Sable Shadowmark's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Sable led Oryn to a chapel he had found weeks before, far from the garrison. Moss covered its stone walls. Ivy choked the broken windows. He had chosen it because no one came here. What he had to say could not be overheard. Aldric had learned how to break the binding, but the method demanded proof of who Vaelith was, and who Sable had been under her hand. That meant speaking the parts Sable had buried. "There's more I never told you," Sable said. His voice caught. "The binder didn't just mark me. She used me. Months of it. I fetched, I lied, I hurt people because her name in my head made me. I remember pieces now." He kept his eyes on the floor. "I'm not the man you think you're helping." Oryn did not move. "Look at me." Sable made himself lift his head. A cracked mirror leaned against the wall, its frame wrapped in flowering silver vines. In it Sable saw his own face, and behind him, Oryn's. Frost dusted the fae lord's coat. The vines on the frame had bloomed the moment Oryn stepped near. "You think shame drives me off," Oryn said. "It doesn't." Before Sable could answer, boots crossed the threshold. A woman stood in the doorway, cloak green, black hair catching the light like scattered stars. Her emerald eyes found Sable and did not soften. "Vera," Sable breathed. His sister. He had not seen her in years. She had run once and left him to pay her debts. He did not know if she came as help or as another wound. "A note said you were here," Vera said. "I came." She looked at the marks glowing faint through his sleeve, then at Oryn. "Who's this." "He's teaching me to read them," Sable said. Vera stepped closer. She did not embrace him. "You blame yourself for what she made you do." It was not a question. "Don't. I watched it happen, the first time, before I ran. Vaelith took people who trusted. That's the trick of it. Trusting isn't the flaw." She looked at Oryn. "He didn't choose any of it. Whatever she used him for, she held the leash." Oryn studied her, then Sable. "I already knew that," he said. "Now he'll believe it." Something in Sable's chest let go. He had braced for Oryn to step back. Instead the fae lord stayed, and his sister stood at his other side, and neither turned from what he was. "Aldric needs the truth to break it," Sable said. "All of it. I can give it now." "Then we go," Oryn said. Sable pulled his sleeve up. The silver marks burned steady in the dim chapel. For the first time he did not want to hide them. He had told the worst of it, and no one had left. Two people stood with him now, and the leash still waited to be cut.