“I suppose it’s nice to meet you, Caelum the Marked,” I said as that pinky finger of his brushed against my hand once more. He didn’t
seem the type to fidget, his body unnaturally still next to mine except for the single place where we touched.
The brush of his skin against mine soothed something inside me, a place where I’d wondered if I’d ever find somewhere I truly belonged. Caelum may have been a stranger. We might have been two passing ships in the night, who would never see one another again. But he was Fae Marked like me, a sign that maybe, just maybe, there were others like us out there somewhere. Preparing for a life in hiding.
I studied the contours of his face, noting that, despite the calluses that covered that pinky finger he used to touch me so delicately, his skin didn’t seem weathered by the sun. He didn’t bear the wrinkles that came from a life of outdoor labor and exposure to the elements. His skin gleamed with a natural golden bronze, but the freckles and sun spots I’d come to expect were nowhere to be found.
A swordsmith, maybe? The hilts of the swords peeking over his shoulders would certainly lend credence to that notion: weapons only the extremely wealthy or skillful could afford outside of the Mist Guard or Royal Guard. His clothing was well-made and mostly clean, lacking the signs of wear that mine showed.
“The pleasure is all mine, Estrella the Star,” he said, his lips tipping up into the hint of a playful smile. The way he practically purred the word
“pleasure” coated my skin, hinting at all manner of indecent things I had no right to be thinking of at that moment.
Even if he was easily the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
The barn door cracked open, and I instinctively sat up, ripping my hand away from Caelum in guilt for the direction my thoughts had wandered. Caelum chuckled as my cheeks pinked, sitting up beside me as Brann’s face poked in the cracked door.
His body followed as his brow furrowed, his lips pursing as he tried to hide his obvious concern. “It’s okay,” I said, standing and stepping away from Caelum and crossing toward my brother. He left the barn door slightly ajar, making for an easy escape in the event that he decided my judgment wasn’t accurate.
I could hardly blame him. A man like Caelum made it hard to think rationally, quickly disarming all my thoughts of escape with his charm.
“Explain to me what exactly is okay?” Brann pointed toward my neck, which was visible with my cloak pushed to the side. It seemed to pulse as I lifted the fabric to cover it once again, as if it had a mind of its own and hated being concealed once again.
“Caelum is like me,” I said, turning back to look at Caelum. His dark eyes that had previously glittered playfully were like hardened stone as he glared at Brann, and the air around him felt tense, as if the power lurking inside him saw my brother as a threat.
I swallowed, pushing forward to find a way to keep the peace. They didn’t need to be the best of friends for us to be civil, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the first living person like me we’d seen. “This is my brother, Brann.”
Caelum swallowed, his jaw clenching as he reached up to his heavy cloak and pulled it to the side until it shifted and revealed the mark. The two of them exchanged a look of confusion, and I watched from the sidelines as I waited for them to work their way through whatever male moment they were having.
“Her brother?” Caelum asked, glancing over at me. He paused, studying my face intently before finally shifting his attention back to Brann and giving an appeasing smile. “How unusual that you would flee with her.”
“I wasn’t about to leave her to the mercy of the Fae and the Mist Guard on her own,” Brann snapped back. His focus finally fell to the Mark on Caelum’s neck, studying it intently with his gaze narrowing on the entwined
black and white before raising his eyes back to Caelum’s. Brann glared openly.
I just wanted to eat and go to sleep in the relative safety of the barn and with the warmth of straw at my back.
“We’re leaving,” Brann announced, reaching forward and taking my hand in his.
“It’s dark out,” I protested. “We won’t find shelter anywhere else so late, and Gods only know if we’ll be fortunate enough to find another place to hide. We should wait until morning.”
Caelum cleared his throat, and I turned to find his body holding perfectly still. His gaze wasn’t on me or Brann, but on the spot where my brother clutched my hand tightly. “I really think it would be wise that we stick together.” The words came through gritted teeth, as if he’d clenched his jaws so hard they’d melded into one.
“Why is that? So you can use me to go into the places you can’t be seen?” Brann asked, narrowing his eyes on the other man.
“Yes,” Caelum agreed, not even bothering to deny how useful Brann would be. “We can help one another. Unless I am mistaken, I don’t see weapons on either of you. It would be unwise to continue without any form of protection.”
“What good will a sword do us if the Fae come to steal her away?” Brann asked. “I’m assuming you haven’t had to defend yourself just yet, because if you had, you’d know that Mark on your neck is more than capable of doing it for you,” Brann argued, pausing to smirk in a moment of pride. “Or at least hers is.”
Caelum’s attention shifted to me, his eyes narrowing on my face as he studied my reaction to Brann’s words. Shame heated my cheeks, the reminder of what the Mark had done making me turn my eyes to the floor. “Someone tried to kill you?” he asked, his lips thinning with anger.
I nodded. “Two of the Mist Guard from my village when we fled. I didn’t mean to kill them,” I mumbled, scuffing the dirt on the floor of the barn.
“Of course you didn’t,” Caelum said, surprising me. His eyes were sympathetic and soft when he cleared his throat. “The Vinculum only acts as a last resort to preserve life.”
“The Vinculum?” I asked, watching as he approached. He closed the distance between us with slow strides that somehow seemed to take forever
and happen too quickly, all at once. Brann’s hand tightened on mine when the strange man stopped in front of me, lifting a hand to the Mark on my neck.
It awakened, blazing with the swirling light that glowed through the gaps in his fingers where he rested his palm against my skin. “The Fae Mark,” he explained, his dark eyes lit by the white radiating from my body. Whereas the Mark had burned when Brann touched it, it came to life at the touch of another like me.
“How is it that you know so much about this mark?” Brann asked, tugging at my hand until he pulled me away from Caelum, whose hand dropped away. The shock of fresh air against my skin felt too warm, as if I would overheat and burst into flames in the wake of his skin on mine.
“My father was a fan of our histories. He spent a great deal of time studying the forbidden texts he kept hidden in his library,” Caelum answered, and I nodded even as Brann kept pulling me back toward that door. If his father had truly risked owning the forbidden books, his knowledge of such things made sense, no matter what my overprotective brother seemed to think. “Don’t be foolish, Little One. We are far safer together.”
I paused, holding his gaze as Brann tugged at me. “Let’s go, Estrella,” he warned, his voice dropping to the deep command he’d used when we’d been children and I was caught in a place I shouldn’t be.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d gotten myself in trouble, or even the tenth. Not when my need to wander around in the woods had seen me punished in Lord Byron’s library far too many times.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip and turning to follow Brann.
“Estrella,” Caelum warned, and then his voice was cut off as the door closed behind me. Brann led me into the woods, and I let him take me to safety despite the hollow feeling that I’d done exactly what Caelum had warned me not to, and that going out into the night would prove to be very foolish indeed.
I ignored the pit in my stomach, following the brother who’d risked everything for me.
Family came first.
 |
“I cannot believe how foolish you were. What were you thinking, showing him your mark?” Brann asked a few minutes later as we
trudged through the woods. Our pace was slow, the stars above only doing so much to illuminate our path with the tree canopy so dense overhead. The leaves hadn’t completed their change of colors, sticking to the branches in their last efforts to survive the weather, which had changed once again toward the cool, crispness of an approaching winter.
Once they fell, we’d have more light in the night, but we’d also have less cover to conceal us from the things chasing us.
I’d wanted to go back the moment we left. The shelter of the barn, the warmth of the straw, and the presence of another person like me all pulled me back toward the village we’d left behind. “Foolish was leaving. What harm could it have done to allow him to travel with us? He would’ve been one more person to keep watch and help in a fight,” I argued. We’d been fortunate enough this far to only encounter limited numbers at once, but if a group of Mist Guard found us and they had one of the iron collars with them that seemed to take every bit of my energy from, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
“He would have also been one more mouth to feed,” Brann snapped, shocking me with his lack of concern over another human life. All traces of the caring and gentle brother I’d known were gone in that moment, his features appearing sharper in his ire.
“Brann,” I mumbled, shaking my head. I didn’t want to live in a world where everyone was my enemy. Where everyone was a threat or a sacrifice I needed to make to save myself. “We should go back,” I said, turning to stare at the way we’d come. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way to the barn on my own without Brann’s help, and the knowledge kept me from trying, even when my legs twitched to change direction.
“You don’t know him. What do you think he’d do if it came down to it and he needed to escape? He would sacrifice us to save his life, Estrella. You cannot trust anyone but me, do you understand?” Brann asked, gripping my hand in his and staring down at me. “There are things you
don’t know. Things you were never meant to know…” he trailed off, his head raising as he looked into the distance in the night.
“What is it, Brann?” I asked, following his line of sight. I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of him telling me to be quiet. We stood in silence for a moment, watching the darkness through the trees until finally I heard what had made him freeze in place.
Hoof beats.
The howls of the hounds on the wind.
They battered against my heart as they came on the wind, driving me forward after one more exchanged look with Brann. We’d stumbled around in the dark for too long, looking for a new hiding place, thanks to his ridiculous idea to wander out at night.
Anything was better than this.
Sweat trickled down my back as I ran, and dripped all the way to the hands that pumped at my sides. My cloak got caught on a branch, tearing my head back with the force of it. I fought to pull it free, struggling against the grip on my throat. “Leave it!” Brann ordered, and I reached up with trembling fingers to unknot the tie at my throat.
My body ached. Everything hurt, and I was so damn tired I thought about standing still and letting them take me. I was under no illusion that the magic coursing through my body would protect me from the Wild Hunt itself—not when it came from a Fae.
Three breaths passed as I fumbled. In and out in rapid succession, the sound drowning out everything else as I coughed with the exertion threatening to break my body, but once freed I turned back toward Brann and ran at his side. Leaping over a large tree root and nearly falling on my face, my breath coming in short, desperate pants, I growled, “We should have stayed in the fucking barn!” When I turned to him with a glare, his apologetic stare met mine, and he nodded as he pushed his body to the limit.
All we’d consumed was a loaf of bread shared between us immediately after leaving the barn, and the lack of fluid in his body made his body sag. He hadn’t been fortunate enough to drink the water from Caelum’s canteen. I kept pace at his side, when he would have needed to drag me along under any other circumstances.
“Brann!” I gasped, reaching out to grab his arm and jerk him to a stop. What I saw through the trees was a surer death than what chased us. He
skidded to a stop beside me, his foot only a few steps from the edge of a cliff. The channel far below was so deep it looked black, even with the moon gleaming overhead in the sky. The fall was impossible to survive. It would turn a body into a mangled mess of limbs and blood.
Three more breaths wheezed out of my chest.
I turned a terrified glance to Brann, spinning to look behind me. The hoof beats grew louder, echoing through the forest at our backs until I knew with absolute certainty they were gaining on us.
My brother pulled his arm free from mine, blinking rapidly as a shaky breath left him. His fingers brushed against mine as he shifted our hands to lace our fingers together. He turned toward me as if in slow motion, his eyes sad and gleaming in the moonlight. “Together,” he murmured softly.
My skull throbbed with how hard I shook my head. “No. Run.” Refusing to acknowledge what he’d offered as a solution, I tilted my head to the left and the opening I knew he would have if I offered myself up as a distraction.
He could go home. He could take care of our mother instead of dying pointlessly.
Brann gripped my hand tighter, smiling softly as he shook his head. “She cannot have you. Together,” he repeated, leaning down to rest his chin on top of my head. In the background, the Wild Hunt drew closer. I could practically feel the skeletal horses’ harsh breaths on my neck. “One.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, the word jagged as it bubbled up my throat. “Two,” I said, holding back the sob that clenched my heart in my chest. Fear consumed me. Fear of the unknown.
Fear of the pain that might come before the moment of death finally brought peace.
“Three,” Brann and I said together, darting the last few paces to the edge of the cliff. My legs shook with each step and my heart stalled in my chest as my foot pushed off the ledge. Cold air rushed up the skirts of my dress, dancing around my legs in a moment of suspension. For those brief few seconds, everything was weightless around me, hanging in limbo as I waited for the blackness of death to rush in and swallow me whole.
Still, Brann’s hand clenched mine as we flew.
And then we fell.
A scream tore free from my throat, pulled from the depths of my soul as my terror reached an apex. I didn’t want to die, but better death than an
eternity in a prison. I’d already made that choice once.
Something slithered over my stomach, pulling my focus in those endless moments of suspension. Brann’s gaze was harsh on whatever he saw on my stomach, and when he met my eyes one last time, all I saw was a guilty apology and resignation.
He knew as well as I did in that moment that he was going to leave me alone, after all.
“No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, the sound shrill and somehow other. My body snapped to a sudden halt as the shadows around my waist solidified. Something cracked within my body, and sharp pain radiated through my torso as I hung limply for a moment.
Brann continued to fall, and my shoulder popped, echoing above the sound of waves crashing against the shore below when Brann continued to fall. Grasping his hand with my other one, I held on more tightly and refused to drop him as my shoulder throbbed with the aching pain of dislocation and hung limply at my side.
His fingers slipped through mine, slickened with sweat by our escape attempt, and he hung below me, his eyes on mine and pleading. “Let go, Estrella,” he whispered, releasing my hand. I shook my head through the pain, clinging to him even though, in the back of my head, I already suspected it was pointless.
The solid shadows at my waist retracted, pulling me back up toward the top of the cliff as I squirmed in my pathetic bid for freedom. We should have both been dead.
A strong hand gripped the back of my dress as I crested the top, hauling me up the final distance until he could lay me out on the forest floor. Brann’s body landed atop mine, sprawling across me as I tried to force air back into my lungs. The inky shadows at my waist retracted, slithering over the fabric of my dress. Wheezing breaths wracked me as my entire body throbbed with pain. My right arm hung limply at my side; even just the thought of moving it making it ache with warning.
Brann moved slowly, slipping his hand beneath the sleeve of my dress and taking the dagger he’d strapped there. A spectral ghost of a man stood over me, glaring down at the way I grimaced beneath Brann’s body and unaware of his slow, cautious movements to arm himself.
The Fae Mark was still, none of the pulsing magic I’d expected to protect me making itself known. Whether it was a continued consequence
of the iron collar or whether the magic that flowed through the Mark didn’t work against the Fae, I suspected I may never know.
The being who’d pulled me back from the cliff grabbed Brann by the back of the cloak, lifting his frame off of me so he could get a good look at me and my injuries. His body was corporeal, despite appearing transparent, taking little effort to grasp my brother. The silver dagger gleamed in the night, shining as the member of the Wild Hunt released Brann suddenly and reached for his sword.
Brann caught himself when he fell, placing a hand next to my head as he leaned over me. His eyes were wet as he stared down at me, time seeming to suspend as his lips turned down. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, raising his arm quickly.
The dagger sparkled as it carved through the air, descending toward my chest. I blinked up at my brother in shock, the realization of what he intended to do hitting me too late to react. All I could do was stare up into his agonized face as the dagger fell.
It was only a breath from my chest when he froze in place, his body jerking forward as the tip of a silver sword protruded from his stomach.
He gasped, looking down to stare at the blade as the member of the Wild Hunt pulled it free, tearing Brann’s body off of mine with the motion. I scrambled to my knees, fighting to get to my brother where he lay, blood trickling from his lips. He mumbled something, the sound trailing off into a gurgle as the Fae grabbed him by the front of his cloak and dragged him to the edge of the cliff.
He thrashed once as I tried to crawl after him on my dislocated shoulder, a scream tearing free as the member of the Wild Hunt lifted him off the ground and hurled him over the edge. “No!” I shrieked, rushing forward to follow. After a moment, there was a splash below, the sound piercing through me as I peered over the edge.
I couldn’t see his body, couldn’t see anything but the dark depths of the salt water below. There was no second splash to signify Brann breaking back through the surface, clinging to life.
The Fae stood over me, wrapping an arm around the front of my chest and hauling me backwards. He pulled me as far away from the cliff face as he could without bumping my broken body into any of the trees. “She’s injured,” he said, turning his eerie white eyes to the figure that waited atop
his horse. This was the same male I’d seen that night in the woods, the ink on his face glowing blue as he regarded me with a bored look.
The male at my side reached down, touching my chin and turning my head to the side so that he could get a good look at my Fae Mark. A crowd of other members of the Wild Hunt broke through the trees, following behind a handful of creatures that snapped at the air.
The growls filled my ears, the menace in them sending my heart racing. Black oozed from their mouths, the viscous fluid dripping from fangs as thick as my wrist. It faded into the shadows before it could touch the ground, vanishing into thin air as if it sizzled out of existence. They were what might have been dogs, had the skin stayed on their bones and not melted into rotten ribbons. Their skeletons showed through the gaps in the oozing, red flesh, a mangled mess of life and death. Their claws sank into the dirt, too large for their paws and curling over the front. Glowing white eyes matched their more humanoid masters’, their stances ready to attack at the leader’s command.
My Fae Mark warmed as the eyes of the Wild Hunt fell upon it, as if it recognized the immortal beings nearby, calling out to them and glowing in the darkness like a beacon. It wasn’t the same feeling as when it was about to kill, but a deep contentment that tried to settle itself within me. As if it had a mind of its own and wanted to soothe me, to tell me all would be right now. Somewhere in the group of hunters who’d joined us at the cliff face, someone laughed in disbelief. “Well, I’ll be damned,” the leader said from atop his horse, leading the steed closer to get a better look at me.
The other Fae male released my chin and placed his hands on my shoulder. He shoved it back into the socket suddenly and without warning, the sharp pain radiating through my body while I screamed out in surprise. Numbness settled into me in the wake of it, my body heavy with the weight of my shock.
My brother was gone, and I lived on in a world filled with decaying monsters and murderous, spectral men.
All that mattered was my brother. All that mattered was vengeance and finding whatever remained of him.
The male shoved his long, gray hair back from his face, moving to lift me off the ground with steady hands at my waist. I screamed, kicking my legs out until I caught him in the groin, grinning in satisfaction when I
discovered that the ghosts of the Wild Hunt were just as weakened by a well-aimed kick as human men were.
Glaring at me as the other Huntsman staggered with a grunt, the leader tried to get a better grip so he could lift me onto the front of his horse. He jumped down from his mount, his heavy boots thumping against the ground as he landed in front of me. “Fine then. If you can’t play nice, you’ll ride with me, Beasty,” he said, reaching out to grab me from his companion. I sank down, making myself as heavy as possible until my ass hit the dirt beneath me. Grabbing a fistful of it, I cursed the magic of my Fae Mark for remaining silent while I truly needed it to protect me.
I threw the dirt in the leader’s face, grinning in satisfaction when his eyes closed suddenly as the grains struck him. He reached up to brush them off and I scrambled to get my good arm beneath my body. My ribs ached as I got my feet beneath me once more, pushing backwards and trying desperately to stand as the other male tried to get a grip on me.
“That,” the leader said, pausing as his white eyes gleamed and he wiped the last of the dirt from his face. “Wasn’t very nice.”
“I’m all out of fucking nice today,” I spat, hauling myself backward and trying to angle my body toward the cliff face. He stepped between me and my goal, shaking his head in silent reprimand. I fumbled around on the forest floor in the darkness, looking for anything I could use as a weapon.
Looking for the dagger Brann might have dropped after he tried to kill me. My heart hurt with just the thought of it, but there was no sign of the gleaming silver.
The best I did manage to find was a tree branch that even I would be able to snap in half with my bare hands, but I lifted it in silent threat anyway. A warning formed on my lips; I was ready to go down with a fight and give everything I had left. I didn’t care that it was a battle I was destined to lose.
I’d make them feel my pain.
A male body vaulted between us, the scraping sound of metal on leather bursting through the night as he unsheathed a sword. A single slash with the heavy weapon and the leader of the Wild Hunt stumbled back in surprise. My sudden protector took the opportunity to turn back and stare at where I lay sprawled on the ground in shock.
Familiar black eyes stared down at me, gleaming and furious, even as he held out a hand to help me up. Caelum growled, his lips curling back to
reveal his white teeth. “I told you not to do something fucking foolish.”
