Chapter 2 #3
Her head snaps to the side. The taste of iron floods her mouth as her lip splits against her teeth.
Heat blooms sharp across her cheekbone, radiating outward until the entire side of her face burns.
The room tilts, the firelight blurring at the edges of her vision.
Her skin throbs where his hand struck, but she doesn’t cry out, does not lift a hand to touch it. To soothe would be to admit weakness.
‘Forgive her, Sheriff. She’s always been wilful. Too much like her mother,’ her father grits out, brushing his fingers down the lapel of his doublet, like Marian’s defiance has somehow dirtied him. ‘I told you she’s more trouble than she’s worth.’
The Sheriff hums low in his throat, the sound obscene in its satisfaction. ‘No matter. I’ll ensure she learns her place quickly enough.’
A curse trembles at the edges of Marian’s lips, but she swallows it.
Her father’s hand lingers in the air, trembling faintly before he drops it. He cannot meet her gaze. Marian feels something within her chest crack.
The Sheriff shoves back from the desk with a wolfish grin and straightens. ‘Give her to me, Eamon, and all your problems vanish. The Crown never hears a word about our little arrangement. Your debts are dissolved and the forge stays lit. You get to keep your title. Your name. Your neck.’
Lord Hallomere closes his eyes. When he finally opens them, they are colder than any winter frost.
‘I’ll draw up the contract tonight.’
‘Brilliant.’ The Sheriff claps. He starts toward the door, Aengus tight on his heels. ‘I’ll send a retinue that will escort her to the church in Nottingham at dawn. See that she’s cleaned up and compliant by then.’
Marian glares at both of them through the haze of pain and fury. ‘I’d rather rot in the forest.’
‘That can be arranged,’ Aengus growls before following his master out.
The door slams shut behind the Sheriff and his hound, their laughter still echoing down the corridor long after they’ve gone. It’s then that Marian gives herself a reprieve and wipes the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand; it comes away streaked with red.
‘You’ve brought this upon yourself,’ her father says at last. ‘If you had learned to be silent, to be pliant, none of this would be necessary. You could have spared us both disgrace. But no . . . you’ve always had Isa’s fire.’ He spits her name like a curse. ‘And fire destroys what it touches.’
The floor sways beneath her feet. She stares at the man who should have been her shield and feels the last of her illusions split down the middle.
‘You’d trade your daughter’s flesh for a ledger kept clean,’ Marian whispers. Her voice is hoarse from holding back the scream clawing out her chest. ‘You’ve bent the knee so long, you’ve forgotten how to stand.’
Her father flinches, but he does not deny it.
Marian’s hand trembles as she clutches her sketches tighter, the charcoal smears bleeding into the wool of her frock. ‘Mother would be ashamed of you! You’re a coward.’
With a guttural sound lodged between rage and grief, she flings the sketches down, spins on her heel and flees. Servants flatten themselves against the walls, eyes downcast. The manor becomes a blur. Her lungs heave, pulling in air that burns, the copper tang of blood still coating her tongue.
Marian bursts through the great doors. The late-spring chill slams into her, but she doesn’t slow. Gravel scatters beneath her boots, sharp stones cutting through thin soles as she runs across the courtyard, her braid lashing across her back as she tears across the manor grounds.
The guards at the gate glance up but do not dare to interfere. Hot rivers streak her face with salt as her breath rasps, fogging in the cold air. Still, she doesn’t stop.
Eventually, the gravel path dissolves into grass, then to moss and root. She runs until every rib feels split wide with the effort of breathing.
Sherwood rises ahead, vast and ancient. The sight of it grips her heart with equal parts dread and longing.
She crashes to her knees at the tree line, the cold earth biting through her skirts. Her fingers sink into the dirt as though she could tear out her own helplessness by the roots. A scream finally breaks free from her chest, raw and violent.
When she lifts her head, her face is wet, lashes heavy with tears. She stares into the trees, their boughs swaying faintly with the wind.
For a heartbeat, she imagines it – the wild swallowing her into its green silence. A life free of chains, free of Baldric’s touch, free of her father’s cowardice. She imagines running deeper, and never looking back.
But the thought curdles even as it forms. She is no hunter.
No outlaw. No wild-born daughter of the greenwood.
Her hands are soft, her body shaped by halls and hearths, not the merciless teeth of the wild.
She’d never survive in Sherwood, no matter how brave she pretends to be in the stolen hours when she sneaks out with her bow and quiver.
Bravery is not survival.
Her shoulders shake as the realization sinks in. She cannot run. She cannot fight. The Sheriff will take what her father gives; she will be nothing more than a pawn shuttled between men until she breaks.
And the forest watches, indifferent.
Marian’s nails dig furrows through moss and mud, reaching deeper for the edge of a freedom she will never grasp.
There are no choices left. Only the cage.