Page 2 of Wench

In the ten years since her mother’s passing, she’d continued to return, venturing deeper into the forest’s heart.

Tilda swats a low branch out of their path, snapping Marian back to the present. ‘We’re forced to limp through this wretched fog because you couldn’t wait to sketch some mushrooms on a bloody tree stump!’

‘It’s not my fault the roads are crawling with soldiers after last week’s raid.’ Marian pauses at the crest of a shallow rise where the fog slinks like syrup around her boots. She picks at the skin around her thumb aimlessly, the motion restless. ‘I needed . . . space,’ she admits, half to Tilda and half to herself. ‘To get away from the manor. Away from them.’

For three days the Sheriff had lingered at Hallomere Manor like a carrion bird, circling her father’s forge, hovering over the smiths while they laboured night and day to replenish the weapons stolen in the raid. His voice had been everywhere – echoing in the courtyard, slithering through the corridors, pressing against the back of her neck whenever he passed too close. And always behind him is Aengus, his snivelling rat of a lieutenant, with his pinched smile and darting eyes.

Marian could still feel their gazes crawling across her, stripping her down to her value and weighing her like a piece of iron to be hammered into shape. Neither saw her as a person; only what she might be bent into: a wife to barter, a womb to secure a legacy, a pawn to be placed at the Sheriff’s leisure.

She needed to be rid of them, if only for a few hours.

Her satchel knocks against her hip as she steps off the rise. She touches it lightly, comforted by the rough leather and the weight of familiarity. Inside were not the weapon sketches her father demanded her to refine, pressing her to scratch out crueller designs that could bite deeper, maim more brutally, bleed fae bodies faster, make the killing more efficient. No, Marian’s fingers had itched to craft something that was beautiful for beauty’s sake. By the light of tonight’s full moon, she’d managed to draw the soft blow of mist over a stream, the spirals of lichen on bark, the shape of a doe’s ear caught in a moonbeam. Her handmaiden had found her just as dawn stretched across the sky in pale pink streaks.

Tilda places a gentle hand on Marian’s shoulder. ‘You’ll not sketch yourself into a better world by hiding in these woods, child.’ She squeezes her arm affectionately, palm warm even through the damp chill.

‘Maybe not,’ Marian sighs as her boot sinks in a patch of wet leaves. She curses under her breath and grits her teeth before wrenching it free. ‘But Sherwood’s the only place that hasn’t tried to hollow me out and reshape what’s left.’

‘You’d be lucky if that’s all this wretched place did to you,’ Tilda grumbles, plucking a leaf from Marian’s auburn curls. ‘If the fae catch hold of you, they won’t just hollow you out; they’ll gobble you up whole. Take all that’s good and decent and spit back nothing but rot and ruin. Monsters, every last one of them.’

Marian swallows and nods, but it’s half-hearted at best. She knows she should agree. It’s what priests thundered from pulpits and her father spat between clenched teeth. What every hearthside tale whispered about babes snatched from cradles and women led astray by emerald-eyed devils.

And yet . . .

Her gaze sweeps the trees. Branches arch overhead like ribs, cloaked in a mist that’s solemn and reverent. It feels less like a place of monsters and more like a sanctuary.

How could creatures so malevolent call this hallowed wood home? How could cruelty dwell in a place that felt holier than any chapel she’d ever kneeled in?

A twig cracks in the distance and Marian’s head snaps toward the sound.

Somewhere deep, a bird’s squawk cuts off mid-cry. The silence that follows is too heavy, as though the forest itself has drawn in a sharp breath. Marian’s fingers tighten on the curved edge of her bow, her heart pounding against her ribs.

She lifts her chin, squinting into the fog. The path bends sharply, half-swallowed by ivy and shadow, and Marian glances down it. Her fingers find the fletching of an arrow, her senses prickling.

Tilda notices. ‘What is it?’

‘Something’s wrong . . .’ Marian’s voice trails off as her eyes scan the mist ahead. It’s grown colder; the kind of chill that doesn’t belong in late spring.

Her focus narrows just beyond the crook in the path. At first, it’s only shifting grey, a blur of trunk and shadow. And then something moves. Gone as quickly as it came, but every hair on her arms lifts as if the air itself has teeth.

With shaking fingers, she slowly slides an arrow out of her quiver. Her insides twist as she nocks it. She squints, stepping in front of her handmaiden instinctively.

The movement comes again, closer this time. A vast, dark mass stirs within the pale veil, broad-shouldered, impossibly tall.

‘Tilda,’ Marian whispers, her voice little more than breath, but urgent all the same. Her eyes stay locked on the dark shape unravelling from the haze like a harbinger.

It’s too large to be a man and yet too small to be a beast. It shifts and a pair of eyes flare open. They blink back at her through the veil of fog – an impossible shade of green, bright as gemstones caught in a shaft of sun.

Fae.

Her pulse stutters. The bowstring digs into the pad of her finger as she draws it taut.

‘Run,’ Marian hisses.

Tilda tenses behind her. ‘Not without?—’

‘Now!’

Tilda flees down the slope, swallowed almost at once by fog.