Page 12 of Wench

Six feet above the ground, she dangles, arms flailing. The taste of copper floods her mouth as blood rushes to her skull. She claws at the rope biting into her ankle, fingers slick with grime, but it only digs deeper as stars dance behind her eyes.

The forest is quiet now. Too quiet. The laughter has gone. Only the creak of the rope and the pound of her heartbeat fill her ears. Her ankle throbs with every shift of the rope, hot lightning racing up her calf. The movement sends her body swinging helplessly toward the trunk again. Bark gouges skin, tearing at her temple. The edges of her vision collapse inward as black creeps over the world.

Her breaths come faster, sharper, each one burning against the cage of her bodice. Tears sting her eyes. Blood trickles warm down her cheek, crawling toward her ear. She blinks hard, but the world still wavers, her vision rimmed in red. She tries to force herself still, to stop fighting, but her body will not listen. Her thoughts stutter, scattered like leaves caught in a storm.

Darkness swells, then recedes. In the blur between, movement sways at the edges of her sight. Shadows detach from the mist, three figures closing in.

The massive fae emerges first, moving with slow certainty. Blood drips from his forearm where her fox-pin found its mark. The sight jolts her stomach, guilt and terror tangling in equal measure at what he’ll do to exact his revenge. But where the first fae is stone and storm, the one beside him is wind and thorn. Their wiry frame is wrapped in charcoal-dyed cloth and forest-dappled leather. They whip their hood back, revealing dark skin, sharp cheekbones, russet-toned dreadlocks, and delicate, pointed ears. A pair of curved knives sit at their hips like fangs, but it’s the curl of their lip that cuts sharper. The last figure is warmth where the others are steel. Broader than the second, but shorter than the first, he looks gentler than all of them. A lute is slung across his back beside a shortsword. His black hair is cropped close, beard trimmed but soft at the edges, and there’s a quiet steadiness in the way he watches Marian.

All three of their eyes burn green-gold in the gloom.

‘We can’t just leave her here,’ the smaller lute-carrying fae says.

A scoff follows. The wiry one with the knives prowls closer, tilting their head up at Marian. ‘She’s human, Allen,’ they bite out. ‘Not some lost pet to drag home. Let the carrion have her.’

Marian’s vision rocks with her swinging body. Her stomach heaves, bile creeping hot into her throat as a whimper escapes her.

‘She saved my life,’ the one called Allen insists, tipping his chin toward the giant, ‘and Little John’s too?—’

‘Saved? She stuck John like a pig not a breath later!’ the other hisses. ‘As far as I’m concerned, whatever she gave, she took back.’

Marian tries to shake her head, to beg, but all that escapes her cracked lips is a faint rasp. Her vision flickers again, black pressing at the edges, but their voices keep hauling her back.

Allen’s stubborn tone sharpens. ‘If she hadn’t shouted, John would have a sword through his back. You know that as well as I do, Will.’

‘You’ve grown soft,’ Will sighs, lips curling. Their knives catch the weak light as they spin one idly by the hilt. ‘Human pity makes fools of even clever men.’

‘Ah, so you think I’m clever,’ Allen quips.

Marian’s gaze drifts toward the giant. Little John. He stands just beneath her, staring up with meadow-coloured eyes, one massive hand wrapped around his wounded arm where her pin tore into flesh. His jaw is set hard, unreadable, but he doesn’t move toward her.

An exasperated groan slips out of Will. ‘And what do you think Lox will do the minute he sees her? He’ll put an arrow through her eye before you can pluck a string on that damned lute. Human trespassers don’t walk out of Sherwood, Allen, and they certainly don’t enter Elswyth.’

‘I’ve made my choice and I’ll live with the consequences,’ Allen answers, glancing up at Marian. ‘Whatever they may be. I won’t be the monster they’ve warned their children about. If Lox banishes me for it, then at least my conscience will be clear.’

The words echo through Marian’s head, but she can sense herself slipping away. Her arms grow too heavy to lift. She feels the ache of flesh twisting against rope, the pulse from the cut at her temple, but even pain is growing distant now, dulled at the edges.

Voices blur into one another until they become muddled shapes in the mist. Her eyes flutter. The forest tilts sideways, her body swinging limp from the rope.

Her grip on the world loosens as darkness folds over her.

* * *

Marian wakes to music.

Not the distant kind that haunts dreams. Strings plucked softly, fingers skipping over frets with lazy precision. It threads through her sleep like sunlight through leaves, coaxing her gently back to waking.

For a long breath, she doesn’t move. Her limbs are tangled in a quilt she doesn’t recognize, stitched in uneven patches of well-worn linen. Her first inhale tastes of woodsmoke and juniper, as her eyes flutter open. Dried herbs – lavender, sage, yarrow – are bound in clusters above her and perfume the air. Morning spills through a window laced with vine, dappling the floor in shifting gold.

It’s intimate, cosy, as though meant to cradle rather than contain.

She shifts to sit up and stills when there’s no jolt of pain. Her ankle should throb. Her temple should split with every heartbeat. Her ribs should ache from the corset’s strangling grip. Instead, her body moves with ease.

A thin thread of horror winds cold through her chest.

She flings the quilt off and is suddenly aware she’s been stripped down to her shift. Her cheeks heat in realization that some fae removed her bloodied outer layers: the ruined dress, the bodice stiff with grime, the torn petticoat heavy with mud. What’s left is a thin chemise, the neckline sloping too low, the hem catching barely at her knees. She presses the thought to the back of her mind and moves to inspect her legs, expecting bruises to bloom purple-black across her shin, and welts to swell around her ankle. There is nothing but smooth, tan skin, bronzed by the mottled morning light.

Magic.