Marked

Chapter 19

RIV POV

The silence was different now.

Not the cold, echoing stillness of a dungeon cell. Not the watchful, suffocating hush that came when guards stood just beyond the bars.

This silence had weight. But it was softer. Warmer. Her presence still filled the space. Quiet, steady. Like she belonged here. I hadn’t spoken much since they brought me back.

There hadn’t been a point. But now… Now I wanted to.

I watched her sit at the foot of the bed again, keeping her distance this time. Still near. Still close enough that her scent reached me—fresh water, clean linen, and something faintly herbal. Probably from the salve she’d used on my wounds.

She looked at me, waiting. Not demanding. Just… open.

“They’ll kill me eventually,” I said, voice low, rough from disuse.

Her brow furrowed.

“No, they won’t. Not if you follow the rules.”

“I mean even if I do, all it takes is one of them being angry enough. One slip.”

I leaned my head back against the stone wall and closed my eyes.

“One memory they can’t forget.”

She didn’t argue. Didn’t deny it. Didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.

“Thank you,” I said again, quieter this time.

She blinked. “For what?”

“For… this.”

I opened my eyes again and looked at her.

“The food. The clothes. The water. The blankets.”

My gaze dropped to the shackles stretched from my wrists.

“The choice to treat me like something other than a weapon.”

She didn’t look away. Didn’t flinch.

“Maybe you’re not just a weapon.”

I laughed once—dry and bitter.

“I’ve been one for so long, I don’t know what else there is.”

She shifted forward on the bed, and I felt her eyes searching mine.

“You can choose.”

I almost believed her. Almost.

“I was starving,” she said, and her voice was calm—too calm for what followed.

“I’d been running for days. Maybe longer. It was hard to keep track of time back then.”

I kept my eyes on her, but I didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“I was six.”

Six.

She said it like it wasn’t meant to shatter something inside the listener. Like it didn’t change everything.

“I ran before they could find me. Slept in tree hollows, caves. Ate whatever I could find—leaves, berries, roots. I remember thinking if I could just find one carrot, one bite of something real, I’d make it through another night.”

Her voice didn’t crack. But I felt it anyway. Every word. Like a dagger sawing across old bone.

“One night, I found a garden. Behind a cottage. Fenced in. I wasn’t quiet—I hit a rake, knocked it into the fence. I froze.”

She laughed. Quiet. Bitter and fond all at once.

“I thought I was dead.”

I had no breath left in my chest. Not because I hadn’t heard stories like this. Because I had. I’d made them. I’d hunted girls like that. Boys like that. Not six-year-olds. But close. Close enough.

Her voice dropped lower. “A woman came out. Not with a blade. Not with a scream. She just looked at me and asked me what I was doing.”

“She fed me. Made me clean up. Sat me by the fire. Her name was Aelira. She had a husband too—Dereth. Old soldier. Taught me how to fight. Taught me how to survive. But he never treated me like a weapon. He made sure I remembered who I was.”

I couldn’t speak. Wouldn’t have known what to say if I tried. Because she had that. She had that. And I never did. No one found me in a garden. No one fed me soup by a fire. I didn’t learn survival in a training ring. I learned it with blood on my hands.

“They never asked where I came from,” she said. “They just… kept me.”

I looked at her then, really looked. And I realized why I couldn’t stop thinking about her since the moment she first touched my arm to heal it.

She wasn’t just fire and survival. She was something I didn’t know how to name. Something I’d never had.

Warmth. Belonging. A home. And now she was sitting here, still offering pieces of it to someone who didn’t deserve them. To me.

“You were lucky,” I said.

But it didn’t come out the way I meant it. Not bitter. Not sharp. Just… hollow. Honest.

She tilted her head, watching me with those green eyes, her brow pinched like she knew there was more. Like she could already see the echo of my thoughts before I even said them.

“I used to dream about something like that,” I went on, voice low. “Not… soup by the fire. But just… someone opening a door. Looking at me like I wasn’t something to use.”

She didn’t speak. Didn’t interrupt. So I kept going.

“After my mother died, I thought someone might come. A guard. A servant. Anyone. I waited by the door for days. I didn’t eat. Barely slept.”

I let out a short, dry breath. “Eventually, I realized no one was coming.”

She didn’t cry for me. Didn’t look away. She just listened. And that—somehow—was worse than pity.

“Since then, every hand that’s reached for me has done it with a chain.”

I turned my head and tapped the cold iron cuff locked around my wrist.

“This one just happens to be literal.”

Ryn shifted closer, just slightly. Her presence felt like firelight—warm and flickering just out of reach.

“You’re wrong, you know,” she said softly.

“About what?”

“That no one ever looked at you without wanting to use you.”

I stared at her. Waited. And she met my gaze with something that carved through me like dawn breaking over ice.

“I’m looking at you right now.”

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I was sure I’d say something I couldn’t take back. So I just held her gaze. Let the silence speak for me.

And tried—gods, I tried—not to believe that I’d been waiting for this moment my whole life.

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

RYN POV

For a long time, he didn’t say anything. Just stared at me like I’d cracked something open in him he hadn’t meant to share. Like he wasn’t sure whether to thank me or run. But then, finally, his voice broke through the silence.

Low. Rough. Careful.

“There was one person,” he said.

My eyes lifted to his.

He didn’t look at me as he spoke—just stared down at his shackled wrists, thumb brushing absently over one of the iron cuffs.

“After my mother died… there was a male. The captain of the royal guard. He trained me.”

His voice was different now. Not warm. Not cold either. More like the calm after a storm. Raw, and very, very real.

“I think… I think he took pity on me. Or maybe he saw something worth shaping. Either way, he didn’t treat me like a tool. Not at first.”

He leaned back against the stone wall, gaze still unfocused.

“I trained with him for years. Every day. Swords. Daggers. Tactics. Discipline. He was hard—gruff, mostly quiet—but he never hit me out of rage. Never mocked me when I fell. Just told me to stand back up and try again.”

Something inside me ached for him. And for the boy he used to be.

“What was his name?” I asked quietly.

That made him smile—just faintly, barely a lift at the corner of his mouth.

“Haldric. But I called him Hal. Only in private, though. He’d grunt at me and pretend he hated it, but I think… I think he liked it.”

I smiled, too. For a moment, the dungeon didn’t feel quite so cold.

“Do you still see him?” I asked gently.

That faint smile—the one that softened his face and made him look just a little less haunted—flickered out like a dying flame.

“No,” he said after a beat. His voice dropped lower. “He left the capital around the time I turned sixteen. Disappeared without a word.”

I watched him closely. There was more there. More he wasn’t saying. Not out of deceit—but protection. For me. Or maybe for himself.

I didn’t press. Some wounds weren’t ready to bleed out loud.

“I’m sorry,” I said instead, quietly.

He looked up then. Met my gaze. And even in the dim firelight, those deep blue eyes didn’t look like the eyes of a killer. They looked like someone still searching for the place he lost. The one he was never allowed to stay in. The silence after his story wasn’t awkward.

It was still. Sacred. Like if we spoke too loudly, it might break the fragile thing taking root between us. But he was watching me now. Not with suspicion. Not with grief. Something else.

“Why are you really here?” he asked softly. “With me.”I blinked at him. “I told you—”

“No. I mean… why are you here. Sitting in a cell with someone like me. You’ve seen what I’ve done. You’ve heard the stories. You should hate me.”

I held his gaze.

“I don’t.”

His brows lifted slightly.

“And that doesn’t scare you?”

“Should it?”

He huffed a quiet laugh, almost incredulous. Then his smile faded. And something in his expression shifted. Something quiet. Raw. Resolute.

“I’ve only ever given my name to one person,” he said. “And she’s dead.”

I went still. He looked at me—really looked. Like this decision cost him something. Like it mattered.

“My name is Rivenn,” he said at last. “But…”

His voice dropped a notch.

“You can call me Riv.”

The air left my lungs in a slow, silent breath. And I didn’t know what to say. Not because I didn’t have words. But because I knew this was more than a name. This was a piece of him. Given to me. I wanted to keep it.