CHAPTER TWO

The scent of the woods clings to my skin even as I push through the heavy curtain of the elders' hut. My chest is tight. My fingers are trembling as I rub them on my sides. I don't look back.

I can't look back.

The village square is nearly empty, shadows under the sunset. Only the shadows remain, their glowing eyes following my every move. I feel the weight of the mark pulsing on my wrist, hot under my sleeve, like it's mocking me.

No one stops me as I pass. No one meets my gaze. I'm not sure if it's shame or fear that made them silent.

The moment I step past the last house, I start running.

Down the narrow path, past the familiar bended fence that leans toward the east, past the lonely tree that never bears fruit, my breath hitching in my throat like I've swallowed smoke. My boots kicked up dirt, but I didn't stop until the sounds of the villagers were swallowed by the trees.

The border hums louder at night.

Most can't hear it, but I can.

When the moon is full and the wind shifts, there's a kind of music in the trees. A low thrum beneath the earth, as if something old and heavy stirs in its sleep just beyond the veil. The elders say it's superstition. That the barrier between our world and theirs, between the kingdoms of man and magic, was sealed generations ago by treaty and blood.

But I feel it in my bones.

I feel it in the ache behind my ribs when I step too close to the forest's edge. In the way birds scatter when I walk by. In this way the mark on my wrist flares like an ember whenever the sun sets early.

The villagers pretend not to notice. It's easier that way.

They come to me when they need poultices, salves, and healing. I stitch their wounds, set their bones, soothe their fevers with honeyed teas and whispered chants passed down through my grandmother. They leave their coins on the windowsill, never in my palm. They call me Aria only when they're desperate.

The rest of the time, I'm just "the girl who lives too close to the woods."

Today, as I tend to Tomas Redwick's daughter. She's six, feverish, with a rash blooming up her neck. Her mother wrings her hands as I grind dried elderflower into a fine powder and mix it into a warm tincture.

"She'll be all right," I say softly, tilting the cup to the girl's lips. She sips, slow and drowsy.

Mrs. Redwick exhales, pressing a kiss to her daughter's brow.

"She's strong," I add. "Like her mother."

The compliment startles her. She blinks at me, then offers a stiff smile. "You always know what to say."

She doesn't thank me, not directly. But she tucks an apple and a small bundle of rosemary into my satchel before leaving. Paying with things, not words.

It's always like this.

They respect me. But they don't trust me.

I suppose I wouldn't either, if I were them.

By midday, the sun hangs low and hazy behind thick clouds. I leave the cottage and walk toward the far end of the village, past the stables and the old well, until the fields turn to forest.

This close to the border, the air changes. The light softens. The trees grow tall and dense, silver leaves rustling in patterns that don't match the wind. I kneel by the mossy rocks and dig up a patch of moonwort, careful not to break the roots. It grows best here, between the mortal soil and whatever waits beyond it.

When I reach for the final spring, the mark on my wrist flares.

A sharp burn, like ice melting inside my skin.

I pull my sleeve down quickly and glance around.

The forest is still. But not silent.

Something to watch.

I don't see it, but I feel it.

A pressure behind my eyes. A tug in my chest. Not threatening, but… curious.

"Not today," I whisper. "I've got too much to do."

The feeling lingers, then fades like a breath.

I stand, brushing dirt from my knees, and turn back to the village.

There was a time I thought magic might make me special. Chosen, even. I remember the first night it appeared, my sixteenth birthday. The moon was full, the air heavy with wildflowers and rain. I'd fallen asleep outside, under the stars, and when I woke, the mark was there, etched in gold beneath the skin of my wrist. Not a bruise. Not paint. Something alive. Something ancient.

I showed my grandmother. She didn't flinch. She only nodded and said, "Well. It's found you."

"What found me?" I asked.

She never told me.

Two weeks later, she died.

Now it's just me. Me, the mark, and a village that wishes I didn't glow under starlight.

Back at the cottage, I unload the herbs and prepare remedies for the next morning. My hands work on their own, chopping, grinding, mixing. I place the jars on the shelf, neat and careful. My home is small but clean. Everything has its place. The table is old, and the bed is tucked in the corner. Dried flowers hang from the ceiling beams. The air smells of mint and lavender and smoke.

I sit on the floor near the hearth and open the leather-bound book that was once my grandmother's. It's full of scribbled notes and herbal recipes, but some pages are different, written in a language I don't recognize, symbols that shimmer faintly when I trace them.

The mark responds when I touch those pages.

It pulses, warm and slow.

It wants to be known.

But every time I try to read, something stops me. A fear in my gut I can't explain. Like the moment right before a blade drops.

I slam the book shut and put it under the floorboards.

That night, I dream of fire.

Not flames. Not smoke. Just heat.

A golden blaze that curls beneath my skin, licking at my ribs, pulsing with each heartbeat. It hums in time with the border, low and steady and deep. I see shadows moving through the trees. Figures with horns and glowing eyes. A voice calls my name, low and echoing.

Aria…

I wake before I hear the rest.

When I open the door the next morning, there's a crow perched on my windowsill.

It watches me.

Didn't blink.

I sigh and toss it at the end of a dried fig. "If you're a messenger," I mutter, "tell your prince to try someone else."

The crow eats, then cocks its head. The light catches its feathers, black, but almost blue.

I don't believe in omens.

But the border's breath stays in the wind.

And I have a feeling peace won't last much longer.