Marked

Chapter 16

Riv POV

She took the empty plate from my hands without a word, setting it gently back on the table near the door. I drank the water slowly, letting it cool the dryness in my throat, but my thoughts weren’t on food or drink anymore.

They were on her.

I’ll be with you. I won’t leave your side. I won’t let anything happen to you.

The words echoed louder than they should have. Stronger than they had any right to be. Because when I’d first woken up chained in this cell, I hadn’t expected a voice like that. A presence like hers.

Not soft, not naïve—but steady. Fierce in a way that didn’t need to shout. And now she was offering to walk beside me, blindfolded and wounded, through gods knew how many miles of enemy territory—and I believed her.

That was the part I didn’t understand. I believed her. She came to kneel beside the cot again, wiping her hands on a clean cloth before glancing at me.

“Is it alright,” she asked gently, “if I try to heal it again?”

I nodded once. “You can.”

She gave a soft breath of relief and leaned forward, fingers moving with care as she undid the bandage from my thigh. She peeled it back slowly, revealing the wound beneath.

It looked better than it had. No redness. No swelling. Just raw, torn skin and bruising that hadn’t yet faded. Her brows furrowed with focus as she placed her hand over the worst of it.

Her fingers trembled slightly—her magic wasn’t fully restored. I could feel that. But she didn’t hesitate. Warmth spread under her palm, pulsing through the damage with quiet strength. The ache intensified for a moment—then lessened.

Bone knit slowly beneath skin. Torn muscle mended under pressure. The flesh fought her, resisted, but she held fast. I watched her face as she worked.

Her lips parted slightly in concentration. A bead of sweat trailing down her temple. Jaw tight. Shoulders tense. Pouring everything she had into this.

For me. By the time she pulled her hand back, her breathing was shallow, and her magic had gone quiet. The pain was still there—dull, like an old bruise—but the wound was gone.

Mended. I flexed my leg slowly, testing it. Not perfect, but whole. And I looked at her. She was staring at the healed skin, blinking hard like she wasn’t sure it had worked.

I cleared my throat, and when her eyes met mine, I said quietly, “I’m… immensely grateful.”

She looked startled. Not by the words. But maybe by the weight of them. Because I meant them more than anything I’d said in years.

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The scent of food pulled me from sleep before anything else. I blinked into the dim torchlight and shifted on the cot, half expecting pain to shoot down my leg.

It didn’t. Not like before. Just a dull throb—nothing I couldn’t handle. I sat up slowly, and there it was—a plate of food, still warm, resting on the small table beside the bed.

She’d brought it. Quietly. Without waking me. I stared at the plate for a long moment before I picked it up and began eating, still groggy, still unsure of the exact hour.

The meal was simple. Hearty. Real. The room was silent except for the soft scrape of my fork against the tin plate and the occasional creak of old stone beneath me. But my thoughts weren’t quiet. They circled around her.

Ryn.

The rebel. The healer. The storm that moved softly but left everything different in her wake. I didn’t understand her. Not fully.

But her kindness lingered in every corner of this cell. The blanket. The food. The way she touched wounds like they were things worth fixing. And I was still reeling from it.

She came back just as I finished the last bite, her footsteps light but steady on the stairs. She looked at the empty plate, then at me, and nodded once.

“It’s time.”

Her voice was quiet. No edge to it. No warning. Just… final. I set the plate aside and shifted to swing my legs over the edge of the cot. The leg held. A little stiff, but strong. She crossed the room and pulled a long strip of cloth from her belt, along with a length of rope.

“I need to blindfold you,” she said, almost apologetically. “And… tie your hands.”

I didn’t argue. I just nodded.

“I understand.”

Her fingers twitched slightly as she approached—still cautious, but not afraid.

“I’ll be the one leading you through the forest,” she added, her green eyes meeting mine. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t even reassurance. It was a promise. And I believed her.

She came to kneel beside me, fingers moving with practiced care as she unwound the rope and reached for my wrist—the one still chained to the wall.

I offered it without resistance.

The iron manacle clinked softly as she tied the rope just below it, securing it tightly but not cruelly. I felt her knuckles brush the inside of my arm—her touch was warm. Intentional.

Then she reached for my other wrist. And I did something I hadn’t planned. Didn’t think through. Didn’t understand.

I lifted my free hand—the one she’d unbound last night—and gently let my fingertips graze her cheek.

Just once. A slow, quiet pass of skin against skin. Her breath caught. She froze—rope half-wrapped around my wrist—and looked up at me.

Green eyes like fire in the torchlight. She didn’t pull away. Didn’t speak. Just stared. And gods, I stared back. I didn’t know why I’d touched her.

Not really. Only that in this strange, flickering moment between prisoner and captor, I didn’t feel like either. I just felt…

Vulnerable.

But then—Bootsteps. Wooden stairs creaking under a second pair of feet. The other female that tortured me last night. The spell shattered. I dropped my hand back to my side without a word.

Ryn blinked, something unreadable flashing across her face, and finished tying the second rope. Her fingers lingered a beat longer than necessary before she reached into her belt and pulled out the blindfold.

“I’m going to cover your eyes now,” she said, voice softer than before.

I nodded, and let her. The world went dark as the cloth slipped over my face, tied tight at the back of my head. The absence of light made her presence sharper somehow—the rustle of her clothes, the smell of her skin, the steady rhythm of her breath.

Then the sound of keys. Metal scraping metal. The click of the manacle releasing from the wall.

“You ready?” the unfamiliar voice called from outside the cell, low and gruff.

“Yes,” Ryn replied. “We’re coming.”

She took my arm gently.

“I’ll guide you,” she said. “Stay close.”

And I did.

Because in the dark—

She was the only thing I trusted.