Elaris Ashwyn's Arc

Chapter 5 of 12

That night they camped past the river town, in a hollow ringed by pines. Elaris had trusted Ren with her name. Now she saw what could take him from her. A black mark curled across his collarbone, thin as ink. It had not moved all day. Then, as he stirred the fire, it pulsed once. Ren dropped the stick. His hand went to his chest. "What is that?" Elaris crossed to him. "The contract," he said. His jaw tightened. "My master signs it awake when he wants me. If he summons, I go. My legs walk without me." Elaris knelt in front of him. "Then we cut it now, before he calls." "You can't cut it. My father sold my life into that ink." Ren's icy eyes held hers. "If it drags me back, I might not come back myself." She would not lose the one person who knew her name. She pulled his collar wide and studied the mark. It was a binding, drawn in fae script. She had freed a sprite from a snare once. She knew snares had knots, and knots had ends. "Show me where it starts," she said. Ren traced the line to a small closed loop near his shoulder. "There. The anchor." Elaris drew one dagger. She would not slice him. She pressed the flat of the blade to the anchor and spoke her true name aloud, the name she had guarded eleven years. "Elaris Ashwyn holds this. Not the king." The mark flared white. Ren gasped and gripped her wrist. The ink writhed under the steel, fighting her. His arm jerked toward the dark trees, pulled by something she could not see. She threw her weight against him and held. "Stay," she said. "You gave me your word. Keep it here." The pulling stopped. The mark did not vanish. It shrank instead, drawing tight around the anchor loop, then went still and cold. Ren slumped forward against her shoulder, breathing hard. "He called," Ren said. "I felt him call. And I didn't go." "You didn't go." Elaris pulled back to see his face. "Never before," he said. "The contract is still on me. But it held me tonight, and I stayed." His hand found the spot where the ink lay quiet. "He'll know something blocked him. He'll come looking for the reason." Elaris sat back on her heels. She had bought Ren a night, maybe more. She had not freed him. The king would hunt the thing that broke his leash, and the thing was her name spoken over his blood. She had spent her deepest secret to keep her ally, and now that secret had a scent the king could follow. "Then we don't wait for him here," she said. She sheathed the dagger. "We reach the crossing before he does." Ren nodded. For the first time, he sat by a fire and did not watch the trees for his master.