The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (23 page)

“No. I cannot fight him directly. But others can. If you won’t warn Heborian, I will.”

“You cannot drift from here. And even if you could, your master would find you.”

That glances off me like a pebble. Feel nothing. Don’t think.

I turn away and shove the chair aside. It screeches against the stone floor.

“Astarti.”

I don’t pause and don’t look back. Perhaps Belos should not have taught me to conquer fear. It is a lesson that I will make him pay for.

* * *

The sky is paling toward dawn as I wander the rocky bluff that forms one arm of the bay. Varus has long since given up trying to stay hidden, and he trails about a hundred feet behind me. Clearly, he won’t try to stop me from doing anything because he thinks there’s nothing I
can
do. He is there only because he—or rather, Aron—wants to know where I am. Though I suppose that suggests some measure of trust, I am beyond caring whether they trust me. I have more important things to think about.

The rocks here are rough, even jagged in places, making a sharp contrast to the smooth curves of the city. I stumble from time to time, but the cool ocean breeze does wonders to clear the lingering fuzziness from my head. By the time I reach the end of the arm, my headache has dulled to simple annoyance.

I stare out at the grayish-black melding of ocean and sky. Dawn is beginning to reveal the horizon, but it’s not definite enough to show whether we’ve floated near to Kelda. It doesn’t matter. Distance means little in the Drift.

My heart gives an uncertain thump as I adjust my footing at the edge of the bluff. The sky is light enough to hint at the shapes of rocks below me. I consider going back, finding another route, but this will be quickest, and I can’t be certain Varus won’t try to stop me once he realizes what I’m doing. I hear him moving closer, and I ready my feet. He shouts my name and starts running as I gather myself.

I leap.

Air rushes past me. I reach along my mooring, searching for the Drift, for the edge of the barrier around Avydos. I feel it dimly, a throb of energy, but interwoven with that are the complex currents of air. I am sensitive to them like a bird, and I think I could catch one and ride it. In some distant part of my mind I am waiting for the cold rush of water, for the blossoming pain as I crack like an egg against rock. But my reality is the swish and swirl of air. I am not even falling anymore.

I reach into the currents, slide myself along one. I imagine myself like smoke, curling in their breezes. I am buffeted by them, spun this way and that. But I begin to unravel their complexity, understanding how one current plays with another. I ride them, change them with my passing. I am one of them.

I feel the rest of the world around me, the roll of water, the heavy, ponderous earth beneath it, the deeply burning fires in the earth’s heart. I fly over it all, both part of it and separate.

I feel the ocean floor rise, emerging in the distance to sandy beach, mounding beyond that toward the Green Wall of eastern Kelda. Dimly, at the edges of my awareness, I sense people. The ordinary crowd of the city hums in Tornelaine. Farther off, winding through the foothills of the mountains like a snake, moves an army.

Chapter 24

LOGAN

I WAKE SHUDDERING. The nightmare clings, haunting me with its new images. Belos seizes my father’s neck in a hand twice the size it should be. My father’s face bulges grotesquely as Belos squeezes, fingers cutting through flesh and bone until my father’s head pops off and rolls wetly toward me. But when the head stops, the face, contorted with a silent scream, has changed.

I choke on the image of Astarti’s dead face. I lean over the side of the bed and vomit, my stomach jerking with the horror of it. When I am weak and empty, my panting brings the reek of vomit back to me. I roll away and shove myself off the other side of the bed. I stagger to the washbasin and scrub the inside of my mouth with white paste.

I catch sight of myself in the corner mirror and grimace at my wrinkled shirt and the tangled mess of my hair. I know I should wash and change, but I won’t take the time. I just need to see her, to make sure. Most likely she’s sleeping. It’s still early, after all. My chamber, high in the upper floors, looks out to the Wood, and the upper braches are just starting to catch the dawn glow.

As I make my way through the house, all the maids are up and busy, and I spare a guilty thought for the mess I left in my room. It’s not the first time. Fortunately, none of the maids talk to me and no one else is around. I’m not yet fit company for anyone.

When I find Astarti’s room empty, my heart lurches. The bed covers are still drawn up, the pillows in place. A wrinkled section crosses the bed sideways, as though she slept there. When I see a red stain across the stone floor, my breath stops, but I soon recognize the glittering shards of a wine decanter. I guess we’re both messy.

The wine, though, worries me. She doesn’t even like wine, so why would she drink the heavy stuff they keep in here? I knew she was upset last night. I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t
let
me do anything, and I let her go. I did it because that’s what I would have wanted, to be left alone, but I wish now that I had come after her, checked on her. Did I make her think I don’t care? Was she even thinking about me at all? Probably not, but it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have left her alone, not after Belos almost—

I shiver and refuse to finish the thought. If he ever lays a hand on her—

I lean my forehead against the doorframe to calm myself. I breathe, three seconds in, three out, as they taught me.

I wander back toward the entry hall, unsure where to look for her, when I grow suspicious. Would Aron have seized her? Was that broken decanter a sign of struggle? Surely there would have been more damage? Not, perhaps, if they surprised her.

Only too happy to confront Aron, I make my way toward his study. I know he didn’t go to bed last night. He never does, not when there’s work to do, decisions to make, things to mull over.

I expect to find him at his desk, frowning at maps or reports, but instead he’s at the windows, looking out over the little garden beyond his study. His arms are crossed, his head bowed. When he hears me and turns partway toward me, his gaze is far away, then he blinks me into focus, and that familiar frown sets into his mouth.

I know how I must look to him, disheveled and filthy. Even though he’s been up all night, his tunic is neat, his short-cropped hair smooth. He looks every inch the Arcon. No wonder people mutter that I must be a bastard.

Anger simmers in my belly when I look at him, but I’ve grown used to it, and I accept it as part of me. For the past five years, since I failed to save our father, we’ve hated each other.

“Where’s Astarti?”

Aron raises an eyebrow at my rudeness, but I just glare at him.

“Taking a walk, last I knew. She needed to cool down a little. Humans are so hotheaded.”

“She’s not human. Not entirely.” When he says nothing, I demand, “What did you do to her?”

Aron gives me that condescending look of his. “What do you think I am, Logan, a Drifter? I don’t break my word four hours after giving it.”

“Not unless you can find some justification for it.”

Aron, arms crossed, is still half turned away from me, as though I’m not worth his full attention, as though this conversation bores him. “She came here, we talked, she left.”

I’m losing patience. “What did you talk about?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I will.”

Aron turns fully toward me, and even though he is all the way across the room, I freeze under his gaze. I hate that he can do this to me, make me feel like a child, as though he’s my father. I hate that he’s forty years older than I am, even if the difference looks more like five.

His eyes narrow. “Why did you help her, Logan? In the first place, I mean. You knew what she was from the start. She’s one of
them
. One of those who killed—”

Aron cuts himself off, jaw clenching. He looks suddenly vulnerable, and I don’t like it. Better that he be strong and hateful;
that
I can handle.

I remind him, “He took her as a child.”

“That only makes it worse. She’s been shaped by him, Logan, as all children are shaped by their parents.”

I move deeper into the room and grip the back of a chair to control my hands. “He is
not
her father.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

The chair screeches an inch across the floor under the pressure of my hands. “You can see that she hates him.”

“And you know that only means so much. She is Leashed, Logan. Don’t ever forget that.”

I close my eyes. I see her in the golden flow of the Current, the white thread streaming away from her. Belos, pulling. Her mouth open on a silent scream, like the dead face in my dream. I shudder.

Breathe. Three seconds in, three out. “You realize he Leashed her as a
child
, right? She was
seven
. It’s awful.”

Aron turns away. “It doesn’t matter.”

Anger snaps. “It does.”

He spins back to me. “And you trust her so much? You would gamble your own life on it? How about mine? Bran’s? Mother’s? You would put all of us in her hands? No worries?”

My fingers whiten on the back of the chair. I hate Aron for being right. I hate him for making me silent. I want to trust Astarti. I really want to.

Aron looks at me sadly, like I’m pathetic. “You know it’s forbidden.” When I don’t answer, he goes on, “I’ll grant that she’s beautiful, but so are our own women. Find one of them, and stop looking at that Drifter like you do.”

“And how do I look at her?”

Aron regards me steadily, not answering.

An image of Astarti fills my mind. Rich dark hair, strong body. Fierce pale eyes. A phantom pressure ghosts my side, and I remember her pressed against me that night on the island, when we lay together. By the Old Ones, I wanted her. My body, as usual, was at the edge of restraint. I clench my jaw until my teeth ache. I know that Aron is right, that my tutors were right, that all my people are right: I have no control.

“What’s going on?”

I spin at Bran’s voice. Like Aron, he is neat and tidy, his knee-length tunic clean and white, his hair combed. Bran is taller and leaner than Aron, built more like me, like our mother. Aron has always hated being the shortest, and Bran has never cared about comparisons.

Aron uncrosses his arms, planting his hands on his hips. “We were just discussing our young Drifter.” He shoots me a look. “And all related issues.”

“Ah. I wanted to talk to you about one of those. I’ve been thinking about Heborian—”

Aron leans his head back, staring at the ceiling. “Not you, too.”

“We need to consider that Heborian could—oh. Varus. Yes. Come in.”

Bran moves aside for Varus, the guard that Aron assigned to Astarti. Varus’s face is white, and he swallows hard. He’s been running.

My heart pounding with sudden fear, I take a threatening step toward him. “Where is she?”

“Logan!” snaps Aron. “I want you out. And Bran. Both of you.”

I growl, “Not a chance.”

Aron and I stare at each other. He knows I’ll let this come to blows. The question is, will he?

Of course, Bran steps in. Usually in these situations, he tries to calm me down, which is very annoying. But today, surprisingly, he sides with me. “Logan has a right to know.”

“Why? Because he brought a stray dog home? Does that make it his property?”

I am around the table and inches from Aron when Bran’s hand clamps on my raised arm. I let him stop me, but then I am stuck, undecided.

Aron, it satisfies me to note, has stepped back, his face pale. But then he says, “Someday, Logan, you will kill someone again when you lose control of yourself.”

All the energy drains from me, like I’m a water skin that’s been punctured. Aron always knows just how to cut me, just how to shame me. Bran’s hand reaches up toward my shoulder, as though he would comfort me, but I shake him off roughly. I move away from my brothers and stand by the bookshelves, my arms crossed.

The silence is deafening.

Varus shifts uncomfortably, and Bran says, “Please report, Varus.”

Varus waits, and I’m sure he’s looking to Aron for confirmation. I’m shaking with impatience.

Finally, Varus clears his throat.
“After the Drifter left”—a little spark of anger rekindles in me. She has a
name
—“she walked out to the west arm of the bay. I—well, sir, you said only to watch her, so I was too far behind to do anything—”

My head snaps up. “What happened?”

“She, uh”—Varus tugs at his collar—“she jumped from the cliff and—”

I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I double over, and the roar of the ocean fills my ears. I fall against the shelf behind me, dimly registering the flutter of pages as books fall to the floor.

My hearing comes back when Varus says, “I’ve never seen such a thing, vanishing into the wind.”

“What?” I mutter.

Varus’s brow wrinkles. “Like I said, she jumped and vanished.”

“She didn’t fall?”

“No, she disappeared. Right in front of my eyes. I’m sorry, Arcon Aronos, I—I really don’t know what happened.”

“There is no fault here,” Aron assures him. “Report to Polemarc Clitus for reassignment. And Varus,” Aron calls as the guard turns to leave. “Don’t tell anyone about this.”

Varus swallows and dips his head, then he hustles from the room, his footsteps a quick staccato.

I am still getting my breath back, and my brothers are staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Let them stare. That scared the shit out of me.

“That sounds like what you said happened in the cell, when she went into the stone.”

Silence. I’m not sure to whom Bran was speaking.

He goes on, “It must be some blending of earthmagic and drifting. But I’ve never heard of such a thing. To my knowledge, even the Unnamed and his Seven don’t do that. Nothing in the old texts—”

Bran cuts himself off, and I look at him. He has that far-off look of concentration, the one he gets when he’s studying some boring, dusty manuscript.