Page 16 of The Arrow and the Alder

I t was the silence that woke Seph. The utter completeness of it. There had always been sound in Harran, from creaking walls to Nora’s coughing to Mama’s soft snores to a distant infant’s cry, but here there was nothing —nothing but the sound of Seph’s breathing and the beating of her pounding heart.

She didn’t recall falling asleep. In fact, it took her a moment to remember where she was. That she was not sleeping beside Linnea in their loft in little Harran, and the enchanted stone glowing near her feet reminded her that she wasn’t even in Kestwich.

She was on a dirt floor in a tower, in Canna—the kith lands.

With a kith .

Only…Seph didn’t see any sign of him.

She sat up. Had he changed his mind? Had he left her for dead after all? Seph glanced around, spotting his bow and quiver still leaning against the weapons’ rack. She exhaled, feeling a moment’s relief while gazing at the bow and its elegant shape, smoothed to a shine, like polished onyx. She hadn’t been able to appreciate the weapon before, with all her surviving and exhaustion, but saints , it was exquisite. It surprised her that this wild kith would arm himself with something so refined, and not for the first time, Seph wondered who he was beneath all of that hair.

A name did not reveal very much.

She didn’t believe for a second that Marks was his true name, but since he was her only way through this foreign landscape and impenetrable mist, she let it go. For now.

Unable to help herself, Seph crawled over to his bow and plucked it from the weapons’ rack. It was featherlight, the wood grain as smooth as glass, accented only by the little enchantments engraved onto the surface. Seph wished she knew what they meant. Their language commanded the power of a god, and it was carved all over this world. The bowstring had been made of woven, silken black hairs, and with one great and straining effort, Seph drew it back, careful not to fire it dry. Her arm and shoulder trembled from the sheer tension of it—its draw weight far greater than anything she was accustomed to—and Seph thought of her own bow, so crudely composed out of sheer willpower and desperation. Just like her.

Which brought her thoughts back to Harran and her family. She wished she knew if her papa and Levi were all right, just as Mama and Linnea were probably worried sick about Seph now. Oh how she lamented her parting words to Linnea, and the circumstances that had brought them to this ! To a world that had pitted them against one another when they’d once been two notes in harmony, singing different pitches but part of the same chord. And little Nora…

Air whooshed outside, startling Seph to her feet as she looked to the door. She couldn’t see anything but darkness and tendrils of mist, which curled and reached for the doorway but never slipped inside.

Seph wondered if the enchantments had something to do with that.

She listened a moment more and glanced to the rafters, where she suspected Marks had gone. Certainly, if there was something nearby, he would’ve seen it or warned her. He’d already proven his senses were far more attuned than hers.

Except she had his bow. How did one protect themselves without a weapon? Should she take it to him?

Seph heard the noise again, that whip of wind and push of air. Something wasn’t right. She grabbed his quiver and trudged up the stairs, her enchanted light following her all the way, and she pushed through the hatch. Cold slammed into her the moment she stepped onto the rooftop.

The platform was empty, hemmed in by a parapet but completely exposed to the night, and there was no sign of the kith anywhere.

Where had he gone?

Her little light flickered out, as if finally depleted of power, plunging her in darkness.

Seph’s pulse quickened, her eyes adjusted, and she scoured the mist. It held a soft glow of its own accord, some faint pale sheen that prevented the night from being fully black. She crossed to the wall and was peering through the low embrasure when she sensed a presence behind her.

Seph turned on instinct, arrow set and bow drawn, just as a dark shape materialized in the mist, rising over the parapet with its wings spread wide, its face a horror as it shrieked.

A depraved.

It whipped over her in a violent twist of wind and wings, and Seph ducked, watching it soar up—up—up before banking hard and diving back down.

For her.

She aimed, heart pounding as she gazed along the arrow’s shaft. Depraved were unfamiliar, but archery was not, and so she focused as she’d relentlessly trained to do.

One inhale.

Hold.

Hold .

The depraved was nearly upon her.

Thwick .

The arrow was a streak of silver in the night, slicing through mist before sinking into the depraved’s exposed chest. The monster let out a horrible wail, its wings thrashed at the air, and it dropped like a boulder. Seph lunged out of the way, narrowly missing it as it collided with the rooftop and erupted in brilliant blue flame.

What in the ?—?

Flame caught the end of Seph’s coat sleeve, and she yelped, jumping away as blue fire licked the skin of her right hand. The one holding Marks’s bow.

Oh, no.

She cursed and dropped his bow—praying fleetingly that she hadn’t just broken it—before peeling off the coat. She was just stomping out the flame when she felt the prickling of another presence behind her.

She spun around, cradling her injured hand, fearing a second depraved.

It was only Marks.

He stood perfectly— inhumanly —still before the hatch, and as the silence stretched, Seph slowly took in his appearance. His eyes were huge and dark and set deep, and they shone with a wildness that had never been there before. Something almost… predatory , and Seph felt a spark of unease.

The blue flame breathed its last, the darkness returned, and all that remained of the depraved was a scorch mark upon the rooftop. Her hand was fire, though she refused to pay it any mind. She’d endured worse, certainly, and she would not be any more burden to this kith than she’d been already.

Marks looked at his scorched coat, which lay on the ground at her feet, then his bow. Unlike her hand, it was miraculously undamaged by the flame—praise the saints!—which again probably had something to do with the enchantments etched into its wood grain.

“Sorry…” she started. “I was actually bringing it to you. I heard a noise, and I?—”

He strode past her, close enough that he stirred her hair. She caught the scent of him too, the pure wildness of it, like storms and freshly tilled earth. He crouched beside the bow and picked it up, gazing over its length as if perplexed by something. And then his eyes locked on her.

Seph was pinned beneath that stare.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

His voice was raw, and his words sounded like an accusation, but she wasn’t sure what he would be accusing her of.

“You’re welcome…?” she answered, trying to ignore the throbbing in her hand. Saints , it hurt. “Where were you, anyway?”

He stood abruptly, his gaze never leaving hers. “Searching our perimeter.”

“Without your weapon?”

He inclined his head and took a small step toward her. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

Seph gulped down a geyser of pain. “Rys, but of course you should have figured that out since you were at the front lines with him.” Her tone was acid, more from the pain in her hand than any bitterness at the circumstances, but Marks didn’t know that.

He opened his mouth but closed it again, and Seph took the opportunity to walk to the hatch. Her hand ached something fierce, and she wanted to examine it, preferably without him around, but as she strode past, he grabbed her arm. Firmly. Not painfully, but hard enough that she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Let me see your hand.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I’m fine.” Seph stuck out her hand.

“Your other hand.”

Their gazes parried, and he didn’t wait for permission. He pulled her other hand free and promptly cursed.

“Come on,” he grumbled, pulling her toward the open hatch.

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“You were burned by kithflame. You are not fine.”

“I’ve had worse.”

He laughed, all condescension, and stopped at the hatch, gesturing for her to go first.

If Seph weren’t in so much pain, she might’ve resisted him more, but the fire in her skin was getting worse and it was all she could do to make her way down the stairs. Marks followed closely after.

“What is…kithflame, exactly?” she managed through clenched teeth.

“Fire that won’t be quenched until it has consumed every inch of your skin.”

Oh.

“ Sit .” He jabbed a ramrod straight finger toward the bed frame, and he did not wait for her answer as he slung his bow and quiver upon the weapons’ rack, strode to his pack, and rummaged through the contents.

Seph focused on steadying her breathing, and she was just sitting down when he joined her, a tiny jar in his hand. He sat right beside her, close enough that his shoulder and thigh pressed against hers. The sheer enormity of him sobered her at once, all that muscle and mass. The wood creaked so loudly under his weight that she wondered if the bed would break. He seemed unconcerned—at least about the bed—but he was plenty upset about her burn…which was spreading.

What had only touched her pointer finger was now creeping over her knuckle to her wrist, and it was blue . Blue as the waters of the Sunder Springs and bubbling like them too.

Marks set the jar in his lap and grabbed Seph’s hand without preamble.

His wide palms and thick fingers positively dwarfed hers, and his skin was shockingly warm—and also vascular and covered in an assortment of tiny scars, not at all like the soft, pasty hands of the baron’s ilk. Thick callouses covered Marks’s palms and the fingertips he used for archery. He was so close, so everywhere , the setting so intimate, that a butterfly set loose in her belly, which was preposterous, given the circumstances.

Marks popped off the jar’s lid. Inside was a silvery white paste.

“What’s that?” Seph asked.

“A hope and a prayer,” he murmured, which Seph did not find reassuring, especially when he scooped out a glob of the stuff and touched it to the burn.

Oh, mother of all that is holy …

Seph’s entire body flinched and spasmed. Stars danced in front of her eyes and she hissed a string of colorful profanities while Marks held tight to her hand.

There was a moment amidst the agony when she thought he might be grinning beneath that beard, but again, she couldn’t be sure.

Marks wiped another wad of paste over the wound, and a new wave of pain jolted through Seph’s body. Her body convulsed on reflex, and her free hand flew out and struck him across the jaw.

His face snapped away, and he inhaled sharply.

“Sorry…I didn’t mean to hit you.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he sounded more amused than angry as he said, “Perhaps grab hold of something before I continue…?”

Seph grabbed a fistful of his tunic—something that also wouldn’t give her splinters—and squeezed tight. He stared at her, as if he was about to object, but his brow furrowed instead, and he set his attention back on the wound, continuing to spread the paste over the bubbling skin. Seph hissed through gritted teeth and squeezed his tunic with every wash of pain. After what felt like an eternity, he snapped the lid back upon the jar and set it aside.

“Are you finished?” Seph whispered. Her entire body was covered in sweat.

“Almost.” He lifted her hand to his mouth, and Seph went rigid. It looked as if he was going to kiss her fingertips, and when he closed his eyes, Seph wondered if he was going to do just that.

He spoke the softest word instead. His hot breath wafted over her skin, and Seph felt the power in it. The eloit. And slowly—very slowly—the fire began to fade.

And fade.

Until all that remained was a numbness in Seph’s skin.

Marks’s broad shoulders drooped with a long exhale, and he dropped his head, giving her hand back to her.

Quiet.

Seph realized she was still gripping his tunic. She forced open her stiff fingers as she observed the burn upon her other hand. The wound was still blue and bubbly, but glossy from the paste, and the fire was gone—like it’d never been there to begin with. The skin there tingled like a limb that’d fallen asleep, but it didn’t hurt anymore, and it wasn’t spreading.

Marks remained hunched and breathing heavily, as if he’d overexerted himself. Had he drawn too much eloit ? Her grandfather had told her stories about kith who had died doing this.

Seph didn’t know what to think of it. She wasn’t used to others taking care of her . Marks still hadn’t moved or opened his eyes, and so Seph studied him, his strong profile, somber brow, and that wild hair he wore like a shield.

“Thank you,” she said softly, humbled.

His shoulders expanded with another inhale. “Get some rest.” His voice was ragged. “We’ve got a few long days of travel ahead of us before we reach our destination.”

It took a moment for his words to catch up to her, and she couldn’t help but ask, as a spark of hope flickered to life inside of her, “And…where is that?”

His eyes opened a fraction, and he glanced sideways at her. “My home. Somewhere you’ll be safe until you decide how best to make the journey back to your own.”