Chapter 18 #2
Aengus’s face twists into a scowl as he draws a long blade from his side. ‘How dare you presume to give me orders! I’ll have you—’
Marian doesn’t give him the chance to finish. She turns and the next arrow flies with purpose – not shaped by rage, but calculation. It arcs through the meadow and strikes the iron lock at the centre of the creature’s cage. The force of it shatters the latch with a shriek of splintering metal.
For a moment, nothing moves.
Then the creature bursts forward in a cyclone of fury.
The door of the cage is torn from its hinges and lands on the crossbow-wielding guard with enough force to snap bone.
The Fellhart’s scythe-tipped hooves rip flesh from armour in ragged strips.
Teeth sink into his throat, and blood fountains high, catching the light like scattered garnets.
There isn’t even time for the man to scream.
Its antlers rake through the air and its many eyes gleam with a terrible, knowing intelligence. Feathers flare from its wings in a wave of black brilliance, and when it roars, it is a dirge for every chain that ever bound it.
Marian watches, her breath caught somewhere between awe and horror, as the beast descends on Aengus like vengeance incarnate.
He tries to run away, but the Fellhart knocks him aside with a whip of its antlers, piercing through the centre of his breastplate before flinging his body across the field.
He lands with a dull thud, his insides spilling out over the metal.
Marian can’t bring herself to look away as the Fellhart descends upon him, teeth meeting bone as Aengus’s ribs crack louder than his final scream.
The clearing smells of moss and blood and death.
Marian stands frozen, the bow still raised, watching as the beast lifts its head from the gore and turns its many eyes on her.
Blood drips in long ropes from its jaw as it steps toward her, stopping just short of her reach. It lowers its head and sniffs; its breath gusts warm against her neck.
With the gentleness of a barn cat, it brushes its gore-streaked nose against her shoulder.
Marian lets out a shuddering exhale, but refuses to flinch as its earthy, metallic, breath ghosts against her flesh. It presses its brow against hers, and in that breathless instant, something settles inside her.
Gratitude, ancient and solemn, radiates through her entire body.
In one motion, the creature turns and sprints into the trees, feathers trailing behind it in a streak as the forest parts for its passage.
Marian stares after it, stunned, until a pained grunt pulls her back to the moment.
She whirls toward the net, rushing forward on instinct.
The combined iron-ore strands shimmer with heat, burning where they touch fae skin.
Lox is nearly unconscious, his jaw clenched in agony, lips pale.
More of his skin is exposed than not, every uncovered inch blistered and raw.
Will’s face is a mask of fury and pain, their hands bloodied where they’ve tried and failed to pull the iron from Lox’s shoulder, searing their own flesh in the process.
Marian drops to her knees. ‘Hold still,’ she says, her voice steadier than she feels.
Her fingers move with grim familiarity. One by one, she loosens the bindings, palms stinging. The scent of their charred skin clings to the back of her throat.
When the last hook falls free, the net collapses like a shed skin.
Without a word, Will drags Lox up by his arms, but when they stumble, Marian braces herself under his other arm. The exposed patches of his chest glisten with burns and bruises, but at least he’s alive.
For now.
‘We need to move,’ Will grits out, shouldering more of Lox’s frame.
Marian nods. Her limbs shake under Lox’s weight, but she doesn’t falter. They walk as one, three shadows slipping through the forest – one burning with pain, one braced by bitterness, and one held together by a thread of fragile, reckless hope.
When they finally see the lights of Elswyth, Lox is unconscious, his breath whistling thin and uneven.
The moment they pass through the woven arch of the outer rim, a flurry of voices rise to meet them.
Allen is the first to reach them. His expression pales the instant he sees the way Lox sags between them.
‘What happened?’ He replaces Marian beneath Lox’s arm.
‘Poachers,’ is all Will says, surprising Marian.
Here was their chance to lay blame, to drag her name through the dirt and scorn her with all the weight of their disappointment. But that one word is all they offer, as if that alone is enough to explain the blistered flesh and iron stink still clinging to their hands.
Thankfully, Allen nods, face carved in grim concern, and helps bear Lox toward the healing bough.
Marian stumbles in behind them, blood still crusted at her shoulder. She doesn’t remember when she started crying, only that the tears come hot and silent, tracking down her sweat- and soil-stained cheeks.
The hours blur. She sits outside his room as they tend to Lox, listening to the low murmur of Elswyth’s healers and weavers, the occasional groan that breaks past his clenched teeth. Allen emerges once to press a hand to Marian’s shoulder, but says nothing before slipping back inside.
Eventually, one of them steps out from behind the curtain. ‘He’ll live,’ she sighs, and something inside Marian cracks in relief. ‘We’ve done what we can to keep his connection to Sherwood alive, but we’ll know more in the coming hours.’
‘Those burns are nasty business,’ another healer chimes as they shuffle back inside. ‘Never seen anything like it before.’
Marian has.
After all, it was her idea to overlap the lattices to keep fae magic from slipping through the seams.
* * *
Twilight bleeds into night, the hush of the forest settling heavy over Elswyth. Her hands are raw, knuckles red, dirt embedded in the creases of her skin, but she doesn’t scrub them clean. She hasn’t earned the right to remove the forest from her flesh.
At some point, Will joins her. Their skin is still mottled where the iron-ore burned, welts rising up along their forearms, but it’s clear Lox took the brunt of it.
Marian wants to apologize, to ask if they’re all right, but the words knot in her throat.
For a long while, neither of them says anything.
But Marian sees the way Will’s jaw juts to one side then the other, like they’re weighing the taste of something bitter on their tongue, and wonders if they too don’t know what to say.
When they finally move, it’s with the rigidity of someone who has made a decision they loathe, but one they intend to live with, nonetheless.
The usual violence in their eyes has dulled, tempered now by something harder to name.
‘You chose to free that Fellhart; you chose us when you could’ve run. And because of that, you’ve earned something I never thought a human would – my thanks.’
‘I-I-I don’t know what to say,’ Marian sputters.
Will exhales slowly. ‘And as loath as I am to admit it,’ they say, mouth pinching to the side, ‘this also means you’ve earned your first vine.’
Marian looks up, startled. ‘My what?’
‘It’s what we mark ourselves with.’ They pull up their scorched sleeve to reveal dark tendrils of leaves wrapped around their wrist, forearm, and bicep.
‘Those of us who’ve fought, or suffered, or given part of ourselves in service to the fae.
’ Their fingers drift to the intricate tangle of ink just above their pulse point.
‘It’s a promise. To the forest. To the dead. To each other.’
They glance down at Marian, and for the first time, there is no suspicion in their eyes. Only bone-deep tiredness and something just adjacent to respect.
The words strike at Marian. She thinks of the leaves gracing Little John’s thighs, the two placed on the back of Allen’s hands, and the many she’s seen on the small bit of flesh Lox has revealed. The thought of what he’s sacrificed, what they’ve all sacrificed, renders her mute with emotion.
‘Thank you,’ Marian eventually says, but the words don’t feel like enough.
Will exhales. ‘We don’t take oaths on paper or pledge fealty with coin,’ they say. ‘We carve truth into our skin so that nothing and no one can strip it from us.’ They trace the edge of their forearm, where the ink curls and twists across old wounds.
‘And you’re saying I get one?’ she asks, uncertain.
‘Not get,’ Will chides. ‘Earned. And only if you want it.’
Marian stares at the tattoos, their pattern both wild and deliberate – leaves and thorns and tendrils woven as if growing there of their own accord, planted by pain, watered by choice.
Her hand presses against the swell in her chest and her fingers ghost the edges of the raised crescent, still tender, where the skin had split and grown back.
She should hate it. Greed and gluttony had carved this into her, same as they’d carved up Sherwood, but there was something defiant about it now.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she mutters, voice quiet but sure.
The shadow of a smile tugs at the edges of their mouth. ‘Think about it.’
As they step out into the night, Marian looks back at Lox and then down at the scar on her chest. For a flickering instant, she wonders if this is what it feels like to choose your soil and to grow new roots.