Page 93 of Tethered In Blood

I frowned, watching a human fisher speaking with an elven woman near the market stalls. His posture was rigid, his grip white-knuckled on the net handle. The elf’s sharp features were carved into distance, but her eyes flicked toward him with a trace of suspicion. The space between them was measured as if an invisible barrier separated them. The weight of history, long-standing and unresolved.

Had it always been this way? Or was this new? A wound not yet scarred?

I chewed the inside of my cheek, my fingers tightening around my journal as I jotted a quick note.If the people here didn’t trust each other, how did they expect to survive?

A gull screeched above, cutting through the uneasy silence. It dove low over the market and startled a merchant who swatted at it with a cloth. A stray cat, thin but quick, darted from beneath a cart, chasing the smell of fish scraps, only to hesitate near the elf and human, ears flicking as if sensing the same tension I did.

Despite my attempts to weave the threads together—the trinkets, the symbols, the stories whispered about the mist—I was still missing something. The villagers kept their distance from us. They answered my questions, but only just. I had to pull every ounce of information from them, and even then, I was being fed only what they wanted me to hear.

The mist thickened around the docks, swallowing shapes whole. A group of fishers gathered near the shoreline, murmuring amongst themselves. Their gazes shifted toward the sea, then toward us, as I pretended not to notice. I huffed out a breath as frustration curled tight in my chest. The pieces were scattered before me in a puzzle with missing edges, but they refused to fit no matter how I turned them.

“What am I not seeing?” The question hung in the damp air, swallowed by the ever-present mist.

“Freckles!” Garrick’s voice jolted me from my thoughts. I turned just in time to see him grinning, mischief glinting in his ocean-blue eyes. Beside him, Oberon stood with his arms crossed, scowling as if he were contemplating a murder that ought to have brought him great satisfaction.

“What?” I asked, brows furrowing.

Garrick waggled his brows. “Are you even listening to us?”

“No,” I snapped my journal shut. “I was working.”

“She’s ignoring you, Sinclaire. Guess that makes two of us.” Garrick sighed dramatically, shaking his head. “Maybe one day you’ll develop a pleasant personality like mine.”

Oberon’s growl was low and irritated, but I stepped between them and gave Garrick a warning look before I shifted my focus back to what mattered. “There’s something off about this place,” I said. “More than just the fog.”

Oberon’s petty feud with Garrick faded as his attention shifted to my words. His onyx eyes locked onto mine, intent and expectant. “Explain.”

I gestured to the surrounding village—the narrow, damp streets, the way villagers passed each other without meeting eyes, how conversations ceased when another approached, and how the elves and humans coexisted, but not with one another. “They don’t trust each other,” I said. “Not fully.”

Oberon’s gaze shifted to scan the interactions I had been watching. At a market stall, a merchant placed change into an elven woman’s hand, ensuring their fingers didn’t brush. Near the docks, a group of human fishers spoke in hushed voices while casting wary glances toward a group of Elven hunters that passed by. In front of the bakery, a child feeding scraps to a stray dog was only yanked away by his mother when an elven man approached the stall beside them. “They live together, yet separately,” I continued in a hushed tone. “It’s subtle, but it exists.”

Oberon’s jaw tightened. “Then whatever is happening here is working against them.”

I nodded, gripping my journal tighter. “We need to determine why.” And we needed to do it soon.

A crow cawed overhead, its dark form gliding low between the rooftops before perching on a wooden post.The same one? Or another?It tilted its head as it watched.

Oberon huffed beside me as the tension rolled off him in waves. I didn’t have to look at him to know his shoulders were taut; his jaw was clenched in a way that meant he was calculating.

Garrick, of course, was enjoying himself. “Trouble in paradise,” he muttered under his breath, his gaze flitting between me and Oberon with unmistakable amusement. “Tensions are rising. Alliances are tested. Will they overcome the odds?” He placed a dramatic hand over his chest. “The stakes have never been higher.”

Oberon shot him a withering glare.

“Go ask the women about it, Garrick,” I said, glancing up at him, hoping to channel his energy into something useful.

His mischievous smirk deepened, as if he had been expecting the invitation. “Are you suggesting that I’m a smooth talker?”

I rolled my eyes. “Might as well use it for the task at hand.”

His gaze flicked over me- slow and appraising- his usual humor giving way to something unreadable. It lingered for just a moment too long, just enough to make my breath hitch. “Is that the only task at hand, Freckles?”

Damn him.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, and my fingers tightened around my journal. I shifted my weight under his gaze, regretting any reason I had given him to flirt. I knew better. Despite working with him for only over a week, I felt I knew him well enough not to fuel his flirtations. But he still flustered me, chipping away at my composure with nothing more than a well-timed look and a too-casual question.

The air between us stretched taut, and I felt Oberon’s glare, a brand searing into the side of my head. Garrick’s hum was smug, pleased with my reaction. I wanted to snap at him, to tell him to do his damn job.

Oberon took a deliberate step closer. “Go,” he warned.

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