The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (3 page)

She moves silkily to the door. “Wait here.”

I am standing in the same place when she returns a moment later, a green dress in her arms. She lays it on the bed, smoothing its coarse linen against the dark red coverlet. It looks far too small. She lays a corset beside it and steps back.

“Madame does not ask new girls to attend gentlemen”—I almost snort at the word—“on their first night. Unless, of course, there is an insistent request from a well-paying customer. But this is rare. You will serve tables tonight. If you hope not to be requested, be quiet and avoid notice.” She pauses. “This is not so bad, you know. This is how women gain power over men, the only way for us to do so. You will win back something of what you’ve lost, even if you don’t see it at first. You will have a new kind of pride.” She smiles, adds teasingly, “Even a king may be brought low by a whore. Now. Do you need help with the dress?”

“No,” I say, a little too quickly. I don’t want her to see the lash marks on my back. Or my tattoo.

Imelda seems to think nothing of my sharpness. Perhaps she thinks I am nervous. Well, I am.

“Unbraid your hair. Men prefer it loose.” When I finger my braid unhappily, she gives me an encouraging look. “Everything will be all right, Amara.”

But she’s wrong. Tonight I will persuade Martel to Leash himself to Belos, as I myself am Leashed. Or I will fail and face Belos’s wrath. Nothing is “all right” at all.

* * *

I wait tables for the rest of the afternoon, carrying trays laden with beer to men who watch me openly because that is why they are here. And why I am. The corset digs into my ribcage and chafes my sore back. The dress hangs too low in front and Madame slaps my hand away when I try to hitch it higher. After the second time, she snaps, “You can’t afford to hide any of that.”

I scowl at her back as she walks away.

Ten minutes later, when a man pinches my rear, she bustles over furiously, one of the burly men who helps her ensure order hard on her heels.

She demands, “Does this look like a common pub? You pay for that here.”

I unclench my fist. Look, don’t touch, I guess. Unless you pay. At least she has rules. And the manpower to enforce them.

By early evening, the kitchen is torturing me with the rich scents of baking bread, roasted lamb, potatoes, and caramelized onions. The windows darken, and the fake silks begin to look less garish. I am having trouble remembering all the food and drink orders and have just taken a cup of wine to the wrong table again when Martel walks in.

I know it’s him by the scar across his left eye where a sword cut him from forehead to jaw. With that conspicuous face, it’s little wonder he’s staying so far from the king’s castle. No one at this poor end of the city would have seen Count Martel up close twenty years ago when he was cousin to King Barreston, before Heborian killed him. Besides, he wasn’t scarred then.

The years have been hard on Martel. He has the look of a big man who has spent too many years hungry, his body worn down to thin, tight muscle. His clothes mark him a merchant, and I wonder what act he is putting on here, what he is doing in the city in the first place.

The man at the table before me snaps his fingers. “You there, girl. I don’t drink Keldan piss. Bring me a beer.”

I mutter an apology and hurry to the bar. While I am filling a mug, I watch Martel. He sits comfortably at a table with a few other men, talking about nothing, when the spring wind will come, what the winter was like.

Then I see him.

A Warden.

He must have slipped in while I was watching Martel.

He looks fairly young, though he’s older than I am. It’s hard to guess the age of Earthmakers because they live long and age slowly.

Like so many Earthmakers, he is handsome. No. More than that. He’s gorgeous, the kind of gorgeous you can see from across the room. His jaw is strong and clean. His dark blond hair, thick and wavy, is raked back haphazardly from his face, as though he has a habit of running his hands through it. Most of his body is hidden by the table where he sits, but he is obviously tall and fit, broad-shouldered. Where his dark blue linen shirt hangs open at the neck I see hard lines of muscle. His elbows lean on the table. The fingers of one hand drum into the palm of the other, as though he is trying to contain his energy. He has such an air of impatience that I half expect him to get up and pace the room.

“Hop to, girl!” chides Madame Adessa, and I hurriedly fill the mug in my hand, grimacing at the extra foam that results from my haste. No doubt there will be more comments.

* * *

Martel sits with his companions for most of the evening, and nothing looks conspiratorial. I’m not surprised. He would hardly be discussing his plans to throw down King Heborian in such a public place. Imelda serves his table, but his eyes never show her favor. Perhaps she is just a whore to him. The thought makes my stomach clench around the greasy meal I ate earlier. The new girl only gets the oily scrapings from the bottom of the pan, and it’s not agreeing with a stomach grown used to the dry bread of imprisonment. Perhaps I should have remained hungry.

I feel eyes on me, and I look up to see the Warden staring. A chill flashes over my skin. Earthmagic might not be as quick as Drifting, but it’s more powerful, in its way. A Warden strong in the element of earth could rip the ground out from under my feet. If he handles fire, he could burn this place around me. Wardens are also trained hard in the sword. But what worries me is their determination; they will do anything to capture or kill a servant of Belos.

I look away, hoping I have only caught his attention because of my low-cut dress.

I wait impatiently for Imelda to go upstairs. When she does, I will follow. I’ll restrain her—hopefully I won’t have to hurt her—and meet Martel in her stead. It will happen any moment.

The Warden gets up, a hand resting on the pommel of his sword. His eyes find mine, and I look away. He wends his way over to Madame Adessa, where she is scolding one of the girls. Madame sends the girl away quickly and fawns over the Warden. Her smile is flirtatious, her body language too familiar. The Warden takes a small step back, which pleases me for some reason. He says something to her, and she frowns. Then I see the glint of silver as their hands meet briefly. He returns to his table, and Madame bustles over to me, still slipping the coins into a hidden pouch at her waist.

“Well, little bird, you’ve had a request.”

My throat constricts.

“Now, if you’re a good girl and make the gentleman happy, I’ll give you three coppers on top of your wage.”

It’s a fraction of the money he gave her. I want to say something snide, but of course I can’t. Desperate Amara wouldn’t dream of it.

“But, Madame—”

“Upstairs with you. Unless you prefer to leave?” She nudges me toward the stairs. “Fourth door on the right. There’s a good girl.”

If I run, or refuse, Madame will throw me out and I’ll lose my chance at Martel. There is only one thing to do. I must kill this Warden quickly and get to Imelda’s room.

Chapter 3

AS I PACE the room, averting my eyes from the lurid painting over the bed, I decide to get information from the Warden before I kill him. Belos will want to know why he’s following Martel. Information is everything. It changes plans, changes people. Because the Warden is bigger and stronger than I am, I’ll have to surprise him. I breathe deep and squeeze through my mooring into the Drift.

As the world resolves itself into its bare energies, with the dark spans of dead wood and heavy stone marking the buildings and the faint but rhythmic draw of tide marking the ocean beyond, the Warden enters the room. The energy of normal, non-Drifter humans is a steady pulse and flow contained within a sharply defined form. It varies, of course, as emotions or injuries alter the flow, but it’s generally predictable. Earthmakers look similar to humans but are typically dimmer, more subdued.

The Warden’s energy rages.

It floods through his body in streams of gold and silver, flashes of green and blue, beating against the barriers of his form. It doesn’t look like anger, exactly; it just looks wild. I’ve never seen anything like it.

He scans the room, the energy of his face shaping his suspicion. As I thought, he is not just looking for a whore with dark hair. I gave something away. I’m not sure how, but I did.

I gather energy from within myself, teasing it into a bright thread, easing it along my mooring. I will have to be quick.

When the Warden moves to the window, I race along my mooring and burst into the physical world. My sudden appearance creates a whoosh of air. I loop the threads of energy around the Warden and bind him tight. He gives a startled yelp as his arms slap to his sides and a grunt of pain as I slam him face-first into the wall. He starts to yell, but I clamp a hand over his mouth. With my free hand, I grab the knife strapped to my thigh. The linen dress makes a ripping sound as I tear the knife free. I hate dresses because of this. How are you expected to move?

I press the knife point to his throat. “Make a sound and I’ll kill you.”

I am leaning against his back, pinning him to the wall, though he’s much taller than I am. Even through the tight binding, I feel him shivering with rage, struggling against my control. His back is ridged with tense muscle. At odds with his anger, a clean scent, like ocean breeze, wafts from his clothes and skin.

I unclamp my hand from his mouth and tug at the binding to turn him. I keep my knife at his throat, but the position keeps me pressed against him, and I am uncomfortable with the intimacy. Generally, I fight with the spear, keeping my distance from larger opponents. Knives, I prefer to throw; at close range, they are too personal. I set my jaw, closing my mind to the fact that my thigh is pressed against his, that I can feel the heat of his body through the worn leather of his pants, that my knife arm rests against the dense muscles of his chest.

“Drifter.” His voice is deep and rich beneath the scorn. “I should have known.”

I won’t rise to that bait. Everyone knows Earthmakers hate my kind. I demand, “What are you doing here?”

He stares his refusal at me.

Now that I’m so close, I notice that his eyes are the strangest I’ve ever seen. Their color shifts: blue to green, then streaked with brown, then edged with gold. They shift to green again. I frown. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

His jaw clenches, and his eyes turn blue, as an Earthmaker’s should be. He stills as though he’s under control now, but the pulse beating hard under my knife and the tension of his lean, muscled body tells me his control is thin.

He says steadily, “What do you want with Martel?”

I press the blade harder into the tender skin of his throat until a thin line of blood appears. “I’m asking the questions. What do
you
want with Martel? What does a Warden care about a washed up old noble who’s been in hiding near twenty years?”

The twitch of his dark gold brows tells me I just answered one of his questions. “So you are after him.”

I grit my teeth. Maybe Straton is right: I am stupid.

“I knew you weren’t one of Madame Adessa’s girls.”

That piques my curiosity. “How? What gave me away?”

His expression lightens, and I think I see humor in his eyes, which are holding a steady blue. “Your movements are careful, deliberate, like those of an assassin. Oh, you’re good with your act, don’t get me wrong, and I can appreciate a low-cut dress like the next man, but I know a fighter when I see one.” He pauses, enjoying my blush, no doubt. His voice drops. “And you, apparently, know a Warden. No one else has recognized me. So my question is this: what kind of young woman, and one who knows her way around weapons”—the line of blood has slipped down his throat and under the collar of his dark shirt—“knows a Warden the moment she sees one?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I tease, though my heart skips. He’s smart. He’s putting it together.

His voice drops to a growl, like it’s crouching in his throat. “You serve the Unnamed, don’t you?”

That’s what the Earthmakers call Belos, as though when he turned against them, they took his name away. Fools. Do they really think such a small thing could diminish the likes of Belos?

I remind him of my knife and demand again, “What do you want with Martel?”

His mouth twists. “How can you serve him? What makes you people sell yourselves?”

His question reaches into my gut and twists. I want to snap, “I didn’t!” but it doesn’t matter what this Warden thinks of me. I press the blade harder and feel a wash of satisfaction as he winces.

With pain tightening the skin around his eyes, he presses into my blade, making me cut him deeper. “I’m not going to tell you anything, so you might as well get on with it and kill me.”

This makes me shift. I’ve never actually killed anyone in cold blood. “Just like that? Aren’t you going to rumble the earth beneath my feet? Or blow me over with a gust of wind?”

His eyes darken, like a sky ready to storm. A muscle bulges in his jaw. So hot-tempered. Most Earthmakers are annoyingly calm and difficult to ruffle.

I prod him again. “It’s nice to see not all of your kind are devoid of emotion.”

His face goes still as he pulls that mask of control over himself again. He says woodenly, “Are you going to kill me or not?”

I flush. Okay, yes, I’ve been stalling. Then I flush deeper as I realize how much this man has made me blush in less than five minutes.

“You’re not, are you? I didn’t think so. You’ve never killed anyone like this before, have you?”

I try to smile wickedly. “You can be my first.”

“Just press it in here.” He lifts his chin, forcing my eyes to the clean lines of his jaw and throat. “I might cry out a little, but no one will think anything of it in a place like this. You’ll hear me choke. Blood will gurgle in my throat. My eyes will bulge. But it won’t take long. I’ll gasp and slide down the wall, and you can watch the life drain from my eyes.”

“Why don’t you just fight already?”