The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (4 page)

“And make it easy for you? Help you justify your murder?”

I bare my teeth at him.

His eyes soften. “You’re not one of them, not really. What are you doing, girl?”

My knuckles whiten on the knife handle. Then I hear her voice.

Imelda is in the hall, no doubt heading to her room to prepare for Martel.

I turn the knife around. The Warden’s eyes register understanding in the brief moment before I clunk him in the head with the handle.

He slumps against the bonds, and I release him to fall to the floor. His scabbarded sword scrapes against the wall.

I should run for the door, but I linger a moment. Unconscious, he looks so young, his face relaxed and peaceful. I check the cut at his neck. He’s fine. But my fingers tremble when I touch his warm skin, when I accidently brush a lock of dark gold hair curling from behind his ear. I see a shiny scar peeking from under the open, unlaced neck of his shirt. I shift the fabric. His chest is hard planes of muscle, and the ridged line of the scar starts high on his chest and disappears somewhere around his ribs. A bad injury. I snatch my hand back, feeling like I’ve done something wrong to touch him when he’s unconscious.

Briefly, halfheartedly, I argue with myself. He is my enemy. I should kill him, before it’s too late.

But I get up.

I jog to the door.

Chapter 4

AFTER A SECOND’S thought, I use my knife to cut strips from my already tattered dress. Hiding the cloth and knife behind my back, I crack open the door and lean into the hall. Imelda is about to walk into her room.

“Imelda,” I call, not needing to fake my frantic tone.

She looks back. “Amara? What is it?”

“I need your help.”

She frowns. “I am expecting a gentleman any moment.”

“Please, Imelda! Just for a second.”

Her petite shoulders fall with her sigh, then she walks briskly back to me, her perfectly shaped brows pinched together with irritation. I withdraw into the room so she will be forced to enter before she speaks with me.

She steps inside. “What is it?” Then her eyes fall on the Warden slumped against the wall. “Divine light, what happened?”

When she starts toward the Warden, I grab her from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth. She is small and weak, and I easily wrestle her to the ground. I shove a wad of cloth in her mouth and gag her. I wrench her thin arms behind her back and bind them, then drag her to the foot of the bed, where I tie her up. Her legs flail, and I grunt as a kick lands in my gut. I force her feet together and tie her ankles.

Air whistles angrily through her flared nostrils, and I have to look away from the hurt and fury in her eyes. She was kind to me, even when she didn’t know me, and I have betrayed that.

Then I tell myself: she was only kind
because
she didn’t know me. If she knew I was a Drifter, she would look at me with disgust. Ibrisians hate us almost as much as Earthmakers do. I leave the room without looking back, ignoring Imelda’s muffled shout.

* * *

A fire crackles in Imelda’s fireplace, washing my legs with heat as I pace the rug before it. I go over what I will say to Martel, the lines I worked on this afternoon as I waited tables. I halt midstride. When Martel walks in, I must look calm, collected, confident. I am a representative of Belos, making an offer to a man who needs it. He is the desperate one, not I. This is a business deal, not a fight.

When Martel eases the door open, I am sitting in Imelda’s plush chair by the fire, my elbows resting casually on the dark wood arms, my back pressed to the deep orange cushion.

His eyebrows snap together, puckering the scar that runs through the left one. “Who are you? Where’s Imelda?”

I smile invitingly. “Please come in, Count Martel.”

He jerks a little at the address. “How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot of things about you.”

He edges back.

“It would be ill-advised for you to leave this room before talking to me. King Heborian, no doubt, would be very interested to know of your presence here.”

His nostrils flare, but he closes the door firmly behind him. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Have a seat.” I indicate the chair across from me. I stare pointedly into the fire, refusing to speak until I hear him drop impatiently into the chair. His boots clunk awkwardly against the chair legs. He’s uncomfortable. Good.

“So. Twenty years is a long time to wait, isn’t it?”

At first he says nothing, then he grinds out, “Eighteen.”

“I’m afraid it could be eighteen more before you can take back what is rightfully yours.”

He huffs, “I don’t think so.”

I give him a patronizing look. “Count Martel, Heborian is a Drifter—”

“A sorcerer.”

I wave that away. “I don’t care what you call him. And he has at least
five
other Drifters in his service, and that’s not including his son.”

“A child,” scoffs Martel, the scar tugging down the left side of his face when he frowns.

“Perhaps.” In truth, Prince Rood is fifteen, only two years younger than I am. “But you know the castle as well as I do.” I have never actually been inside it, but Martel doesn’t need to know that. “Come now. You know you’ll never breach it.”

“I don’t have to breach it if Heborian comes out.”

“And why would he do that?”

Martel smiles, refusing to give anything more away, but it’s clear he has a plan. And he thinks it’s a good one.

I remind him, “Heborian has never been seen outside the castle walls without a heavy guard and at least two of his fellow Drifters. Do you think yourself so lucky?”

His lip curls, giving him an ugly expression that has nothing to do with his scar. “Luck is for cowards. And women. Men make plans.”

I ignore his jab. “My employer would probably agree with you. He, too, makes plans. But he has something you don’t.”

“And what is that?”

I let part of my mind travel along my mooring and into the Drift. I tug at a thread of my energy, pull it through myself. I cast it around him, binding him as I bound the Warden. He gasps. I draw more of my energy and shape it into something familiar, something that fits perfectly and comfortably into my hand. The steel-encased butt of my spear rests on the floor near my foot. The smooth shaft stretches high above my head, where the notched blade gleams orange with firelight.

Martel’s eyes bulge. “You’re a Drifter.” His voice is faint. Then fear flashes in his eyes. “One of Heborian’s?”

I give him a moment to fear that possibility before I smile. “I work for someone much more powerful than Heborian.”

His mind is clanking through possibilities, but he’s not getting there.

“Someone who’d like to offer you a deal.” I let the last word fall like a stone.

Everyone knows Belos’s most common title: the Dealmaker.

Martel freezes, his eyes wide with fear. This doesn’t surprise me, and he’s wise to be frightened. He would be wise, in fact, to refuse. To accept a deal with Belos is to Leash oneself to him. Belos would have control of Martel, be able to take his mind and use his body, be able to kill him by absorbing his lifeforce through the Leash, thus adding to Belos’s own power. Martel would be as I am, a slave.

But.

Power can travel both ways along a Leash. I have seen Belos give a man enough strength to tear off another’s head with bare hands. I have seen him give a man the power of voice and will to raise an army. I have seen him give a man the power to drift. For the desperate, or the greedy, it’s tempting. The question, then, is whether Martel is desperate and greedy enough.

“I will never give him my soul.”

This is a common belief among humans, that the lifeforce Leashed to Belos is actually something more nebulous and precious, something no one has ever been able to define to my satisfaction: the soul. The word, as always, makes me uncomfortable.

“Belos can make you invincible. And he can join himself and all his...resources...to your cause. Think about that, Martel. You’ll have everything you want.”

Of course, there can be no actual guarantee of success. But Belos’s deals tend to work out well for people. At first.

Martel is shaking his head. His voice is weak and frightened when he says, “Please let me go.”

I suspect he fears that Belos will Leash him against his will. It’s true that he could, that he’s done it before, but Belos prefers to make deals. Oh, it’s not out of any sense of decency, of course. It’s simply more useful, and easier, to have willing subjects. To constantly control the mind of another is, as Belos once said, “Too much bother, unless it’s necessary.”

I load my voice with warning: “Be wise, Martel.”

He’s breathing hard, his broad, thin chest heaving. Sweat plasters a lock of brown hair to his forehead. With enough time, he might crack. But I don’t have that much time. Eventually someone will discover Imelda. Or the Warden will wake up.

I lean forward impatiently, my hand tightening on my spear. “This is your one and only chance to negotiate. This is when you have choices. Later, when you have failed, and you come begging to Belos, you will take what he offers. And it will be less.”

I have to scare him, make him want this. But he’s still shaking his head, and his breathing has calmed. I have to give him credit: he does have a spine.

Even as he’s giving me another refusal, I hear raised voices downstairs. Boots thump along the hallway.

I leap from the chair, relaxing my grip on the spear, automatically preparing to fight.

The last of the fear leaves Martel’s face, and his mouth sets with satisfaction. I’ll get nothing more from him now.

The door bursts open, and two of the Madame Adessa’s burly men charge through, clubs in their hands and snarls on their faces.

One of them says in a coarse Valdaran accent, “Put the stick down, little girl, and we won’t hurt you.”

I don’t waste time on banter. Two running steps bring me to Martel, still bound in the chair. I use him as a stepping stool and hear a grunt of pain when I plant a sandaled foot on his leg. I spring up, leaping over his head, spinning my spear like a staff. I strike one of the men on the side of the head, and he falls back through the open doorway, unconscious. I land before the other man and bring up the steel spear butt to crack him under the jaw. His head snaps back and he falls against the wall, the club clattering from his hand. Martel’s yell for help twists into a grunt of disgust.

Another set of boots in the hall. I shift away from the door as the Warden, sword in hand, one eye squinted in pain, charges into the room. His eyes skim over the fallen men and Martel, giving me a second to ready my spear before he spins toward me.

I can’t afford mercy with someone this dangerous. I lunge, corset digging into my ribs, spear point flashing toward his belly. He knocks my spear aside with a hasty block. I leap back for space, already bringing the spear around in a slash.

His sword whips out and takes the blow hard. The spear vibrates in my hands.

He leaps at me. I catch the downward blow on the spear and force it to slide away. I will not win this hand-to-hand. He is too strong, too fast, and I will trip over these damn skirts at any moment.

I reach into the Drift, drawing energy into my fist. Hand glowing with power, I throw myself to my knees, sliding under his sword. I punch hard into his muscled stomach. He grunts as the blow lifts him from his feet and flings him against the wall.

Amazingly, he holds onto his sword. Using the wall for support, he pushes himself to his feet.

“Just stay down.” I draw more Drift-energy into my body. “Don’t make me kill you.”

He wheezes, hunched over what will no doubt be some horribly bruised ribs. When he straightens, his face goes still, masking his pain as he masked his anger earlier.

“You’re the one who must die, Drifter.”

“Astarti.” The name is out of my mouth before I can stop it. Stupid, of course. I have no excuse, except that I don’t like being called “Drifter.”

His eyebrows rise a little, but he gives back what I’ve given to him. “Logan.”

I wish he hadn’t done that. It will hurt more, now, to kill him. Perhaps that was his point.

I motion with my spear. “Come on then.”

He shifts his grip on the sword and pushes away from the wall.

More boots thump down the hall. I step further from the door to make space for my spear. Five men, all bearing pikes, which means they are probably part of the dock watch, file into the room.

I knock the first pike thrust aside, twist away from another. I can’t fight this many in this small space. I slip along my mooring and into the Drift.

The five men freeze when I disappear, their energies swirling in a confusion that shifts quickly to fear.

Yeah, that’s right, I’m one of those.

Martel is gone. I lost my hold on him sometime during my fight with the Warden—Logan—and he slipped away.

Logan is leaning against the wall, the wild energy of his body a bright swirl and rush behind the ordinary forms of the other men.

There is nothing more I can do here right now. I won’t kill the Warden. I should. But I won’t. As for Martel, I’ll need something more to hold over him before he’s willing to make a deal.

I am still considering my options, thinking about where to drift to, when the Warden’s wild energy moves toward my location in the Drift. Coincidence? Or can he sense me?

I know it’s not possible. Earthmakers don’t use the Drift. They can’t. Even if they could, no one should be able to sense the Drift from outside it.

He is so close. Impulsively, I reach out and run a finger through his energy. I feel the spark of him, the inexplicable power; it runs through me like a current.

He freezes. He shouldn’t have been able to feel that.

He stares right at me.

My energy surges with fear. Not possible.

I flee.

Chapter 5

I STEP FROM the Drift at the edge of Belos’s barrier, where the lighted threads twist and confuse. It’s night, and the Dry Land, so hot during the day, is freezing. I shiver in the skimpy, tattered dress and hug myself for warmth. I’m shaking hard, but it’s not just from the sudden cold. My mind roils with what happened. The Warden sensed me inside the Drift. He felt me touch him. How is that possible?