He let me go.

“You are now married in the eyes of God,” the priest said. He sounded mournful.

I didn’t wait longer.

I pulled away from Gisbourne, turning to the gibbet, but he grabbed my shirt and threw me back. He stamped his foot on my chest. “Running so soon, my dear?”

I drew a knife and snarled, trying to drive it into the tendon at the back of his heel, but he jumped free of me. I whipped up, wincing at the pain in my back, and the sheriff caught me, bringing his knife to my throat.

His beard rubbed my cheek and he laughed. “Gotcha.”

“Let go of my wife, Nottingham,” Gisbourne growled.

I didn’t think Gisbourne could surprise me, but that fair did it. The sheriff too, far as I could tell, because he loosed enough for me to wrench his arm back and slam my head into the bridge of his lowborn nose.

Gisbourne slashed his sword at my stomach and I jumped back, hissing as it nicked a light slice. “If anyone’s going to kill you, it’s damn well going to be me!” he bellowed.

He had to yell for me to hear him. The townspeople were taking the guards and working them over, trying to get to the dais. The bright colors were running blood black, the wedding shattering into violence.

Maybe there were too much going on. Maybe the fierce pain, like a flame coming from my sliced shoulder, were addling my brain. Maybe the cursed ring on my finger meant I weren’t so interested in staying alive anymore. Whatever the reason, I weren’t as quick as I should’ve been. I backed up again and tripped over Ravenna’s body, and Gisbourne stepped forward and grabbed my throat.

He dragged me closer to him, and I tried to regain my feet, but I kept slipping in her blood. He squeezed hard enough to hold me up, hard enough to kill.

I tried to yell, but the sound came out a raw gurgle.

He tossed his sword up and snatched it from the air by the blade, his hand protected by his thick leather gloves. I started flailing, kicking, and hitting, but I couldn’t get him. And where I could, it didn’t seem to matter—he didn’t notice, couldn’t feel it. “It seems you need a reminder of just what kind of a man I am, Marian,” he said.

He twisted my head so my left cheek were up, and I drew in a thin little wisp of a breath and tried harder to kick, to stab, to claw.

He pushed the tip of the sword into my cheek, biting deep and drawing a new gash where the old scar had lain.

My eyes went starry dark, and without any sound on my lips, I moved them in prayer.

Whether they meant it or not, my band (and I’m fair sure God, too) were still watching my back, because it were just that minute that the whole place rocked with the force of an explosion.

He dropped me. My head slammed against the floor and the cut on my shoulder from the day before screamed. A cough grabbed my chest as I sucked in a breath, scrambling to my feet.

It were chaos. The townspeople had charged the dais, and someone were fighting Gisbourne.

I took a deep breath, wiping the water and blood from my eyes and scrabbling on top of the gibbet. I gritted my teeth as I started to climb up the chain, pain lancing through every bit of me and blood running down my cheek.

“Marian!” he bellowed, so loud his voice shook the chain. “You are my goddamn wife!”

“I said I’d marry you—I never promised I’d stay with you, Guy!” I spat back.

He felled the farmer he were fighting, and I halted on the chain, watching the man fall. My hands were slipping and I held tighter, not sure whether to go down and help or run.

“Scarlet!”

I slipped a bit as I swung to the voice, seeing John thunder through the swinging swords with nothing but his fists. “John!”

“Get the hell out of here, Scarlet!” He met Gisbourne and smiled. “I’ve got this under control.”

I watched John strike a blow that knocked Gisbourne’s sword away, and I shook my head. My husband were a fool. John would trounce him in a moment’s time. Relieved and hurting both, I took my time climbing toward the rafters.

“Honor, obey?” Gisbourne shouted, grappling with John. “This is what you call being a good wife?”

I stopped. “I never said I’d be a good wife, Guy. Just that I’d marry you.”

“Guards!” he roared. “Guards! Someone will burn alive for this, Marian!”

But the guards were all fair busy at that point, and no one paid him a bit of mind. I kept climbing.

“You traitorous bitch!” he yelled. “You goddamn liar!”

I laughed. “You knew I were a bitch and a liar when you married me, Guy. It’s your own damn fault for agreeing to it.”

I made it to the rafters with muscles burning, and I clung to the wood for a long moment, trying to breathe, trying to force down the beating pain in my shoulder, my cheek, my whole body. I searched for John as I hung there, and it took me precious seconds to find him.

I saw John’s head pressed tight against Gisbourne’s, the two of them twisting as one, whipping each other round. John got an inch of space and fired a ham-fisted punch to Gisbourne’s cruel mug.

Gisbourne sprawled out at John’s feet. John dropped to his knee to grab Gisbourne’s sword and rose with flashing steel in his hand, ready to make me a widow.

But he didn’t. John’s face jerked up, and when he saw me on the crossbeam he just froze.

Panic rushed through me. “JOHN! DO SOMETHING!” I shrieked, but he couldn’t hear me.

The sheriff broke from the crowd behind John and came at him, his sword raised and an awful snarl on his face, like a wolf in a fight.