The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (20 page)

Aron shifts uncertainly beside me, and I force myself to focus on him. I strain to speak. “You did well. Stay with me.”

He nods.

Faint lines run between the energy forms, showing those who are connected by attention or feeling. A strong line runs between me and Aron because we are willing ourselves together. We must maintain that. But another strong line runs between me and Logan, and I must break it. I turn away, forcing myself not to think about him anymore.

I feel for the energies of others in the basic direction that Clitus indicated. They are faint, far away, but recognizable.

I dredge up sound again. “Stay focused on me.
Will
yourself to follow me.”

He nods, and I hope he does understand because I have no more energy to speak. I let myself drift toward the far off energies.

Aron stays with me remarkably well. I continue to think reassurance in his direction, to keep a connection between us. I don’t know if it helps, but we reach Martel’s camp without incident.

Thousands of lighted forms dot the dark slope of the mountain. I did not expect so many. But they are ordinary, human, and my energies settle with relief. No Drifters. None of the Seven are here.

Aron follows me among the lighted forms. As we find nothing remarkable, I begin to think I was wrong about Martel.

Then I see him.

A lighted shape with a white tail that flows in the same direction as mine.

Aron’s energy churns suddenly beside mine. He sees it too.

I want to feel triumphant about my correct guess, but I am saddened. A new Leash is nothing to celebrate.

We saw what we came for, and I am about to turn away when I see—feel—a new, bright energy rushing toward us. A Drifter.

Panic flares within me as I recognize the controlled pattern of fury, the calculated anger.

Straton.

Chapter 21

I HAVE NO idea how Straton hid himself, but I have only a moment to feel surprise. We have two immediate choices: flee through the Drift or step into the physical world. If we flee, Aron will probably not be able to keep up, and if it comes to a fight, he could panic. If he tries to get out of the Drift on his own, he’ll kill himself.

I manage a weak, “Follow me.”

Straton is a like a fireball shooting toward us, so I don’t wait for Aron to nod. I rush him along my mooring, hoping he can keep up. His energy hand finds mine as I push through my mooring and into the physical world. His sweaty hand slips from mine, and he collapses, heaving. I hope the shock doesn’t kill him.

Chaos spreads from our location like we are a stone dropped into a still pond. Men leap up, yelling and grabbing for weapons. Horses whinny in panic.

I draw energy along my mooring and shape my Drift-spear. I step away from Aron, hoping to keep him out of the fight. The men start to charge me, but they stop dead when Straton explodes into the space before me, his Drift-sword already swinging.

I duck under the blade. He is too close for me to use my spear point, so I charge the weapon with energy and slam the haft into his ribs. The blow flings him back. I whip the spear around and leap before he can recover. I stab toward his throat, but the tip scrapes and skitters against a faintly glowing barrier. As my weapon twists out from under me, I fall, rolling over Straton’s shoulder and into a campfire.

The fire flares to huge, angry life. It washes around me as I scramble up. Pain burns down my right arm. The flames flash and lick, and my world is fire, nothing but fire. I am screaming.

Suddenly the flames vanish.

I fall to my knees, the scream dying in my throat. Air heaves through my lungs.

Three paces away, Straton growls. He spins to face Aron, who is swaying on his feet, his face full of the euphoria of earthmagic.

Straton staggers back and mutters weakly, “Impossible.” Then he straightens himself, and the condescension comes back into his voice. “Ah. The son. Or one of them.”

Aron’s face goes deathly still, but his eyes blaze with life. Fires flare all around the camp, flooding the space with light. Wind howls through the trees, which creak and sway. Men run, screaming.

One fire rises from its bed, writhing and swirling, twisting itself into a point.

Straton’s eyes widen as the flame shoots toward him.

He vanishes.

The fire explodes into a tent.

Canvas and wood crackle and blacken in the conflagration. Horses scream in fear. Men are shouting. The flames lick toward the branches above.

I force myself to uncurl from my burned arm. My jacket and shirt are partially burned away and red, oozing flesh shows beneath. “Aron!”

He stares at the flames.

I push myself to my feet. “Aron!”

The fire winks out, leaving a smoking ruin of charred canvas and wood.

I jog over to him, wincing as the motion shoots pain through my right arm.

“Are you all right?” I ask him.

“Yes.” His voice is cold. “Are you?”

“I’ll live.”

He looks down at my burns. “You need a Healer.”

I want to laugh, after all his rules against Healing Drifters, but there’s no time for it. “We have to get back to camp. Now.”

“That coward. He hardly even tried.”

“Straton may be a coward, but he’s a smart coward. He knows we saw Martel’s Leash. He knows the Earthmakers will no longer join Martel. Belos will be furious and Straton knows it. The next best thing is to kill the Earthmakers gathered right now. At least he will salvage something and maybe appease Belos.”

“Can he find them so easily?”

“Gathered together like that? Away from humans? They’re practically screaming.”

“He’d still be stupid to take on fifty Wardens.”

“I doubt it will be just him. He was hidden somehow; I didn’t see him. I don’t know how he did it. Others could be nearby.”

I don’t have to say anything more. Aron strides through the camp, where men are starting to move again, though they stand back from us. I see Martel’s scarred face in the crowd. One of his men takes a step forward, but Martel puts out a hand to stop him. Martel is studying me, confused. I don’t need to study him. I know what he is: a pawn of Belos.

Aren’t you?
demands a voice deep inside me.

Another voice asks whether Martel chose this, but I don’t have time to seek answers.

I follow Aron, but my mind is hazy with pain. By the time we reach the trees, I am dizzy. Aron looks at me worriedly when I sway but says nothing. He lays one hand against a tree and stretches out his other. I take it. It will be easier and quicker for him to take me through the Current than for me to take him through the Drift. Fear reaches its fingers around my throat: it will still be too slow.

As the golden Current sweeps us along, I want to scream with impatience. Anything could be happening. Logan could be—

Aron pulls me from the Current. The earth shakes, and I stumble into him. Pain shoots through my arm.

We are just beyond the edge of the Warden camp, and I stare at the chaos, so surreal after the quiet Current. Wind screams through the trees, fires explode, spears of ice fly glittering through the air. Straton and two others of the Seven, Ludos and Koricus, are at opposite ends of the camp, hemming the Wardens in. They protect themselves from the onslaught, sliding away from fissures and flame, but they aren’t attacking. They are containing the Wardens, waiting. Fear thuds inside me.

I grab Aron’s arm. “Everyone must get back to Avydos. Now.”

“But there are only three. If we take that one by the slope and then—”

My hand clenches on his arm. “They are holding everyone for Belos.”

I feel him shiver. Is it Belos’s name or my tone that silences him?

His eyes dart across the fight, and his mouth sets into a grim line as he sees that the Seven are acting as sheepdogs, holding the Wardens in a tight group. His face goes still, and his eyes fill with that Earthmaker euphoria. Every fire in the camp shoots straight and high into the air and vanishes.

Darkness swallows the camp. I hear the lingering rumbles of earth, the creak of trees. I hear running steps, but I don’t understand them. Only when my eyes adjust do I realize that dark shapes flood toward the trees. Some drag the wounded, but many still forms are left behind.

Straton, Ludos, and Koricus attack the fleeing Wardens. Their onslaught of Drift-weapons and energy blasts is met with rumbling, cracking earth. A fissure opens behind the Wardens. Someone screams.

My eyes sweep over the fleeing Wardens. Where is he?

Aron grabs my left sleeve, avoiding my burn. “Come on.”

Aron tugs, but I jerk free. I enter the Drift.

The dim forms of Earthmakers flee from three brighter shapes. But there is one brighter yet, a wild flow of energy. He’s at the back of the retreat, too close to Ludos.

When I leap out of the Drift, Logan shouts in surprise and jerks his sword in my direction.

“It’s me!”

“Astarti!”

A bluish-white spear arcs toward us. I shape a barrier just in time to send the spear clattering aside. Logan grabs my hand, and we run to the nearest tree.

The Current is a golden flood of Earthmakers. When three more shapes enter the Current, the Wardens split to follow multiple branches. They will force their pursuers to choose and divide. I follow Logan through the golden flow from forest to grove, from tree to tree, losing track of our turns and shifts. My energy pulses with fear as I look back again and again, but none of the Seven have followed our group.

When the brilliant gold of the Avydos Wood glitters ahead, my whole being fills with relief and joy. We made it.

We’re safe.

I am brushing the edge of the Wood, reaching for the answering touch of the trees, when my Leash burns white-hot.

Chapter 22

I SCRAMBLE FOR the Wood, begging it to let me through, but the pull on my Leash is inexorable, and I am dragged away. My mouth is open on a scream, but there is no sound here.

Logan sweeps back to me, grabbing for me, but our hands scrabble uselessly. Nothing can break a Leash.

I close my eyes and turn away from Logan to face Belos. I won’t let him take me from behind.

Belos braces himself in the golden flow. He is a barely contained battle of energy. All those he has Taken live within him somehow, and they are fighting. One thread of energy below his ribs snakes around another, strangling it. Another fights in his neck. Twist, bend, constrict. Then the threads unwind and slip away, under control again. Belos’s golden face is lit with power, and I know those energies—those souls—will never escape.

And I am one of them.

He will Take me.

Despair buries me; I am dead within it. Belos hauls on my Leash, and I let him. The pain of it eases. Should I never have fought him? Would it all have been this easy?

Golden branches snake around me. The Wood is shoving me out, giving me to him.

But instead of glowing with triumph, Belos’s face contorts with rage, the power churning madly within him. But it’s not just rage. What is that other emotion that makes him draw back instinctively?

Branches whip and lash around me, a grabbing, twisting whirl of gold. They surround me, and I lose sight of Belos. The hold on my Leash falters. Hope spikes through me. I scramble back and stumble into something, some other, wild energy that embraces me. I struggle briefly until I see Logan’s beautiful golden face. I grab for him, and he pulls.

My Leash tugs again, and pain shoots through me. Can my Leash be ripped from me? Can I be torn in two?

Suddenly, the tug is gone, and I fall into Logan. Lines of power swirl through his face, and I want to stay here, holding his bare self against mine, but he pulls me along. His pull, though, is nothing like Belos’s; there is no pain or fear in it, only strength. I glance back, but I see nothing of my master, only a writhing mass of branches.

Logan drags me from the Current into the cool night air. The shock of pain returning to my arm makes me cry out. I am shaking; nausea wracks me. I sink to the ground and vomit, my nose inches from the dirt. I feel Logan hovering over me, and I want to yell at him, to tell him to go away.

When I struggle to stand, Logan helps me to my feet. I push him off. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want to be weak in front of him. Worse, Logan saw what I most truly am: a dog on a leash, someone’s property. I refuse to meet his eyes. I walk away.

I emerge from the small grove outside the royal house. A few stragglers are crossing the stone-paved courtyard, wearily climbing the steps to the open doors. Open doors. I marvel at it. Belos was a mere breath away, but he might as well have been on the other side of the world. So safe here, guarded by the Wood. In some part of myself, I understand Avydos is a sanctuary. Another part of me, though, feels too dirty to be here among the fine buildings and proud people who cannot imagine being Leashed, and that makes me hate this place.

Logan hovers at my shoulder, moving with me across the moonlit courtyard.

The hall is already settling in to a bustling order, all movement efficient and controlled under the warm light of lanterns and glowing braziers. Those who are uninjured help the wounded over to the stone balustrade. Aron and Clitus are calling the captains together, conferring in a tight circle. When he sees us, Aron’s face melts with relief. I don’t fool myself that Aron is relieved to see me, but why would he be so relieved to see Logan? They seem to hate each other. I have never seen them do anything but argue and cut at each other. I am reminded that I know nothing of families. I cannot begin to guess how I would feel about a sibling. My curiosity fades, leaving me deeply, completely alone. No, I will never know what it is to have a sibling.

Logan nudges me toward the wall, but I resist. I have enough pride left that I won’t wait to be Healed only to have someone throw me out. I won’t let them laugh at me. When someone grabs my hand, I jerk away, then see it’s Korinna. Her leg is crooked at an unnatural angle, her face horribly white.

“Sit,” she says, her voice giving no indication of her pain.