And she might’ve been able to hide it, if that had been the only mark she’d been cursed with. But her eyes betrayed her impossible heritage wherever she went, like all Lightborn, whose striking, unnatural eye colors served as visible proof of what stirred beneath the skin. But instead of the molten copper of a fire mage or the tide-washed topaz of a water witch, hers were moonlit amethysts that rivaled the hues of dusk. Ethereal purple that represented…nothing. No power. No magic. Only an anomaly that’s cause had yet to be explained.
And though she always carried some hope with her that maybe she was wrong, that perhaps, like her mother said, it might just be a strange birthmark—a coincidence—and nothing more, the night she came to the Woods had confirmed everything she feared. When she crossed the boundary of this cursed forest, the three rootlike veins lengthened, crawling farther down her forearm toward her wrist, branching as they grew, as if awakened by something ancient and watchful. A sigil. A claim. A permanent reminder that there was no redemption for those called to the Shadows.
And yet, the Shadows welcomed her when the world did not. They did not require long sleeves and hooded cloaks in their presence. They did not glance away when her mystic eyes suddenly met theirs. They accepted her wholly, and she existed in peace among them, driven by some strange instinct to guard the Veil alongside them in exchange for their protection.
And whenever she hesitated to kill an intruder—as she did now—her eyes would drift to that mark to remind her that perhaps she was meant for this darkness, and the darkness for her. And that’s what she always told herself before she shot arrows through their hearts.
From her silent perch in the treetops, she released her breath and bowstring together. The arrow struck her target, and he crumpled without a sound. His two startled companions leapt to their feet, too slow, too late, to change their fate.
"It’s the king’s men!" One shouted, his gaze flickering across the trees.
They reached for their weapons, but then the Shadows coiled around them, writhing in patterns like vipers at their feet of the two men standing.
“No, it’s the Witch!” One of them choked out as Shadows closed in around them and Caramyn leapt down from a gnarled tree branch without so much as the crunch of a leaf. She watched as the wraiths hissed, encompassing their victims before they ripped the essence of life from their bodies. No time for a scream, barely even a breath.
When all fell quiet, she retrieved her arrow and searched all three bodies, taking whatever treasures she could find. The tattoos etched onto their right arms confirmed they were just the type she suspected—prisoners, probably escaped, as these markings indicated serious crimes.
She searched satchels, pockets, and even their shoes. If they’d truly robbed a royal grave, the loot could sustain her for months, maybe years. She pocketed a wealth of gold, jewels, and a peculiar signet ring with a royal crest she didn’t recognize. A thick golden band framed by intricate etchings of the moon phases on either side, until they met in the center to converge into a full moon. It could fetch a decent price at the market in Havenswood—if she ever felt safe enough to go back.
Rumors had been stirring about her presence in the superstitious hub of Havenswood, a mountain town cut off by rivers and terrain from the rest of the mortal lands. Their isolation made them hostile to anything that they suspected might’ve crossed from the witchlands or escaped from the Veil, or whatever scary bedtime stories they told their children.
Her cloaked disguise did little to make her forgettable when someone managed to catch a glimpse beneath her hood of her ethereal violet eyes or the marks that crept along her right arm like a blooming vine—the marks she bore that let the world know she was an enemy of the crown and the Order. The marks that would get her sent straight to Felhold to have her eyes plucked out and be torn limb from limb by the executioner prince of Blackwynd at the feet of his father. Even just a mark that hinted at magic was something sinister, dangerous, a rot in the veins, as they called it.
She would have to let the gossip die down for a while before returning. A long while. And that meant winter would be very, very difficult.
She thought to wear the ring on the walk home for safekeeping. After all, it might compliment her earthy brown locks nicely. She slipped the ring onto her finger, the campfire's glow illuminating it against her skin like warm amber.
She hated fire. The flames tugged at painful memories of the day she fled to this forest prison from the only home she ever knew, though it had sometimes felt like a prison itself. The accusations echoed in her mind just as clear as the day she left her world burning behind her.
Cursed. Tainted. Mistake. Monster.
Monster.
A monster not even a father could stick around for. A monster they thought her, so a monster she had become.
And so the monster beat out every last dying ember of the fire, unstrung her bow, and began her trek back to her small cottage nestled in the heart of the forest, halfway to the Veil. She knew every branch, every tree’s crooked silhouette, and every call of the crows that flocked above. The deep forest roots twisting through the earth might’ve been a network of veins connected straight to her hidden heart, for in each nimble step of her bare feet, she walked and breathed in time with the pulse of the Woods. But her pace quickened as the sky darkened. She didn’t like being out after nightfall if she could help it.
Her cottage entrance rarely looked more inviting than it did just before the last bit of sunlight faded in the Woods. Once inside, she placed her bow in the corner, then carved three notches into the wall with her dagger. Ninety-nine—the number of men who’d met their end at the tip of her arrow, or the blade of her dagger, or the wrath of the Shadows since she'd been here. Ninety-nine men. Only men.
She’d never seen a woman in the Woods. And the truth was, she hardly felt guilty anymore for the men. She hadn’t always been this way, so numb to it all. In the beginning, she hid, letting trespassers wander until the forest claimed them. But the day came when a man finally found her and tried to force himself on her.
The Shadows intervened, and she understood—it was not mercy, but permission to pass her own sentence. She’d just returned from skinning a rabbit for supper, and her knife was still sharp. That was the first time she killed, and the moment she learned hiding would never be enough, not from those who came only to take. The Shadows would always find them eventually, but sometimes she was meant to find them first. And she had learned to harden herself to it. To hunt back, and to take no chances with men.
Men started the war on magic. Men created the Order to rid the world of it. Men had chased her to the edge of these Woods. And men had shown her there was nowhere else safe to go.
Trust no one…flee to where shadows hide the light…and when you find it, guard it with your life.
She shook away the echo of her mother’s words and phantoms of the past she dared not invite in, despite their constant knocking. She sometimes dreamed of the freedom she might have had if not for the Blackwynd King—of a world where she wasn’t bound to these Woods by duty and survival. But she couldn’t risk an existence outside this forest, even if she often yearned to know what the world beyond these gnarled, twisting trees was like. Beyond the Bleak Wilderness that isolated this barren corner of the kingdom from the rest of the human lands and the witchlands.
A shiver tickled her spine. The lengthening starry nights carried the promise of late autumn on crisp, chilly air that leaked in through the space beneath the door. She dreaded the turning of the seasons. There was hardly enough prey in the Woods during summer, let alone when the frost came.
She stoked the fire that had been crackling long before she left. A raven crowed in the corner of the room. She stroked the bird's midnight feathers. "Don't worry, Nocthar. Of course I brought something for you." She opened her palm to reveal some cornmeal leftovers she had kept from the men's camp. The bird pecked the crumbs with a gratuitous chirp.
With that, Caramyn turned and sprawled across her fur-lined cot. Staring up at the tally marks, she touched a hand to her chest, just to be sure there was still a heart in there.
Is this how she would spend the rest of her days? Alone. Banished. Forever paying her debt to the Shadows for their sanctuary. Not living. Just enduring.
She supposed she had no other choice. There could be nothing more. Because she was the impossible daughter of a Shadowblood. And running from it had only led her here. Even closer to whatever dark destiny bound her to these Woods.
