The Mark Between Them
1201 Words
Isabella woke with the taste of soil in her mouth.
Not dirt. Not dust.
Soil—rich, loamy, alive.
As if something had buried itself in her chest during the night and begun to bloom.
She sat up slowly, the sheets tangled around her legs like vines. Her skin was slick with sweat, her breath shallow. The room hadn’t changed. Same crack in the ceiling. Same scent of sage and dust. Same crooked windowsill where moonlight had once fallen soft against the wallpaper.
But she had.
The dream was already slipping away, as dreams always did. But pieces clung.
Cold bark beneath her hands. A crown woven of hawthorn and sorrow. Whispers spoken in a tongue she had never learned but somehow understood.
And eyes.
Eyes like hers.
No.
Like hers.
The girl in the mirror—the one she had been pretending to be—shuddered loose from memory.
Isabella rubbed her temples, breathing through the ache. Her body didn’t feel ill, but strained. Like something inside her had stretched too far, too fast. Bones not broken, but reordered. A pulse newly woven into her blood.
She turned to the mirror in the corner.
It still showed the girl she’d played—the fragile disguise of a girl who cleaned motel floors and studied books she didn’t remember opening. Brown hair. Pale green eyes. The barest freckles. Human.
But when she stood—
The illusion shattered.
Not in glass, but in truth.
Golden light traced her veins, curling down her arms in faint, shimmering script that pulsed like starlight filtered through ancient canopy. Her hair was darker now—blacker than ink, threaded with something wild. Her eyes burned softly, like candlelight deep in the forest, not predatory, but untamed. Honest.
The reflection matched her.
And when she reached out—
It touched her back. Not out of sync. Not delayed.
A match.
A warning.
And something else.
Welcome back.
She stumbled away, heart pounding. Not out of fear—but recognition.
Something had been unlocked.
And it was hers.
She dressed quickly, throwing on fabric like armor—sleeves, boots, a scarf pulled tight around her throat, even though the morning air wasn’t cold. Her fingers trembled only once as she reached for the door.
Down the stairs.
Through the silent motel.
Too silent.
Marella’s door stood open. The bed untouched. The scent of her presence—a mix of clove, firewood, and lilac—had already begun to fade.
Even the old black cat that haunted the windowsill like a small, judgmental ghost was gone.
Only Kael remained.
He stood in the hallway, his coat fastened tight, hair still damp from the morning fog. His boots were scuffed with forest earth. His eyes met hers without surprise.
“You felt it too,” he said, not a question.
She nodded. “Something’s wrong.”
He tilted his head, expression unreadable. “Or something’s finally right.”
They didn’t speak for a while.
Isabella looked at him, truly looked. The boy she’d once remembered in dreams was still there—but older now. Sharper. The softness that had once tried to hold kindness without claws was gone, replaced by something deeper. Wiser.
Not tame.
But not cruel.
His hands weren’t shaking—but they were clenched. As if he was holding something back. Himself, perhaps.
“What are we?” she asked.
Kael’s gaze didn’t waver. “Not broken. Not mistakes. Just… forgotten.”
She swallowed. Her throat was raw. “Marella’s gone.”
“I know.”
Something in his voice told her he’d known before she had.
She glanced toward the lobby. The pendant still sat on the counter. But it didn’t look still anymore. It pulsed.
In time with her heartbeat.
“She did something,” Isabella whispered. “Something to hide me again.”
Kael walked forward slowly and picked up the pendant. He turned it once between his fingers before placing it in her hand.
“It won’t let her,” he said. “You’ve started to wake. Nothing can undo that now.”
The moment her fingers closed around the stone, a flare erupted in her chest—bright and terrible.
A memory. But not hers.
A forest ringed in flame. Trees screaming. A voice calling her name—not Isabella. Not any name she recognized.
But it was hers.
The air smelled like scorched flowers and lightning.
She dropped the pendant with a gasp, stumbling back.
“I saw… a tree. Not one I know. It was white, but bleeding. And a circle of them—others. Some were watching. Some were chanting.”
Kael paled. “That’s the Grove of Accord. It’s not supposed to exist anymore.”
“Then why do I remember it?” she asked, voice cracking. “Why does it hurt?”
Kael hesitated. Then sat on the old armrest beside her.
“Because you were part of it,” he said. “Before the seal. Before the forgetting.”
She blinked. “Of the Court?”
He nodded slowly. “More than that. You weren’t just born of it. You were meant to inherit it.”
She stared. “That’s not possible. I was just… no one.”
“No,” Kael said gently. “You were the Thornbound. Child of both lines. Fairy and lycan. Meant to unite what war had broken. You were chosen—marked. But something went wrong. The ritual—your claiming—was interrupted.”
Her breath caught. “A betrayal?”
He nodded. “Or a mercy. The seal was made to protect you. But it cost you everything. Your name. Your shape. Your blood’s memory.”
She sank to the floor, back against the hallway wall. Her limbs shook. The truths unraveling were too much. Too fast.
But not too far.
Not anymore.
“I want it back,” she whispered.
Kael crouched beside her, brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m done hiding. Done scrubbing floors while pieces of me rot in the dark. I want to remember what was stolen.”
He didn’t smile.
But his shoulders eased. Like a burden he hadn’t dared hope to lay down had shifted.
“There’s a place,” he said. “In the woods beyond the western rise. It’s where your blood was first offered. If the Grove of Accord was destroyed, it’s the only site that might still echo with your memory.”
“What’s it called?”
Kael’s voice dropped into reverence. “Wildcradle.”
Isabella’s skin prickled.
The word wasn’t familiar, but it felt like a heartbeat she’d forgotten how to listen for.
She rose to her feet.
No fear this time.
Only fire.
“We leave at dusk.”
Kael didn’t argue.
Outside, the wind began to shift. The trees leaned inward, listening. The sun climbed behind silver-threaded clouds, but warmth didn’t follow.
And far from Duskend—in a ruin cloaked in fog and root—a creature of bark and bone stirred.
It turned toward the south.
Toward the awakening.
Its grin split wide, a mouth full of thorns and teeth.
Because the Thornbound had awakened.
And the hunt had begun.
- Writer
