“Well,” Ellowa demanded when Mariselle didn’t immediately continue. “What is it?”
Mariselle’s gaze shifted from her mother to her sister and back again. “When I stepped out onto one of the terraces at Solstice Hall for fresh air, I … I encountered Lord Evryn Rowanwood.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. Lady Clemenbell’s expression hardened to granite, while Ellowa’s eyes widened with scandalized interest.
“You spoke with a Rowanwood?” her mother asked, each word precisely enunciated.
“We argued,” Mariselle hastened to clarify. “But something happened during our disagreement. Our hands accidentally touched, and …” She extended her right arm and pushed up the sleeve of her robe, displaying the silvery mark that encircled her wrist. “This appeared.”
For a moment, neither her mother nor sister spoke. They stared at the mark as though Mariselle had presented them with a poisonous serpent. Then Lady Clemenbell stepped forward and seized Mariselle’s wrist in a grip far too tight to be comfortable, examining the pattern with naked horror.
“What is this?” she demanded, her nails digging into Mariselle’s skin.
“I believe it’s a soulbond mark,” Mariselle replied, resisting the urge to wince.
“Impossible,” Lady Clemenbell breathed, dropping Mariselle’s hand as though it had burned her. “A soulbond? With a Rowanwood? I have never heard such absolute nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Mariselle insisted, summoning the conviction she would need to convince her family. “Lord Evryn bears an identical mark. It appeared simultaneously when our hands touched. We were both equally startled by the development.”
“Startled?” Ellowa repeated incredulously. “One doesn’t simply become ‘startled’ by a soulbond with a member of the family our own has despised for generations!”
“I know it seems impossible,” Mariselle continued, “but neither of us can deny what happened. The mark appeared, accompanied by a sensation likelightning beneath the skin, and with it came … feelings … that neither of us expected.”
“Feelings?” her mother echoed in a sharp voice.
Heavy footsteps out in the corridor and a bellowed “Mariselle!” announced her father’s arrival. He appeared in the doorway, his eyes landing on Mariselle with obvious displeasure. “I demand to know what calamity required you to abandon tonight’s gathering without so much as a word of explanation.”
“Oh, there is an explanation,” her mother said faintly, “though it is far from good. Your daughter,” she continued, gesturing toward Mariselle with a hand that trembled slightly, “appears to have magically bound herself to a Rowanwood.”
Lord Brightcrest’s expression shifted from irritation to stunned disbelief. “What did you say?”
Mariselle took a steadying breath and repeated her carefully constructed tale, extending her marked hand for her father’s inspection. With each word, his complexion grew more ashen, his shoulders more rigid. When she finished, silence descended upon the room.
“What have you done to us?” her father finally asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Betraying the family name like this?Family comes first, Mariselle!Have you learned nothing from us?” He released an exasperated breath. “I thought you were an embarrassment before, with your lackluster magic, but this? This is beyond anything I ever feared.”
Mariselle pressed her shaking lips together. Years of disappointment and disapproval should have prepared her for the raw contempt in her father’s voice, yet somehow his words still sliced through her.
“Father, I … I didn’t choose this. It simply happened. I can’t help that I …” She gulped and prepared herself to force the lie out. “I love?—”
Her father was across the room in two quick strides, his hand gripping her jaw before she could finish the sentence. “Do not ever utter those words again,” he hissed. “Your grandfather lay in an enchanted sleep for almost adecadeafter the closure of Dreamland before death finally took him, precisely because of what a Rowanwood did to him. That family almost tore ours apart. You will neverloveone of them. You will never beboundto one of them. And I do not want to see you again until you rid yourself of that abominable mark.”
He released her with a dismissive shove that sent her staggering backward several paces. She caught herself against the edge of the bed as a thought struck her:This isn’t worth it.
The desperate need for her family’s approval—the approval she’d spent her entire life chasing—clawed at her chest. She wanted to use Dreamland to prove herself to them, but not if it meant alienating herself entirely in the process. She opened her mouth, ready to confess everything, to beg forgiveness, to promise she would find a way to remove the mark.
“This is precisely what I expected,” her father spat before she could speak. “You’ve always been incapable of managing anything on your own. The moment you’re left to your own devices, you create catastrophes that our family must clean up. Without our guidance, you are utterly useless.”
The words struck like daggers, but instead of drawing blood, they hardened something within her. Mariselle clamped her mouth shut, her jaw tightening. She wasnotuseless on her own. She was not some helpless, empty-headed girl who needed constant supervision. She was, however, smart enough to lower her gaze to the floor. Meeting her father’s eyes with defiance would only anger him further.
Without another word, he turned and strode from the room.
“Well,” Lady Clemenbell said quietly. Mariselle looked up to find her mother’s eyes trailing up and down her form with disgust. “I find I have nothing more to say to you.” And with that, she turned and followed her husband.
Ellowa lingered a moment longer, her expression a curious mixture of disgust and fascination. “A soulbond,” she murmured, shaking her head. “With Evryn Rowanwood. Wait until everyone hears about this.” And then she, too, left, closing the door firmly behind her.
Mariselle remained rooted to the spot, the full weight of what she had set in motion crashing over her. She had anticipated her family’s disapproval, even anger, but the reality of their reaction left her feeling hollow. With shaking fingers, she touched her jaw where her father’s grip had left a lingering ache, then lowered her hand and glanced down at the silvery mark encircling her wrist.
She felt more distanced from her family than ever before, but this was a necessary step toward her ultimate goal. This was her chance to prove herselfnot merely another daughter to be married off, but a worthy heir to the Brightcrest name and all its illustrious history.
