it, but whatever his actual reason, she felt a surge of protection over the coat, like before, when Lord Massie had been holding it up like a trophy. “Certainly there is something else I can?—”

“There isn’t.”

His words were clipped, a final decision before he was standing and turning to go.

Again.

“Wait!” Seph called out.

He did not wait, and the kith’s light dimmed as he walked on, drawing night’s shadows thickly over the pit once more.

“Please, don’t leave me here!” Seph called out.

No answer.

Darkness swallowed her completely, and bitter cold sank sharp teeth into her bones.

“ You can have the damned coat !” she yelled, then—remembering her earlier oversight—hastily added, “In exchange for the coat, you will help me out of this pit…safely. Right now.” She added each word as insurance, hoping she’d covered all her bases—she knew how tricky the kith could be with their bargains, and she was beginning to think he was going to leave her anyway when the kith’s light reappeared. A moment later, the end of a rope flew over the edge and into the pit. Seph reached up?—

The rope lifted out of her grasp, taunting her a few feet above her hands as Marks bent over the ledge. “Coat first, or I do not accept your terms.”

Seph fumed. “How do I know you’re not going to take the coat and leave?”

“My first plan was to leave and come back when you were dead.”

Seph scowled. “Scoundrel!”

“Oh, you have no idea.” His voice was dark and dripping with sarcasm. “So do you accept my terms or not, my little eristic?”

Seph could have throttled him. “I will give you my coat, and you will then immediately help me out of this pit, safely, in one piece, and totally unharmed.”

His eyes gleamed like polished steel. “You know something of my kin, I see.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

Seph suspected he was grinning, though she couldn’t see it through his massive beard.

“I accept,” he said at last, and he lowered the rope a second time.

Seph begrudgingly tied the rope’s end around the coat and secured it with trembling hands. She’d just finished tying a knot when he pulled the rope up and out of the pit. Seph thought she heard him hiss, and then silence followed. She waited.

And waited.

“Hello? Marks? Are you still there? I agreed to your terms, so?—”

The rope’s end nearly whacked her in the face. “You did that on purpose.”

“Definitely.”

Seph ground her teeth but grabbed the end, struggling to clench her frigid fingers around it, and when Marks pulled, the rope slipped right through her stiff and frozen hands.

His face appeared over the edge again. “You’re supposed to hold on to it.”

Seph gave him an annoyed look. “It’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You are on the inside.”

This time he did laugh—sort of, though it might have been a cough—and glanced promptly at the mist.

Seph breathed hot air on her hands and rubbed them together. “I’m ready.”

He lowered the rope, and this time, she wrapped the end around her wrists first. When he pulled, she clenched the rope in her underarm and used the pit’s wall to prop her feet. Her shoulder protested and her ribs ached, and she was about to lose her grip again when the kith grabbed a fistful of her drenched coat and pulled her up and over the ledge.

Seph clambered onto the ground and collapsed, heaving. At least a dozen depraved lay dead all around her.

Saints, there were so many. She hadn’t realized.

“You…where did you learn to shoot like that?” she asked, but Marks didn’t answer. He focused only on the rope he was currently winding. She noticed he was not wearing her grandfather’s coat but must have stuffed it into the bulging pack that sat on the ground at his feet, directly beside a pair of battered gloves. He shoved the wound rope into the pack—right on top of her grandfather’s coat—slung it all over his shoulder, left the gloves behind, and walked away into the mist.

With the light.

“Wait…” Seph forced herself to move. To survive . She pushed through the cold and the heavy weight of exhaustion until she was able to climb to a stand and shout, “ Wait !”

But he did not wait, and Seph cursed as she hobbled after him, half running, half stumbling in the dark. Her lack of sleep was swiftly catching up to her. Eventually, she got close enough to Marks that he stopped and looked back at her. His former humor was gone. “I have no further business with you. Your terms were to see you safely out of the pit. Nothing more.”

“I know, but I have no idea which way to go.” She halted before him, though her body would not stop shivering. Now that she was out of the pit, the wind cut sharp and swift. “I d-don’t know this part of the forest, but if you could just point me b-back to Harran?—”

“No.” He turned away from her and resumed walking.

No ?

Seph grumbled and jogged after him. “Perhaps you misunderstood. I’m not asking for you to physically escort me there. I just need a little help with direction?—”

“I did not misunderstand you. You can’t go home.”

Wait, what? “Why not?”

“Because the way is sealed.”

“ The way ? What are you talking about?”

A twig snapped beneath his tread. “You stepped through a temporary tear in the veil,” he said with a mark of impatience, “compliments of High Lord Massie. It was the same tear I myself walked through, but that tear is now closed. If you wish to return to your mortal lands, you’ll have to head east for the Rift and pray you’re not torn apart by a thousand depraved.”

Seph’s steps slowed to a halt and she stared after him, unable to move as his words registered.

She was in Canna.

The kith lands.

Seph looked around her, at this dark and pervasive mist that hid the world. Was it true? Had she really stumbled into kith territory? Marks had no reason to twist any truth about that, and yet…

She recalled how the mist had thickened—unnaturally so—and the strange sensation that’d swept over her skin before she’d fallen into the pit.

It also explained the depraved.

Seph jogged after him again as a horrible and overwhelming dread bloomed inside of her. This time, she heard him grumble, and she imagined him rolling his eyes. “How do I get back?” she demanded.

“I already told you,” he said without a glance in her direction.

“There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.”

“You said I followed you through a t-tear, so how do I find another one?”

“You don’t.”

“How d-did you find that one?”

Marks’s shoulders tightened with irritation, but he didn’t answer.

“Did you win over Rys’s good nature with that charming personality of yours?”

This time, Marks stopped in his tracks.

A long breath passed.

“I don’t have time for this,” he murmured to himself, his back to her still. The mist curled around his massive frame, as though he were lord of it, and then, with sudden decision, he unhooked his bow, quiver, and pack, setting them down to pull off his coat.

“What are you doing?” Seph asked.

In answer, he tossed his coat at her.

Seph barely caught it. “What’s this for?”

“So you don’t freeze to death.” He slipped his bow and quiver back across his shoulders and walked on.

What a boor he was!

Seph probably should’ve used this opportunity to do what he’d asked: let him go and leave him be. She was not his problem, and he most certainly was not hers. In fact, she should’ve rejoiced at being rid of the slippery kith. But as she stood there, watching that halo of silvery light grow farther and farther away, a tug persisted in her soul. It was like an invisible tether, connecting her to her grandfather’s coat, and the farther Marks walked away from her, the more it pulled and strained.

The more it beckoned.

Seph turned her back on them both to clear her thoughts but found herself staring at a world as black as pitch. She didn’t even know if she could go back to Harran. She’d killed one of the baron’s guards—yes—but the baron was no longer alive to punish her. Still, the evidence of her crime lay bleeding all over her lawn, and Seph had no idea how Lord Bracey would react or if he would blame her for his father’s death, regardless of her account. Seph hadn’t exactly spent the last few years building trust with Harran’s elders, and she’d be damned before she placed any more expectations on Linnea and her connection to Lord Bracey.

Oh, saints, what a mess!

Perhaps she’d find employ at a local priory and devote the rest of her life in service to the saints, but that still required getting back to mortal lands somehow. Seph didn’t know what to do, but the one thing she did know was how to survive, and there would be very little chance of survival if she went on her own, in the dark and mist and cold.

Chewing her bottom lip, Seph glanced back at Marks’s little bobbing light. She didn’t know these lands, nor could she see more than ten paces in this cursed mist without light. Not only that, she had no weapon, no means of protection. If she’d been thinking straight, she’d have pried that dagger from the baron’s dead fingers. Instead, all she had was Marks’s coat.

But Marks knew these lands, even in the dark, and clearly he was adept with a weapon.

He wouldn’t like it, but she’d take his anger ten times over another encounter with those horrible depraved. With a grumble of resignation, Seph put on his enormous (and deliciously warm) coat, and trudged after the kith and his halo of moonlight.