Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Marian freezes.
Lox’s breath stills against her, hands halting where they’ve just begun to explore the dip between her legs.
They both turn toward the sound, panting and tangled and flushed, the grass flattened beneath them as proof of something that can’t be taken back.
Will stands at the edge of the clearing, daggers in hand, rage burning in their eyes, jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth.
Lox rolls off Marian in a blur that’s far too composed for what just nearly happened. He rises, chest half-bared. The laces of his tunic are still undone, but he doesn’t bother fixing it.
Marian scrambles upright, pulse thundering, blood singing with heat that now feels criminal under her skin. She tugs her clothes back into place as if that will cover where Lox’s mouth had worshipped.
‘What are you doing here, Willow?’ Lox grinds out.
Their nostrils flare. ‘Looking for the one who’s supposed to be protecting Elswyth. Imagine my surprise at finding him writhing in the dirt with a girl who hasn’t even decided whose side of the war she’s on.’
‘Will—’ he begins.
The sound is swallowed by a roar that shudders the forest floor.
Lox’s expression shifts in an instant. Whatever fire had burned behind his eyes a moment ago is replaced by something colder, sharper. His head snaps toward the sound, shoulders squaring, gaze darting beyond Will to the trees.
Marian’s heart stutters in her chest. ‘What was that?’
‘The reason I’m here.’ Will grimaces. ‘Trappers breached the western causeway.’
Lox turns to Marian, all tenderness gone. ‘Get back to the village. Now.’
‘I can help—’
‘No!’ Lox snaps so fast it steals the rest of the sentence from her throat. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring. ‘Please.’
The unspoken weight of his plea settles between them.
She nods and his expressions softens. Marian thinks she sees a flash of desperation in his eyes, but it’s gone between blinks.
He turns, snatches his bow and quiver from where they still lean against the tree, and vanishes into the woods with Will at his heels.
Marian stands in the clearing, alone, heart thudding in her ears. All the fire she’s kindled in herself these last few days, with every bruised knuckle and hard-won breath of confidence, vanishes in an instant.
‘Shit,’ she swears, turning toward Elswyth.
The trees are too quiet. There’s no birdsong or breeze.
Even the branches seem to hold their breath.
Tell Allen. Tell Little John. Get help. She repeats it in her head as she hustles through the wood. That’s all you can do and that’s enough.
But it doesn’t feel like enough.
A curdling, familiar scream tears through the canopy like lightning, turning her blood to ice.
‘Lox.’
She runs toward the sound before she can second-guess herself. The underbrush moves beneath her feet, roots and stones easing out of her way and directing her steps, as if Sherwood is as desperate for her to reach them as she is.
Finally, she crashes into a meadow no more than a few hundred paces from the glade they’d left, and the sight that greets her stops her cold.
Lox and Will are trapped beneath an iron net with thick black hooks that sink into the soil.
It’s laced with iron-ore and everywhere the metallic threads press into flesh, smoke rises.
Lox’s body covers Will’s, as though he meant to shield them from the brunt of the net’s destruction.
His shoulder is pinned awkwardly, skin blistering where it touches the mesh; his bow and quiver are lying just a few feet out of reach.
Beneath him, Will is snarling, writhing, trying to tear free, but every movement only makes it worse for both of them.
The stench of scorched flesh turns Marian’s stomach.
Behind them, a massive iron cage stands in the centre of the meadow. And inside it a creature, unlike anything she’s ever seen, paces.
Standing twice the height of a stag, it moves with the deliberate grace of something that knows the forest itself yields before it.
Its hide is dark as peat, shot through with veins of faint green light.
Vast, branching antlers crown its skull.
Massive feathered wings try to expand, but contract when they meet the edge of its prison.
Its eyes are four too many, clustered like those of an insect and blinking out of sync.
When it roars, its mouth splits wide to reveal rows of curved, gleaming teeth, and two tongues that lash with fury.
Without anyone telling her, Marian knows this is the Fellhart that Lox warned her about.
It throws itself against the bars with a bellow that rattles the marrow in her bones. The metal groans, but somehow manages to hold.
Lox lifts his head, eyes wild with pain. ‘Run, Marian!’
‘There she is,’ a voice drawls from the shadows at the edge of the meadow.
Marian jerks toward the sound to see Aengus’s slimy self emerging from the treeline. His helmet is tucked under one arm, smirk carved deep into his rodent-like face.
‘Well, well,’ Aengus purrs, spreading his arms like a benevolent host. ‘Seems my prize has walked right into my snare.’ His gaze slides over Marian, slow and oily, lingering on her muddied tunic still askew. ‘My, it seems you’ve made yourself right at home with these mongrels.’
Two armoured soldiers fan out behind him, crossbows slung, blades glinting at their sides.
Marian’s heart trips.
They were waiting for her.
Aengus chuckles, the sound dry as old parchment. ‘No matter. The Sheriff will carve both the Hallomere pride and the forest’s wild out of you, one night at a time, until you’re docile as a lamb.’
A flicker of fury cuts through her panic. ‘And if I refuse?’
Aengus’s smile tightens at its corners. ‘Return to Nottingham like a good daughter and I’ll make the end quick for them. Or I can bring you back battered and bruised . . .’ His eyes glitter at Lox and Will. ‘And drag them behind the carriage, before I let the pyre do the rest.’
Marian’s mouth goes dry. The choice spreads open in front of her like an abyss: return to a father who trades her and a husband who wants to breed her like livestock; or stay among wild things who have shown her the shape of a new life filled with potential and promise.
The creature in the iron cage slams itself against the bars again, with a roar like splitting metal tearing the air apart. Marian flinches, but not as much as the soldiers, who shoot wary glances at the monster they’ve dared cage.
Marian channels its fury, understanding the sentiment. ‘No,’ she seethes.
The vein in Aengus’s forehead pulses. ‘Pride is dangerous in a woman.’ He snaps and gestures to the soldiers. ‘Take her.’
One of them lunges to seize her. He is a thick-shouldered man with cropped hair, hands swift and hungry as they latch onto her arm.
Marian’s body moves on instinct, before the thought of consequence has fully assembled.
Years of being taught to make herself small melt away at his touch.
Her feet plant with intent as she lowers her centre and spins.
Her wrist slides out of his grip and her fist snaps forward into the hollow beneath his jaw.
She doesn’t give him a moment to reorient himself.
While he clutches at his throat, she snatches a fist-sized stone off the ground and swings at the side of his knee.
The blow lands with a sickening crunch. His legs buckle, and she brings the rock down across his temple until his body goes slack.
The air thrums around her.
Marian stumbles forward, hands scraped, breath ragged.
Her eye catches on Lox’s bow, lying half in shadow.
She dives for it. The moment her fingers close around it, something slots into place – an echo in her bones that sends a zip of adrenaline through her.
She snatches an arrow off the ground and nocks it with shaking fingers just as the other remaining guard levels his weapon.
He lifts his crossbow, aiming not at her, but at the net – at them.
‘Drop it,’ the man snarls. ‘Or I’ll slaughter them both.’
Marian’s heart clenches as her eyes find Lox. Burns streak his temple, his shoulder is twisted in agony and, for a heartbeat that feels impossibly long, the forest holds its breath with them.
‘Remember your truths,’ he rasps, calling back to his words on the night she recovered in his room. ‘You are your own.’
Will, still straining beneath the searing weight of the net and Lox, turns their head enough to catch Marian’s eyes.
‘If you’re going to do something,’ they bite out, ‘you damn well better finish it.’
And there it is – another choice.
She could go with Aengus and let these men finish what her father started. She could return to the tidy box of a life carved out for her by men who loved only what they could own. Her name would be swallowed by Hallomere’s ledgers, her body cast to the mould of a future she never wanted.
Or she could stay.
She could choose the bloodied and blistered. She could choose freedom. Not the kind they sell in sermons, but one forged in fight and fury and fire.
‘Last chance, girl,’ the soldier sneers, dragging her from her thoughts. ‘Drop it.’
Marian draws the bowstring taut, and as she does, something stirs in the pit of her stomach. It rushes down her arms and pools at her fingertips as if solidifying her decision with action.
No longer her father’s daughter, nor the sheriff’s promised bride. Not a tool or a token or a sacrifice carved from porcelain obedience.
She is a weapon of her own making.
A slow breath leaves her as something older than fear and louder than shame rouses from its long slumber within her.
And then she lets go.
The arrow finds its mark with brutal perfection, embedding itself in the crossbowman’s hand just before he shoots. He screams, the bolt and bow skittering wild into the dirt.
Marian sets another arrow, her voice rising with piercing clarity.
‘Last chance, Lieutenant,’ she seethes. ‘Leave and tell my father my rotting corpse was all you found of me.’