Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hallomere Manor rises from the mist, its iron-braced windows and bone-white columns gleaming beneath the moon.
Marian studies it from the treeline. The house stands tall, still filled with the memories of a life that no longer fits her. She tells herself it’s not a home – it’s a wound.
And tonight, she’ll cauterize it.
Marian’s bow is steady in her grip as Allen trails behind her. Their boots make no sound as they cross the field to where her childhood was melted down and hammered into obedience.
The air outside the forge tastes of rust, even with the fires banked low. Marian breathes it in and nearly gags, but forces herself onward.
‘Where are the smiths?’ Allen whispers.
Marian’s gaze cuts past the shadowed arch of the slag pit and over the stables, and points to the span of hillside in the distance. ‘First shift starts when the light hits that ridge.’
‘Then we’d better get to work.’
They slip through the side entrance. The space stretches cavernous and hollow, ribs of timber blackened with soot.
Anvils line the room like pews, surrounded by racks of half-forged blades gleaming with oil.
Chains clink faintly, and fully forged weapons sit in crates, their veined edges showing the fae ore laced within.
Marian’s stomach knots. Each weapon hums with the same faint resonance of magic – only here it’s warped, beaten into shape by fire and greed.
Allen moves ahead of her. He thrusts his bo staff into the cogs of the waterwheel before grabbing a hammer off the wall and bringing it down on the nearest spear haft with a snarl. The shaft splinters, metal skittering across the stones, and he jams it into the firepit to stir embers back to life.
Her hands move fast, hauling every weapon she can grab and tossing them into the smelter. The flames lick bright as the metal softens and curls, before collapsing into its molten grave.
The mournful chord grows louder with every piece destroyed. She wants to cover her ears, but the song is inside her bones. Still, she shoves another spearhead into the coals, jaw clenched, fury loud enough to drown out the sorrow.
Allen’s face is a mask of soot and sweat. He slams another rack into the pit and spits on the sparks as they fly.
‘Let it choke,’ he snarls. ‘Let it suffocate on every drop of fae blood it ever drank.’
Shackles melt; swords sag into slag; spearheads drip into dull, glowing puddles.
The smell is iron-sweet. Marian feeds the maw until her arms tremble. Every blade carries a faint, tortured echo of ore beaten out of its first language. But each time the metal yields, the chord inside her tightens.
Marian rips open the last crate lid with bleeding knuckles. Crossbow stocks and bundled bolts tipped in a hateful gleam. She bares her teeth and shovels them in. The wood kindles fast; the iron glows bright as it slumps and the air roars as heat rolls off the pit in throbbing waves.
When the final bundle collapses, silence rushes in. For a heartbeat, the world is only their breathing and the wet pop of blistering pitch far back in the flues.
‘The roof.’ Marian’s voice scrapes. ‘Take out the chimneys.’
Allen glances to the twin stacks that have swallowed smoke for a decade. ‘Right,’ he grunts, jaw set. ‘Collapse the lungs before we burn the body.’
‘I’ll line the flues.’ She nods, already snatching a bucket sloshing with pitch from the corner as Allen darts back outside.
She drags the bucket across the flagstones, leaving a trail of black. After wrapping a rag around the end of a broom handle, she dips it in the bucket to make a torch, twisting linen with sticky fingers until the whole thing is saturated.
Finally, she strikes flint to steel. A sputter, and then a thread of flame crawls along the rag, hungry, sulphur-sour in her nose.
‘My runaway bride returns.’ A voice drops from the platform above. ‘I was beginning to think the wild had eaten you.’
Marian jerks, and for a heartbeat she can’t find the mouth that spoke the words. A breath later, the Sheriff steps forward.
His breastplate is burnished, edged in dark metal that hums discordantly in Marian’s bones. Fae ore. It’s laced into the seams of his vambraces too, and into the gorget at his throat.
Marian’s grip tightens on the torch until the soaked rag spits pitch onto her wrist. She winces but doesn’t lower it.
‘I see the forest put a little bite in you,’ he purrs, pacing along the beam, shadow sliding with him. ‘Still. No matter how wild a thing becomes, there’s always a collar that fits. If you don’t put out that fire, I’ll show you just how tight it can be.’
She lifts the torch higher, ready to jam it into the chimneys and let the pitch climb, but iron fingers lance out from the dark and clamp around both her arms. Two guards flood her peripheral vision, leather and chain dragging smoke through the air.
One wrenches her right arm back until pain sparks white; the other pins her wrist and twists.
The torch jerks from her hand, the soldier throwing it down with a hiss.
It clatters and spits, before a boot stamps it flat, flame guttering on stone.
‘I had high hopes you’d come to your senses,’ the Sheriff croons, descending the ladder one slow rung at a time. He lands soundlessly and dusts unseen ash from his shoulder. ‘Alas, it appears I’ll have to carve the resistance out of you myself.’
The door behind them groans open. The guards drag Allen over the sill like a caught stag, head lolling, blood trailing down his temple.
His wrists are bound behind him with chains that glimmer with fae ore.
His boots leave twin tracks across the grit as the guards toss him to the ground before the Sheriff.
Allen hits the stones with a wet thud that turns Marian’s stomach. He tries to rise, but his knees refuse to lock. Blood trickles from his hairline in a thin thread that spiders along his cheek. The moment he sees Marian, his eyes sharpen with defiance.
The Sheriff turns back to Marian with a lazy tilt of his head. ‘Your father begged me to forget you,’ he says, his voice soft, almost fond. ‘Came to me on his knees and said his daughter was a useless, troublesome cunt and he’d trade me any contract, any shipment, if I erased my claim on you.’
Heat rakes up Marian’s throat, and the guards’ gauntlets bite deeper when she tries to lunge. ‘And yet here you are, howling at my door like a bitch in heat.’
The guard on her right jerks her arm up. Her shoulder grinds, torquing tendons until her fingers tingle.
Pain bursts behind her eyes. She hisses through it, never looking away from the Sheriff.
He steps closer and his smile curdles. His attention narrows on the dark curl of ink peeking above the torn edge of Marian’s collar.
‘You’ve been branded,’ he sneers, face twisting. ‘Tell me, what else has that fae bastard done to you? What filth has he left smeared in your veins?’
‘You want details?’ If he expects shame, she will give him none. ‘Shall I describe it, stroke for stroke, so you can tug your little—’
The blow is instant. His glove cracks across her mouth with a snap that bursts her lip against her teeth. The taste of iron floods her tongue, metallic and hot.
Marian bares her teeth through the blood.
The Sheriff’s hand whips back to seize her chin. His grip is cruel, forcing her face up until her neck strains. His breath floods her skin with grease and wine.
‘I’m going to break your spirit and your body so thoroughly that when I toss what’s left to my men, they won’t even want it.
I will carve Loxleigh’s mark from your flesh until there’s nothing left of him in you.
And when I am done, you will be grateful to kiss my boots for the honour of being stepped on. ’
His nose is inches from hers. He wants fear. He wants the flinch. Marian gives him neither. Instead, she jerks her head forward with just enough clearance in the guards’ grip for a sharp, brutal snap.
Pain explodes across her face, but she can only smile because the crunch is exquisite.
The Sheriff’s nose shatters beneath her brow, cartilage giving way. Blood geysers from his face, hot and scarlet across her cheek. He reels back with a roar, hands flying to his face, curses muffled by the gush of crimson spilling through his gloves. It spatters his polished armour in gore.
For a heartbeat, the guards’ grips loosen in shock.
Marian surges, twisting hard, using the pain in her shoulder as leverage.
She throws her weight into the guard at her left, heel slamming down onto his foot.
Bone snaps under boot with a yowl. She rips an elbow backward toward the other’s ribs, but he anticipates it.
He catches her forearm and wrenches until agony spills down her side.
Allen surges, chains jangling as he tries to throw himself between them, but two soldiers shove him down, boot to shoulder, toe to neck.
‘Cowards,’ he grits, voice ragged. ‘All of you.’ A guard cracks his baton across Allen’s head until his body goes limp.
The Sheriff bellows and staggers upright. His eyes burn with loathing. ‘You’ll choke on that insolence, wench,’ he snarls.
She lunges at him and a guard drives a fist into her gut. The breath is ripped from her lungs in a dry, useless wheeze. Marian gags as her knees buckle and the world tilts.
‘Chain her,’ the Sheriff growls, blood leaking between his fingers as he pinches the ruin of his nose.
‘Why bother?’ Marian spits.
‘If Lox cares enough to mark you, then imagine how quickly he’ll come running when I dangle you like bait.
’ He licks his lip as if lusting for the image he conjures.
‘I’ll put his head on a spike where the market women can hang garlands from his antlers.
’ He leans close enough that his ruined breath crawls down her neck.
‘And when I’m finished with him, I’ll parade what’s left of you through the streets as a lesson for girls who don’t obey. ’
Something inside her goes very, very calm. It is not the calm of surrender. It is the quiet of a bow at full draw.