Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Marian had braced herself for cold grandeur, something like her father’s halls, but this place breathes. Roots arch up from the floor and curve down from the ceiling, thick as pillars, ribbed and ridged.
The table at the centre is not carved but grown: a massive ring of root, spiralled and polished until it gleams. Its surface is marked with whorls and grooves that map the entirety of Sherwood better than any human chart.
Eight fae are already seated around the table, each as different from the next as summer is from winter. Their gazes lift when Marian enters, and the weight of them pins her in place.
She swallows hard, her palms damp against her borrowed skirt.
Lox takes his place in the empty seat. He does not look at Marian as he sits, but she feels him all the same.
‘The question before us,’ he announces, ‘is whether this mortal girl shall be permitted to remain within Elswyth until the king makes good on his promise of clemency, or whether she is to be cast out and left to the fate her kind have earned. Let us begin.’
The first to speak is a woman with hair the colour of frost at dawn, braided with sprigs of hawthorn. Her ears taper long and thin, tipped with silver cuffs that glint when she moves.
‘I am Onóra of Greendale. Our village tends to the glades where the deer calve and the rivers split. We have little patience for human mouths, let alone human spies.’ Her pale eyes rake over Marian like knives.
Beside her sits a broad-shouldered male whose skin is bark-brown.
Moss sprouts at his temples, and when he shifts, flakes of lichen dust the table.
‘Cern of Hollowhold,’ he rumbles. ‘We keep the deep woods where mortals fear to tread. I have seen what their axes do and would sooner feed her to the soil than risk her kind finding us.’
A younger figure leans forward then, wiry, quick-eyed, hair a tumble of copper curls bound in a leather cord.
His smile reveals teeth slightly too pointed.
‘Rían of Willowbend,’ he says with a bow.
‘We keep the bridges and the river crossings. Mortals cross them whether we will it or not. Better to know their faces than their blades, I say.’
Marian swallows her fear, collecting the names and details they give her, like a miser hoards gold.
To Rían’s right sits a woman broad as a hearth, her skin the shade of sunbaked clay, her arms corded with muscle.
Vines wrap her forearms, living bracelets that twitch and bloom as she speaks.
‘Aife of Thornmarsh,’ she says, her voice low and even.
‘We keep the bogs, the reeds, the waters that mortals drain and poison. I would see her gone, and yet . . .’ Her dark gaze softens, eyes flashing gold in a pulse that makes Marian stumble back a step.
‘There is steel in her spine. Perhaps it is worth tempering.’
Opposite her, a fae cloaked in feathers clicks their tongue, tilting their head like a crow. Their eyes are pale yellow, unsettling against the green-gold gleam of the others. ‘Corven of Ashdown,’ they croak. ‘We keep the skies. Mortals hunt us for sport. I do not forgive.’
Marian’s breath stutters, but she holds her ground.
Next, an Elder whose skin gleams like river-stone polished smooth, hair dark as midnight spilling loose across their shoulders.
Their smile is small, but genuine, their gaze keen.
‘I am Lyss of Silverfen. We keep the shoals where fish spawn in spring. I would hear what she has to say before I cast my judgment.’
The seventh figure sits half-shadowed, hood low, though the glow of his eyes gleams bright beneath it. ‘Dáin of Brambleholt. We keep to the thorn thickets. Mortals think them impassable, yet somehow they still crawl through. This one is no different. She will bring others on her heels.’
Elder number eight has a riot of blonde curls threaded with bright blooms. Her dress is spun of green and crimson petals that do not wilt even in the lantern glow.
‘I am Maelia of Bloomveil,’ she muses. ‘We tend the groves where wild magic bursts, where life grows too quick, too strange. If she is meant for us, the forest will claim her. If not, it will fling her out.’
Eight pairs of eyes burn into Marian. Each face, each name, each village a piece of Sherwood she had never known – let alone imagined – existed.
Her eyes fall to the ninth seat. The antler-crowned lord doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes remain lowered, hands folded on the table. He is the image of composure.
Onóra fills the silence before it can stretch. ‘She is mortal. That alone damns her. Cast her out before she brings ruin to our door.’
Marian’s chest constricts. The words slice as clean as a blade, but she forces herself to hold her head high, to not give the female the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.
Rían leans back in his chair with a theatrical sigh, propping his boots on the table’s edge.
‘Always so grim, Onóra. You’d banish anyone who sneezed without asking permission first.’ His grin flashes, all teeth.
‘She’s survived dangling in one of our snares with the Sheriff’s dogs at her heels.
That deserves a sliver of curiosity, if not mercy, doesn’t it? ’
A murmur ripples around the table. Marian feels her lungs loosen just enough to drag in a breath.
Cern shifts, the lichen along his jaw crumbling to dust with the motion. ‘Curiosity is not cause to risk Sherwood,’ he rumbles. ‘I have seen trees fall in their dozens for the greed of one mortal baron. Do not be deceived because this one bleeds prettily.’
Heat flares in Marian’s cheeks at the dismissal.
‘Cern is not wrong.’ Aife drums her vine-wrapped knuckles against the table.
‘Mortals have cut deeper wounds into the bogs than we can ever heal. And yet . . .’ Her gaze sharpens on Marian, eyes glinting.
‘There is fight in her. I’d rather a mortal with teeth than one who bows and breaks at the first shout.
Perhaps there is use in seeing whether she can learn. ’
Corven’s feathered cloak rustles as they shift. ‘What use have we for carrion-bait? Mercy for one is invitation to all.’
Lyss of Silverfen lifts a hand. ‘We sit in judgment too easily. Let her speak. Even prey is given its cry before the kill.’
A chorus of scoffs rises.
‘Her kind speaks in steel!’
‘They poison wells, gut earth for ore, and still call us monsters.’
‘The forest will decide! If she is meant to stay, it will root her here. If not, it will spit her out. I say we let her remain for now.’
‘You would have us gamble the fate of Sherwood on the word of one girl? Fool’s talk!’
‘Sherwood’s strength has always been choice. Deny her that, and we are no better than mortals.’
Onóra slams her palm flat against the table. ‘Enough of this bleeding-heart nonsense. She should be cast out before dusk.’
Four for Marian. Four against.
Every muscle in her body coils tight as she lifts her gaze until her eyes meet the one who has yet to speak.
Lox sits at the head of the table, expression carved into stillness. With slow deliberation, he pushes back his chair and the sound of wood scraping across the roots reverberates through the chamber until silence falls in its wake.
He rises to his full height and starts toward her, unhurried. He stops barely a pace away, close enough she can feel the shimmer of power humming beneath his skin. He reaches out and before she can flinch, his hand is on her chin, tilting her face to his.
His thumb brushes the corner of her mouth and she wonders if he means to smear the defiance rising behind her lips or just test the shape of them.
Heat flushes her cheeks. The touch is an intrusion, a brand, a reminder of how small she is before him. The air between them compresses until it feels like she can’t draw a full breath.
She forces her eyes up to his, though her stomach knots so tight she fears she might retch. His gaze is unrelenting. It pins her, scours her, demands she be seen and weighed, and yet offers nothing back. No flicker of what he’s decided. No glimpse of mercy.
He squeezes once and his eyes flash gold.
Every instinct screams at her to wrench away, to bite his hand if she must, but to what end? What good would it do her if she falters now?
When Lox finally speaks, his voice is low, deliberate.
‘She is mortal.’ His hand lingers beneath her chin, steadying.
‘And mortals are . . . fragile. They hunger, they burn, they die. In their brief span, they grasp with greedy hands and leave deep scars. Aife is right. Your kind have cut more wounds into this forest than it may ever heal.’
Marian’s pulse trips at his words, shame pressing cold against her skin.
She wants to scream that she is not like them, that she has not swung the axe or ordered the mines to bleed Sherwood dry.
But the words choke in her throat. Because what would they matter?
She is her father’s daughter. That stain clings, no matter how fiercely she might scrub.
‘And yet,’ he continues, his gaze unblinking, ‘mortals are also fire. They survive wars, endure plagues, rise from ash where wiser things would only decay. To dismiss one out of hand is as dangerous as to trust one too freely.’ His thumb presses lightly against her jaw, before he finally withdraws his hand.
Marian’s breath rushes out, but the sudden absence burns hotter than the touch itself.
Lox turns back to the Council. ‘This one carries fire in her bones. Fire can raze. Or it can cleanse. Only fate knows which she will become.’
Rían chuckles, leaning back further in his chair. ‘You always did love the long odds, Loxleigh.’
The others shift uneasily, feathers rustling, knuckles drumming, but none challenge him outright.
‘She will stay until the king returns from his holy war and peace can be formalized,’ Lox declares at last, his tone brooking no argument.