Page 25 of Wench

Allen watches her wrestle with silence. ‘Rest easy, little mortal. Pretend it’s all smoke and superstition. Safer that way.’ He lifts something and a flash of metal flies through the air when he tosses it.

She catches it on instinct and winces instantly as a fine point presses into her flesh. Her mouth falls slightly open at the sight of her mother’s pin in her palm.

‘After all,’ Allen adds, ‘the fae are just uncaring monsters, right?’ He sweeps into a bow, exaggerated and mocking, before stepping back through the door.

She stands rigid, the silence settling heavy in her chest. Yet the window tugs at her like a thread on a hem. She knows she should lie down, bury herself beneath quilts, and shut her eyes tight against the pull. But her feet betray her, inching closer to the window.

Her palm brushes the cool curve of the leaf-shaped frame. Beyond it, Sherwood stirs with lantern-glow and the soft swell of voices woven together.

She tells herself she is only curious enough to peek. To listen only enough to confirm how foolish they look, singing to trees. She tells herself many things, each excuse thinner than the last, as she leans closer to the window, the pulse of the forest thrumming faint against her skin.

And outside, the first note of a song older than the bones of the earth curls upward to her waiting ear.

ChapterEight

The window ledge is cold beneath Marian’s thighs.

She draws her knees close to her chest, bare toes curled against the frame for balance, careful to remain hidden in the shadow of the leaf-carved shutters.

Below, Elswyth unfurls in light.

Hundreds of lanterns hang from boughs and ropes. They glow like held stars, their reflections shimmering on bark and skin, gilding every face that turns toward the wide clearing at the village’s heart. Fae gather shoulder to shoulder in reverence, and beneath that silence, a hum starts to build. It vibrates in her chest and beats against her ribs.

At the centre, the nine Elders stand in a crescent. They each carry a torch, their flames dancing between green, gold, and black.

Aife of Thornmarsh is the first to step forward. Her voice rises without strain, low but weaving through the canopy and filling the air.

‘In the first days,’ she intones, ‘there were two who loved more fiercely than the sky loved the sun, and more wholly than the sea loved the moon. Shéruel and Wodenna – hunter and healer, shield and song.’

Cern picks up where Aife paused. ‘They met in the shadow of war, when mortal kings spilled fae blood for iron crowns. Wodenna’s hands drew poison from wounds, and Shéruel’s blade returned death for death. They vowed then never to be parted, not by battle, not by hunger, not even by the long dark of death.’

Marian’s throat bobs. The crowd does not move, does not whisper. Even the leaves above seem hushed, as though the entire forest leans in to listen.

‘But fate does not heed promises and is cruel to even the fiercest of loves,’ Onóra starts, stepping into the light, her torch flaring. ‘A mortal arrow found Wodenna’s breast, and though Shéruel cut down a hundred men in vengeance, it could not cut grief from his marrow. He carried her into the grove where they first became one, where they swore their vows and their bodies came together. He laid her down, and placed his blade through both their hearts, so they might be bound together still.’

Marian curls her toes tighter against the ledge, the weight of the story coiling around her chest.

Corven of Ashdown waddles forward next. ‘Where they fell, the ground drank deep. Their blood soaked into soil thirsty for what no rain could give. And from that mingling rose a glimmer unseen before – the first vein of fae ore. Green with memory, for all that they lived. Gold with magic, for all that they gave. Black with grief, for all that they lost.’

The torches flare in answer, their flames shifting hue: green licking to gold, gold corded with black.

Lyss of Silverfen lifts their pale, vine-ringed hands. ‘From blood and oath the forest grew. And centuries later, it still carries their bond within its roots as much as its boughs. And as long as we tend it, as long as we bleed in its defence, we honour them. Sherwood remembers.’

‘Sherwood endures,’ the crowd intones as one. A hush trembles through the branches.

Slowly, a soft thrumming rises from the clearing’s heart, too steady to be wind, too alive to be drum. The Elders step back, and the crowd parts along a seam of packed earth.

All eyes seem to draw toward the centre.

Lox appears.

The village’s attention snaps to him. Even from her shadowed perch, Marian feels the shift in the air.

Her stomach twists at the sight of him. The onlookers gaze at him as though he is the forest itself made flesh, its chosen mouthpiece, its righteous hand. But all she sees is the one who decided her fate with the same ease he draws breath.

Every step she takes here is permitted only because he allows it. Every kindness from his people hangs on his word. He wrote her sentence and dressed it in the language of mercy.

And still, her body betrays her. Even now, with rage coiled tight in her chest, something in her blood stirs at his presence; an involuntary tremor that feels too much like recognition.