The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (14 page)

I cut off the question because even the first edge of it fills me with black despair. I sit on the wet stones of the porch, ignoring the seep of moisture through the seat of my wool pants. I force my mind to empty. I am practiced in that. It’s one of the first things a Drifter learns to do. I feel for my mooring, for the Drift. As in Avydos, it’s dim, far away. I pull on the faint, sluggish thread of my mooring anyway. No real power comes to me, only the light and heat of wasted energy. I let it roll from one hand to the other, calming me with its familiarity while I stare out to the moonlit bay. My light is the same color as the moon: pure and lovely. How can the Earthmakers find this dirty?

I don’t hear Logan’s approach, but I feel it. I let the light vanish.

He crouches beside me. He left the blanket behind, and the moonlight glows on his bare, scarred chest, his arms and shoulders. “I’m sorry, Astarti. I didn’t mean to be flippant.”

“If I’m part Earthmaker, why have I never used earthmagic before?”

“Are you sure you haven’t? You didn’t seem to realize you were using it today.”

I ignore that. “But when I used the Current, Belos was surprised. I know him Logan, and I’ve never seen a look like that on his face. He was surprised. So he must not think I’m part...whatever.”

Why I am saying it like I believe it?

Logan stares at his hands, thinking.

“Wouldn’t Belos have wanted me to use both? I mean, of course, if I could. It would be to his benefit for me to use it. If he knew or suspected, wouldn’t he try to teach me?”

But when I say that, memories coalesce. Belos asking me to feel the air, feel the earth. Belos gritting his teeth in frustration. Straton raising a smug eyebrow.

“What have you just remembered?”

Logan’s question makes me jump, but I shake my head, not ready to explain. I force the memory to recede.

“Your father must have been an Earthmaker who lay with a Drifter woman and told no one. A woman, of course, couldn’t have hidden the deed. But a man? He must never have told anyone. He would have known, of course, that he would be Stricken for it.”

“Stricken?”

“Cast out.”

I stare at his moonlit face until he explains. “Some crimes are considered unforgivable, but Earthmakers don’t execute their own. Instead, they cast them out, and their names are taken away,
stricken
, as...Belos’s was. That is why they call him the Unnamed. He is Stricken, as though he was never one of us. They are meant to be forgotten, but the Unnamed, of course, won’t quietly accept that censure. The Stricken can never return to Avydos. No one may speak with them. We’re not supposed to even speak
about
them. They usually die within a year.”

Gooseflesh rises along my arms. “That’s awful.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Logan’s elbows wrapped around his knees. His head is bowed. I remember, with a wash of horror, what Clitus said to him before we fled the cell.
Logan, do you realize what you are doing?

“Please tell me you’re not going to be Stricken for helping me.”

He shudders at the word, as I do at the word Leashed. I am struck by the irony of these opposites: one is a binding, the other a loosing, but each is terrible. Each takes the person’s self away.

Logan admits, “It’s possible.”

“Why did you do it?” I’m angry now. If I were not already Leashed but knew that Leashing might be my punishment for helping someone, would I do it? I shudder, as Logan did. “You should not have done it.”

He shrugs. “I doubt it surprised anyone. They all think I’m reckless.”

“Don’t shrug it off like that. This is serious.”

He gives me a hard look. “I did what I felt was right, as you did. For Korinna. And me.”

“But what I did wasn’t even close—”

“They’ll probably be lenient because I’m the Arcon’s brother. It’s not fair, I know, but there it is.”

“And if they’re not?”

He shrugs again, as though it doesn’t matter.

I stand up, looming over him. “You have to take me back. Right now. Maybe if you turn me in, they’ll pardon you.”

He doesn’t look up. “No.”

“They might. You don’t know that.”

“I will not take you back.”

I stare down at his moonlit hair. “Why not?”

“What if they killed you? Do you think I want that on my conscience?”

His words are sharp and angry, but so are mine. “Do you think I want it on my conscience if you’re Stricken?”

He looks up now, grins. “It seems we’re at a standstill.”

“Don’t smile. It’s not funny.”

“What should I do then?”

“Take me back, like I said.”

He gives me a measuring look. “How is it that the Unnamed did not corrupt your heart?”

That sparks my anger again. “Don’t say that. You have no idea what’s in my heart. You have no idea what kind of person you are taking such an absurd risk for.”

“Tell me then: what is in your heart, Astarti?”

A word explodes within me. I want to scream it, to get it out, but it will do no good. The word will still be there, poisoning me.

Logan’s voice softens. “What’s in your heart?”

I shake my head. I won’t say it. I won’t tell him. He already thinks me dirty; I won’t make it worse.

“Come here, Astarti.”

I edge back.

He holds out his arm. “Please come.”

I swallow hard. I wait for his arm to drop, for him to shrug indifferently, but he doesn’t. He waits, bare arm catching the moonlight.

When I sit stiffly beside him, he puts his arm around me. Through my linen shirt, I feel muscle and bone, cool skin. I don’t know when the stiffness leaves me, but I find myself relaxing against him, my cheek pressing to the warm muscle of his chest, his fingers playing through my hair.

Chapter 17

I WAKE BY the fire, which has burned down to coals. My head is on a feather pillow, and a heavy blanket covers me. I don’t remember leaving the porch. Did Logan carry me here? Sunlight floods through the open windows. The little house is so rustic and peaceful with its wind-weathered shutters, its stone fireplace, its simple brass candlesticks and cast iron cooking tools. Even this sheepskin that is always filled with sand no matter how many times I take it to the door and shake it. For one moment I let myself think,
I could live here
. Part of me wants to crush the thought with harsh reality, but I can’t quite make myself. I let it float away instead, a thought for another life.

I stretch and go to the door. I see Logan at the edge of the water, digging with a spade. He bends to pull something from the sand, washes it in the water, tosses it into a nearby basket.

I smooth my rumpled shirt, wishing I had a change of clothes. I ignore my sandals on the porch and walk, barefoot, down to meet him.

“Breakfast,” he announces, showing me a gray-brown clam.

“It seems you are a man of many talents.”

He grins. It makes him look so young, and I realize how grim he usually is. Here, in this place, he seems at ease.

I sit in the sand, working my feet into the cool depths, while he continues to dig. More than once, he gets down on hands and knees to paw through the wet sand, his face and body relaxed. I watch him unabashedly: the sure, strong motions, the flex of muscles, the perfect grace.

When the basket is full, Logan shows it to me and waggles his eyebrows with exaggeration. “Yum.”

His eyes are blue. I have never seen them hold a single color for so long.

I smile. Then I eye his soggy, sand-covered clothes with suspicion. Only the back of his shirt remains white, and his pants look like he’s been dragged across the beach. His bare feet are caked. “You’re not coming in the house like that.”

He rolls his eyes. “Women.”

He drops the basket and strips off his shirt. The ridged scar arcs across the left side of his chest, fading into his ribs. Sand clings to the notched muscles of his belly. I tear my eyes away because I know I’m staring. I hope he didn’t notice. He wades into the knee-deep water and bends over to swirl and scrub the shirt. When he wades back to the beach, I force my eyes beyond him, to focus on the horizon instead of his body. Eyes thus averted, I am unprepared for the wet shirt he tosses at me. A dripping sleeve smacks me coldly across the face. I squeal.

He laughs.

“You think that’s funny?”

He is grinning like a boy.

I give him my most wicked smile to tell him how he will pay for that trick.

His face falls comically. In a burst of motion, he takes off down the beach.

I leap up and after him.

His legs may be longer than mine, but I have always been fast. His legs pump; his elbows fly in smooth counterbalance, but it’s not enough to beat me.

I am reaching for him, about to grab his belt, about to show him who is the best, when he veers off into the surf, splashing through the waves. I leap the waves behind him, laughing at the splash and tug of cold water. I can barely breathe I am laughing so hard, and I finally stop, bracing palms on thighs, tears in my eyes and my chest aching. Three paces ahead, Logan makes an ill-timed leap. He goes down with a surprised cry.

He doesn’t come back up. I search the spot with my eyes, heart hammering. I wade closer, a line wedging between my brows. When something grabs my ankle, I scream.

Logan bursts from the water to grab my waist. I thrash, half in surprised terror, half in fun. Water drags at my legs when he pulls me from it, slinging me over his shoulder. He starts tromping toward the beach, his shoulder bumping hard into my stomach.

“Put me down!”

“Not until you agree to play nice.”

I laugh. “Are you serious?”

He shifts me, and I am shocked by how strong he is, how my weight is nothing to him. “I can’t have you running all over the place attacking people.”

I point out, “You’re the only other one here.”

“Exactly. Now. Will you be nice?”

I know there’s a big, stupid grin on my face, but I let it stay. “I can’t promise that. How about I agree to make breakfast instead?”

We are at the water’s edge. He stops, pretending to think. “That might be an acceptable compromise.”

“If you do the laundry.”

“What?!”

“You heard me.”

He sets me down, grumbling.

Briefly I think,
I just asked a Primo to do my laundry
. But Logan only mutters playfully about “women,” and I allow myself to forget what he is and what I am. Maybe, for just one day, we can be Astarti and Logan and nothing more.

* * *

The day passes in small, ordinary tasks. I steam the clams over the fire. Logan disappears during this time but comes back when the clams are almost done. My mouth waters when he shows me a handful of jewel-like strawberries.

I spend the morning sweeping the floor, beating the sheepskin for the twenty-fourth time, shaking out all the blankets, hauling water, and collecting more driftwood for the fire. Logan takes the boat out again to fish and brings back enough for lunch and supper. As I eye the bucket of fish, I consider that I could soon tire of the stuff.

In the afternoon, Logan drags a wooden washtub from the shed around back. Neither of us has a change of clothes and when Logan asks for mine to wash, I shift uncomfortably. He disappears behind the curtain of the sleeping cubby and returns with a linen sheet.

While he withdraws to the porch, I slip out of my clothes and wrap the sheet around myself. I tie it as best I can. When I take my clothes out to the porch, Logan is already scrubbing his shirt in the tub. He looks up, and I see a smile threatening the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, shut up.”

He catches my clothes when I throw them at him.

I wander the sand hills behind the house while Logan washes the clothes. Even with my sandals on, the sharp grasses slice at my feet. Soon enough the sand turns to rock and the grass to scrub. I see a rocky ledge in the distance and decide I will climb there and go back. Hopefully by then my clothes will be reasonably dry.

When I reach the ledge, with the sheet dirty and torn in places and my feet sore, the view is not what I expect. The house is still visible, its tiled roof a dark spot against the white sand. But to the north I see another island beyond the edge of ours, one much bigger, one with a mountain peak.

The main island. Avydos.

Somehow, hidden in our little bay, I had forgotten how close it was. I had let myself grow comfortable. I do not stay to enjoy the view.

I am silent and brooding when I return. Logan does not ask me what’s wrong, but I know he feels my mood. I see the moment it happens: his smile fades, his eyes darken, his movements grow careful and controlled. Until now, I did not realize how much he had relaxed. I am angry with myself for doing this to him, for ruining his ease—and my own—but I can’t get it back. We are in the shadow of Avydos. Nothing has changed just because we’re hiding. The world is still what it is.

When Logan starts on dinner, I don’t offer to help. I tell myself that the meal is simple, that it’s a one-person job, but really I just can’t make my arms move. I stare into the fire.

After putting the fish in to sizzle, Logan walks out the door. My mood drops lower; I should at least
try
.

He comes back with a pottery jug bound in coils of rope meant to protect it from shattering. He raises the jug. “Wine.”

“Been hiding that?”

His mouth quirks. “I forgot about it.”

He walks to the table and rummages along the shelf. The wax seal makes a pleasing crack when he breaks it.

When he hands me a tin cup brimming with bright red wine, I say, “I’m not much of a wine drinker.”

“Just try it.”

I take a cautious sip. It’s sweet and tart all at once, and I blink in surprise. “It tastes like raspberries.”

Logan’s mouth quirks again, and I realize how rarely he actually smiles. “It is.”

“Raspberry wine?”

“Bran makes it. He found some old manuscript talking about a land to the east that makes plum wine. He started experimenting. Believe me, the first few batches did
not
taste this good.”