Carrier of the Mark (15 page)

“Have you been to Charles Fort?”

“No. I’ve been meaning to since I got here, but never quite got around to it.” I gazed around the crumbling walls of James Fort, with trees growing out of walls and floors blanketed with brambles and grass. “This place is like the poor relation to her rather fine sister over there,” I said, eyeing the well-preserved walls and manicured grass of the other fort.

“Yes, but I prefer the real thing. This place has sat here undisturbed all these years. It feels alive. The other fort has been restored for the tourists. It’s lost its soul.”

I could see his point. It was comfortable here, deserted; the only sound was the rain hitting the leaves and the damp earth, and the waves breaking on the rocks far below us. I wrapped my arms around my knees and hugged them to me.

“I love this place. It feels so like Newgrange,” he murmured softly.

“What’s Newgrange?”

“It’s a temple in the Boyne Valley, in Meath, built for the Marked Ones, back in the beginning. It was perfectly positioned for the winter solstice and, of course, the alignment. It’s never been used by us, since there has never been a successful alignment, but the tourists and archeologists get a kick out of the winter illumination. There’s a magical serenity to the place. I get that same feeling here. Do you sense it?”

“I think I do. Everything seems to make sense here.” I paused. “Isn’t there some sort of ghost story attached to this place?”

“Not here. The White Lady haunts Charles Fort. Her husband was killed on her wedding day, so she jumped to her death, mourning her lost love, and now she walks the battlements each night.”

“Well, that’s cheerful.”

“Ah, yes, these stories usually are.” He smiled over at me. “Would you like to hang out and see if she appears?”

“I think I’ve had my fill of the supernatural for one day.”

“I guess you have. How are you feeling now?”

“Weird and … a little scared.” I looked up at him. “And happy, actually. I feel like I could take on the world when I’m with you.” I got up onto all fours and crawled over to him and he took me in his arms.

“Try not to feel too overwhelmed,” he said into my hair as he hugged me tight. The warmth from his body gave me goose bumps and sent shivers down my spine.

“You should know,” he began softly, “that if this is all too much for you, if you don’t want this, you don’t have to accept the Mark. If you don’t evoke the element before the summer solstice, it will skip you and move on to the next generation.” He paused, and let his words sink in. “I wouldn’t blame you. I wonder what any of us would have done, given the choice.”

“Is that what Rían meant about my time running out?” I asked, trying to remember the details of the conversation.

“Yeah. But you don’t have to worry about that right now.” He rocked me back and forth. “Let’s see if we can spot the White Lady.” He put on a ghoulish laugh.

I snuggled in closer to him. I don’t know how long we sat there, but the sun was on the other side of the battlements when he nudged me awake.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said softly in my ear. “Fionn called. It looks like Rían’s been talked down. We’d better get back.”

W
hen we got back to the house they were waiting for us in a sitting room off the main hall. Two threadbare sofas faced each other in the center. Fionn sat on one with his elbows on his knees and his hands cradling his face. Beside him, Rían slouched into the corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Áine came in behind us and shut the door. She walked past Rían and curled up in an armchair by the ornate fireplace.

“Megan, welcome back,” Fionn said as we walked into the room and sat on the couch opposite him and Rían. “I want to apologize for our reactions earlier. You are, of course, very welcome in this family, and from now on, you will be thought of as one of us.” His pleading eyes met mine. “Can you accept our apologies?”

“Um … sure,” I said. “We were all under a lot of pressure.”

He smiled. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

The warmth of this smile caught me off guard. I had turned this man into a hard military type in my head; I now struggled to unravel my opinion of him.

“I’ve been in contact with the Dublin Order—” Fionn started.

“What? I thought we were going to keep them out of this until we’d assessed the situation,” Adam interrupted with an irritated edge to his voice.

“It’s time to act, Adam,” Fionn said. “It’s obvious from what we’ve seen that Megan is ready.”

“What am I ready for? And what is the Dublin Order?” I asked, looking from Fionn to Adam.

“Megan,” Fionn began, “I’m a member of an ancient order, the Order of the Mark. We have been in existence for millennia and we exist for one reason: to hold and protect the secret of the Marked. We originated from a group of druids who came together in an attempt to guide the world out of the chaos it was left in after Danu went back to the realm of the gods. When the first three Marked Ones perished, the Order put the remaining Marked One into hiding to protect her from those who sought her power.

“Her Sidhe—who was a mortal monk back then—died sometime later, leaving us alone to figure out the secrets of the Marked. The Order had to ensure the continuation of the bloodline, but for a long time they were not very successful. It turns out the Marked gene is recessive. Pairings rarely produced Marked children. The Order managed to maintain one or two Marked over time, but it was hit-and-miss. Then some children who were descended from royal Marked blood started growing Marks in their teens. The Order could not understand what was happening until the children spoke of an old monk who appeared to them. It soon became clear that the Sidhe was continuing his calling from the spirit realm.

“So the elements were maintained, but in order to perform elemental alignment, the Order needed four elements fully evoked at the same time. The strength required of the four elements to connect and balance Earth is substantial. A failed alignment is more harmful to Earth’s delicate balance than no alignment at all.”

“I still don’t really understand how that’s possible…” I said, but Fionn smiled at me, and the look in his eyes made me realize that this was another question that he would be able to answer later.

“The royal blood spread out across the world,” Fionn continued. “There was no way of knowing which royal bloodline the Sidhe would activate and when and if he would at all. It was rare for the Sidhe to activate the royal bloods, and they were always male, which didn’t help. The Order needed Carriers. So the Order abandoned the royal bloods and concentrated on the children of the direct lines, hoping to aid the creation of new Marked Ones. They sought out neutral gene carriers as matches for the Marked Carriers, in order to allow the recessive Marked gene to pass to the next generation—”

“Hang on,” I interrupted Fionn, feeling like my head was about to explode. “So royal bloods are descendants of Marked ones, but don’t bear the Mark.”

Fionn nodded.

“And they didn’t get the Mark because…?”

“They were either born to an unmarked mother and Marked father
or
to a Marked mother and a father who did not carry the neutral gene,” Fionn finished for me.

“So who carries the neutral gene, and how do you know?”

“This isn’t all hard science, Megan; there is an element of magic here. Danu never thought her Tuatha de Danann would fail; she never intended for the line to continue. So she didn’t exactly leave a user manual. Through trial and error the Order discovered that it was a recessive gene, and that it only manifests in certain families, so the Order paired the female Carriers with partners from those lines. But getting the right combination does not guarantee Marked children. That’s what made the DeRís family special.”

“You mean because all of the children were Marked?” I asked, looking around the room.

“Because they had a Carrier of the Mark for a mother and a father who carried the neutral gene. So now Áine is a Carrier of the Mark and Adam and Rían are Marked royal bloods.” Fionn waited for me to continue.

“Adam is water, Áine is earth, and Rían is Fire, so their mother must have been…”

Fionn smiled sadly. “Air.”

“Like me.” I swallowed nervously. “And you said the Sidhe only activated male royal bloods. What does that make me?”

“It makes you unique,” Adam said slowly.

“First and foremost it makes you a Carrier of the Mark,” Fionn added. “It also makes you less detectable. Nobody would suspect you of being an activated element. I believe the Sidhe was trying to protect the fourth element by hiding it in a female.”

“What does it need protecting from?”

“The world is a very different place now,” Fionn said, rubbing his forehead. “Things have changed over the centuries, and the Order has been forced to retreat into a very secret world. Knowledge of the Marked tends to be handed down through families of the Order, all educated in their history and power. Order members are based around the world now, in small pockets, living normally in communities with families and jobs. We do stay in contact, but we meet only when necessary. Ireland is the ancestral home of the Mark. We have hidden chambers under Trinity College in Dublin. The three members of the Dublin Order watch over our archives and artifacts there.”

“But the Order has an agenda. We don’t have many dealings with them,” Adam interjected.

“What’s the agenda?” I asked.

“Let me tell the story, Adam, please.” Fionn gave Adam a warning look. “As Adam says, the Order has an agenda, and quite rightly so. Its ultimate goal is to perform the alignment ritual. It is, after all, the very reason for your existence—and the reason that Danu created the Marked Ones in the first place.”

“You said before that alignment was dangerous,” I said, thinking back to this morning.

“Yes, the ritual itself is very draining. That’s why all four Marked Ones need to be at full strength in order to even
attempt
an alignment. They’ve attempted the ritual throughout the ages, sometimes with three elements, sometimes with elements at varying stages of development. They all failed, doing more harm than good—”

“But what do you mean?” I interrupted. I wanted a straight answer here; my head was still swirling.

Fionn gave me an apologetic look and went on. “I mean the attempted rituals threw off the balance in the world even more, sometimes at the expense of a Marked One. But quite honestly, even beyond the dangers of an alignment ritual, there are more immediate dangers that the Marked Ones face. There are those who want the powers of the elements.”

“Seriously? There are people still fighting over the Marked?” I asked.

“Yes, and they are as determined now as they have ever been. That is where my loyalties divide. My first priority is to my family.” Fionn looked around the room. “The Order would gladly sacrifice any of the Marked if they thought they could perform their alignment. But I will never allow that to happen. Not with me as your guardian. I’d forfeit the alignment in a heartbeat if it meant keeping you guys safe.” Fionn fell silent for a few moments, and his eyes glazed over. He looked far away in his thoughts. “When they had four Marked Ones the last time, the Order got sloppy. They became obsessed with the alignment and let their guard slip. The Knox found us. They were after Rían, Adam, and Áine, of course. They had little interest in the children’s mother and father, and they were unaware that their mother was pregnant at the time. I escaped with the children, but their parents, Emma and Stephen, and their baby sister perished. We couldn’t even attend their funerals.”

The silence in the room hurt my ears.

Fionn pinched the bridge of his nose and continued. “We moved around for a while, outrunning the Knox, and we eventually found safety and a home here. Emma came from the most successful line of Carriers, and this was their ancestral home. It’s protected and keeps us safe. But the Knox is still looking for these three. They don’t give up. I swore to protect their mother and I failed her. So I pledged my life to protecting her children.”

“The Knox,” I said, mesmerized by the story and hungry for more information. “Who are they?”

“The Knox,” Fionn began darkly. “Well, there were always those who coveted the elements, who wanted to take the powers for their own use and benefit. But they were disorganized, untrained, and unskilled. Then, in the sixteenth century, all that changed. The Order had a female Carrier of the Mark—Éile Knox. She produced three Marked children. The fourth child was a girl, Anú Knox. Anú wasn’t Marked, as there were already four elements. She was obviously born of royal blood and, like all other royal bloods, had the potential to be Marked, but she would not receive her Mark unless Éile renounced her power and released it to Anú. Ideally the four elements should be from the same generation, where their powers are of similar age and strength. Anú—being of direct descent—was the rightful heir. But Anú was a strange child who leaned toward the darkness, and the Order feared that she would not use her power as it was intended. It was decided that Éile would retain her power and perform the alignment with her three children when they were evoked to full strength, in the hope that it would be balanced enough to achieve a full alignment.