Marked

Chapter 8

RYN POV

We moved through the forest for hours. No breaks. No speaking.

Just the steady rhythm of boots over earth and the sound of our breathing in sync. The sun climbed steadily above the trees, shafts of golden light spearing through the branches. Even with the warmth of day, the tension never left.

It clung to us like fog.

By midday, we reached a stream that cut across the forest like a silver ribbon, shallow but clean. Teryn dropped to one knee and dipped her hands into the water, drinking deeply. I followed, crouching across from her.

We didn’t speak at first. Just listened. To the water. To the birds. To the wind.

It had returned—but not naturally. Like the forest was trying to pretend nothing had changed.

We both knew better.

Teryn was the first to speak, her voice a whisper barely louder than the water trickling between the rocks.

“He’s still back there.”

I didn’t ask how she knew. Because I knew it too. I nodded once.

“He’s good. I haven’t heard a single step.”

“Which means he’s not just any soldier.”

“No,” I agreed. “And he’s not trying to catch us yet. He’s watching.”

Teryn’s gaze met mine—sharp, unreadable. “Think he’s scouting for the army?”

I hesitated. “Maybe. But if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead. If he wanted to bring us in… he’s had chances.”

We fell quiet again. The wind stirred the leaves.

“Then we don’t lead him back to the Veil,” Teryn said finally. “We draw him away.”

I looked up. “You want to set a trap?”

“I want to see what we’re dealing with,” she said. “We don’t let ghosts trail us through sacred ground. If he’s hunting, let’s make him the prey.”

I nodded slowly, wiping water from my hands.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s see who’s been watching.”

---------------

RIV POV

They didn’t stop again for hours. Not until midday, when they reached a narrow stream. They crouched at the bank, one on either side of the water, and drank.

I kept to the trees. High ground. Just far enough not to be heard, close enough to see. No sudden movements. No signs of distress.

They weren’t running anymore—just walking. Light-footed. Intentional.

I narrowed my eyes, studying them as the taller one said something too soft for me to hear.

The younger one—the auburn-haired female—nodded, brushing her hand through the water. Her shoulders were relaxed, her breathing even. But she kept glancing into the trees behind them.

Not constantly. Just enough. She knew. They both did. Still, they didn’t panic. They didn’t speed up or break formation or scan the woods in open paranoia. They moved like they had nothing to hide.

Which, more often than not, meant they were hiding everything.

I stayed in the shadows, shifting only to keep them in sight as they moved on from the stream and vanished into the trees once again. Their trail was faint, almost delicate—barely a footprint, barely a disturbance in the underbrush.

Most soldiers would’ve lost them miles ago. But I’d learned how to read silence. How to follow ghosts. And I would follow them until I found out who they were. What they were carrying.

And why the sight of that female—

the spell from her hands,

the set of her jaw,

the wild edge in her eyes—

wouldn’t leave my mind.

They turned east after the stream, shifting deeper into the woods where the trees thickened and the light thinned into a steady twilight.

The trail remained faint, but not lost. A footprint just soft enough to miss unless you knew where to look. A broken fern stalk, bent inward toward the path. The smallest thread of crushed moss.

They were good. But not better than me.

I kept my distance, weaving between trees, feet falling light, the wind masking the sound of my breath. The sun had begun its slow descent, casting the forest in slanting beams of gold and gray. We were entering denser terrain now—less traveled, less familiar.

It didn’t worry me. I’d tracked prey through worse. The rhythm of the pursuit settled into something almost meditative. Track. Pause. Scan. Move.

Each sign of their passage read like a quiet invitation. They hadn’t tried to cover their tracks much. Either they were growing careless, or they were confident they’d lost me. Either way, it didn’t matter. I was gaining.

A branch snapped somewhere ahead—faint, distant. Not alarmed, not loud. Just enough for me to mark their pace, to know I was close.

I adjusted course, slipping through the underbrush. Silent. Patient. Always watching. The forest began to shift again. Subtly.

The trees grew sparser, the brush thinned, and the light stretched longer between the shadows. It wasn’t dramatic—just a soft widening of space, the kind of transition that said you were leaving wild terrain behind and stepping into something more open.

A clearing.

Not large. Not obvious. The kind you’d overlook if you weren’t trained to notice patterns in tree growth, shifts in wind, the way the underbrush changed from broken to pressed-flat.

They’d passed through here. Recently. I moved slowly now, not from caution but calculation.

This felt like the kind of place fugitives might pause if they thought they had a lead on their pursuer—somewhere to breathe, maybe regroup. But there were no footprints in the center of the clearing.

No sign of a pack dropped hastily, no disturbed soil where someone had knelt or rested. Just a clean trail, slipping out the far end like a ribbon pulled taut. I frowned slightly.

Either they were more disciplined than I thought…

Or they hadn’t stopped at all. I knelt at the edge of the opening, fingers brushing over the faintest shift in moss. A track. Light. Deliberate.

Someone had stepped here and shifted weight carefully—trying to minimize pressure, but not eliminate it. That was when I realized something. The signs hadn’t grown messier. They’d grown clearer. Easier to follow. Too easy.

I rose from the crouch and crossed into the clearing, eyes on the far treeline, focused on the path ahead.

-------------------------

RYN

We didn’t speak as we laid the trail. There wasn’t time, and there wasn’t need. We knew what we were doing.

Teryn moved ahead of me in a tight arc, leaving faint, deliberate signs—broken twigs, crushed moss, the occasional scuff in the dirt. Just enough to make the path clear without making it obvious we wanted it to be.

She doubled back silently once the final marker was set, then vanished into the treeline behind the clearing like a ghost into mist.

That left me. The bait. I stepped into the clearing, heart steady, breath even.

The wind stirred lightly, curling around my shoulders and carrying the smell of earth, sweat, and distant rain. I paused just long enough to leave a sharp heel print in the dirt—angled toward the narrow path at the opposite edge.

Then I walked. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to be heard. Each step sank softly into loam. Each footfall an invitation. I didn’t look back. Didn’t need to. If he was there, he’d follow.

And if he didn’t—

Then I’d circle back and try something less polite. The silence behind me stretched for a long moment. The forest seemed to hold its breath again, like it had earlier near the stream.

Then I heard it. A soft, almost imperceptible shift—boots over moss, weight moving forward, no longer holding back. He was following. I kept my pace even. I didn’t look behind me.

But the path was narrowing now, twisting slightly down into a shallow hollow between the hills. I counted ten breaths. Then fifteen.

Then I heard it—

A crack.

Not a branch. Bone. Followed by a sharp thud against the earth. I froze. Spun around. But there was nothing behind me. Just trees. I couldn’t see it. But I knew exactly what that sound had been. Then I turned and ran back toward the clearing.

Teryn stood in the shadow of a low oak, breathing hard, one hand on the hilt of her sword, the other resting at her side. At her feet lay a figure—long-limbed, crumpled on his side, unmoving.

The one who had been following us. The one we’d led like a hound on a scent. Now lying unconscious in the dirt.

“He was good,” Teryn said, wiping sweat from her brow. “Silent as fog. But not good enough.”

I barely heard her. I stepped closer, my breath catching, eyes fixed on the figure at our feet.

He was tall—taller than anyone I’d seen in years, at least a head and shoulders above me, even curled on his side. His cloak was thick, heavy with dust and bramble, the kind worn by those who lived on the road. His shoulders were broad beneath dark leather, and his body was lean—built for strength, for movement, for battle.

But it was his face that held me.

Dark hair spilled across his forehead—black as midnight, thick, tousled, and catching the sunlight in strange, silver glints where it peeked through the trees. He hadn’t shaved in days, maybe longer. A rough shadow dusted his jaw, not quite a beard but enough to soften the sharp edges of his face.

That jawline—

Gods.

Hard as cut stone, but relaxed now in unconsciousness. Like this was the only moment in years his body had been allowed to forget it was made for violence.

His skin was pale beneath the dirt and stubble, and his arms—partially bared by sleeves pushed up—were crisscrossed with scars. Some old. Some newer. One jagged one along the top of his forearm. Another that ran in a clean line down the back of his hand.

A fighter.Through and through. And not just trained. Tested.

“He’s Fae,” I murmured, more to myself than to Teryn. “But not like the others.”

Teryn nodded. “He’s the one who’s been following us. Has to be. Moved too clean to be a scout. Probably the king’s hunter.”

She nudged his side with the toe of her boot. “We’ll bind him before he wakes. And keep weapons out of reach.”

But I didn’t move. Couldn’t.

Because for reasons I didn’t understand…

I felt like I already knew him.