Caelum swallowed, his jaw clenching as he reached up to his heavy cloak and pulled it to the side until it shifted and revealed the mark. The two of them exchanged a look of confusion, and I watched from the sidelines as I waited for them to work their way through whatever male moment they were having.
“Her brother?” Caelum asked, glancing over at me. He paused, studying my face intently before finally shifting his attention back to Brann and giving an appeasing smile. “How unusual that you would flee with her.”
“I wasn’t about to leave her to the mercy of the Fae and the Mist Guard on her own,” Brann snapped back. His focus finally fell to the Mark on Caelum’s neck, studying it intently with his gaze narrowing on the entwined black and white before raising his eyes back to Caelum’s. Brann glared openly.
I just wanted to eat and go to sleep in the relative safety of the barn and with the warmth of straw at my back.
“We’re leaving,” Brann announced, reaching forward and taking my hand in his.
“It’s dark out,” I protested. “We won’t find shelter anywhere else so late, and Gods only know if we’ll be fortunate enough to find another place to hide. We should wait until morning.”
Caelum cleared his throat, and I turned to find his body holding perfectly still. His gaze wasn’t on me or Brann, but on the spot where my brother clutched my hand tightly. “I really think it would be wise that we stick together.” The words came through gritted teeth, as if he’d clenched his jaws so hard they’d melded into one.
“Why is that? So you can use me to go into the places you can’t be seen?” Brann asked, narrowing his eyes on the other man.
“Yes,” Caelum agreed, not even bothering to deny how useful Brann would be. “We can help one another. Unless I am mistaken, I don’t see weapons on either of you. It would be unwise to continue without any form of protection.”
“What good will a sword do us if the Fae come to steal her away?” Brann asked. “I’m assuming you haven’t had to defend yourself just yet, because if you had, you’d know that Mark on your neck is more than capable of doing it for you,” Brann argued, pausing to smirk in a moment of pride. “Or at least hers is.”
Caelum’s attention shifted to me, his eyes narrowing on my face as he studied my reaction to Brann’s words. Shame heated my cheeks, the reminder of what the Mark had done making me turn my eyes to the floor. “Someone tried to kill you?” he asked, his lips thinning with anger.
I nodded. “Two of the Mist Guard from my village when we fled. I didn’t mean to kill them,” I mumbled, scuffing the dirt on the floor of the barn.
“Of course you didn’t,” Caelum said, surprising me. His eyes were sympathetic and soft when he cleared his throat. “The Vinculum only acts as a last resort to preserve life.”
“The Vinculum?” I asked, watching as he approached. He closed the distance between us with slow strides that somehow seemed to take forever and happen too quickly, all at once. Brann’s hand tightened on mine when the strange man stopped in front of me, lifting a hand to the Mark on my neck.
It awakened, blazing with the swirling light that glowed through the gaps in his fingers where he rested his palm against my skin. “The Fae Mark,” he explained, his dark eyes lit by the white radiating from my body. Whereas the Mark had burned when Brann touched it, it came to life at the touch of another like me.
“How is it that you know so much about this mark?” Brann asked, tugging at my hand until he pulled me away from Caelum, whose hand dropped away. The shock of fresh air against my skin felt too warm, as if I would overheat and burst into flames in the wake of his skin on mine.
“My father was a fan of our histories. He spent a great deal of time studying the forbidden texts he kept hidden in his library,” Caelum answered, and I nodded even as Brann kept pulling me back toward that door. If his father had truly risked owning the forbidden books, his knowledge of such things made sense, no matter what my overprotective brother seemed to think. “Don’t be foolish, Little One. We are far safer together.”
I paused, holding his gaze as Brann tugged at me. “Let’s go, Estrella,” he warned, his voice dropping to the deep command he’d used when we’d been children and I was caught in a place I shouldn’t be.
It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d gotten myself in trouble, or even the tenth. Not when my need to wander around in the woods had seen me punished in Lord Byron’s library far too many times.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip and turning to follow Brann.
“Estrella,” Caelum warned, and then his voice was cut off as the door closed behind me. Brann led me into the woods, and I let him take me to safety despite the hollow feeling that I’d done exactly what Caelum had warned me not to, and that going out into the night would prove to be very foolish indeed.
I ignored the pit in my stomach, following the brother who’d risked everything for me.
Family came first.
“I cannot believe how foolish you were. What were you thinking, showing him your mark?” Brann asked a few minutes later as we trudged through the woods. Our pace was slow, the stars above only doing so much to illuminate our path with the tree canopy so dense overhead. The leaves hadn’t completed their change of colors, sticking to the branches in their last efforts to survive the weather, which had changed once again toward the cool, crispness of an approaching winter.
Once they fell, we’d have more light in the night, but we’d also have less cover to conceal us from the things chasing us.
I’d wanted to go back the moment we left. The shelter of the barn, the warmth of the straw, and the presence of another person like me all pulled me back toward the village we’d left behind. “Foolish was leaving. What harm could it have done to allow him to travel with us? He would’ve been one more person to keep watch and help in a fight,” I argued. We’d been fortunate enough this far to only encounter limited numbers at once, but if a group of Mist Guard found us and they had one of the iron collars with them that seemed to take every bit of my energy from, we wouldn’t stand a chance.
“He would have also been one more mouth to feed,” Brann snapped, shocking me with his lack of concern over another human life. All traces of the caring and gentle brother I’d known were gone in that moment, his features appearing sharper in his ire.
“Brann,” I mumbled, shaking my head. I didn’t want to live in a world where everyone was my enemy. Where everyone was a threat or a sacrifice I needed to make to save myself. “We should go back,” I said, turning to stare at the way we’d come. I wouldn’t have been able to find my way to the barn on my own without Brann’s help, and the knowledge kept me from trying, even when my legs twitched to change direction.