The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (6 page)

Again Belos and Theron exchange a look. What do they know that I don’t?

Belos says, “It’s part of the Drift, difficult to access.”

He’s lying—I know his tricks, and he just lifted his chin in that confident way that screams, “liar”—but of course I can’t say that.

Theron’s eyes dart to mine, then he squares up to Belos. “My Lord? The plan?”

I know Theron’s tricks, too, and he is redirecting, helping Belos cover something up. Belos, never one to be grateful, glares at him.

I interrupt, “I already have one.” I have to assert myself if I hope not to be thrown out of this and back into a cell. “I’ll go to Heborian. I’ll tell him Martel is in Tornelaine. Martel has a plan of his own, and we need to destroy it before he can make good on it. If we put him on the run, with Heborian at his heels, he’ll be desperate. Desperate enough, perhaps, to accept a deal.”

A smile tugs Belos’s mouth, which looks eerie in the moonlight. He lays cool hands on either side of my face, like he used to when I was a child. I am reminded that he wasn’t always so angry with me. When I was young, he would smile at me, call me “Little Drifter.” When did that change? When did he start to hate me? But I know the answer. I know exactly when things changed. When I tried to run. When he took my mind. We will never forgive each other.

The thought seems to occur to him also because he drops his hands and steps away.

He says stiffly, “Theron will accompany you.”

Theron dips his head. “To serve is to live.”

Belos accepts this coolly, then throws at me, “Don’t disappoint me this time, Astarti.”

A glow forms around him, lighting him to brief, harsh beauty, then he’s gone.

I rub my arms for warmth and try to still my shivering. I’m not sure what chills me most: the cold night air slipping through my tattered dress, or the warning in Belos’s tone.

Theron unbuckles his cloak, shakes it out, swings it around me. He fastens it at my shoulder, and his fingers linger there. Has he forgiven me for my failures? His breathing is a little too shallow, his leaning toward me a little too purposeful. He’s looking at me as he does sometimes when we are alone.

I shift uncomfortably. “Theron—”

He drops his hands and turns away, nodding south. Theron would never go against Belos, would never presume to take what belongs to his master. “Tornelaine is that way. Do you want to drift?”

I let it go. I don’t know what I would have said anyway, had he done more than let his hand linger on my shoulder. It can never be, and I don’t know that I even want it. True, I am lonely sometimes, but Theron is one of the Seven. He has no regard for the lives of others. He kills easily. Sometimes cruelly.

I dismiss these pointless questions and focus instead on the present. I say, thinking of the Hounding, “Don’t you think we should wait?”

Theron shrugs carelessly, as though he did not scream in fear only minutes ago. He turns south.

I catch up, trudging through the grasses, the hem of my skirt and Theron’s too-long cloak bunched in my hands to free my sandaled feet. There is no elegance in me. I just want my pants. And boots.

We crest a hill. To the right, the ocean spreads below us, moonlight washing its surface. Far off, the dark hump of an island tells me the Floating Lands of the Earthmakers have drifted near. Earlier today, that was empty water. I wonder if Theron misses it. If any of the Seven do, it would be him. Cruel, yes, but gentle sometimes. I wonder suddenly why he joined Belos. As I grew up, that fact was just part of my world, as the Dry Land was. It didn’t occur to me to wonder.

“Theron—”

“You make things hard for yourself, you know that, right?” His voice is more frustrated than angry. He hates to see me in disgrace, though he would never speak or act for me, not against Belos.

“Yes. I know that.”

“Why do you do it?”

I shrug, but he only looks at me, waiting. I say, feeling how stupid my words are but unable to think of better, “Things bother me. I can’t just...do them.”

Even in the faint, uncertain light of the moon, I see puzzlement in his eyes.

I insist, “I can’t, Theron. It would go against—” I almost say “my soul.” What does this mean? Why did this word come to me so easily when I don’t understand it?

Theron reminds me, “But you always have to in the end anyway. You must do what he says, as we all must. Why not save yourself the pain?”

I tug his cloak around myself, losing track of my skirt, letting it drag and catch on the grass. I don’t have an answer for him. I don’t have one for myself.

* * *

Tornelaine comes into sight when we reach the top of a rocky, scrubby bluff. We know we’ll have to drift into the city because the gates are closed for the night. Luckily, when we enter the Drift, the Hounding is gone.

We step from the Drift just beyond the bridge to Heborian’s gates, where Heborian’s barrier falls. It is much like Belos’s barrier, a twisting of lighted threads, a straining of energy. Someday, someone will explain these to me.

Theron insists on waiting for me at the foot of the bridge, and he won’t tell me why. When I push him, all I can learn is that he doesn’t want to see Heborian. I don’t see the problem; there’s no reason that Heborian would recognize one of the Seven. Theron gives some vague answer about how it wouldn’t look right. I shrug. I know a lie when I hear it, but I’m used to being kept ignorant.

The plan is simple: when I get to the castle, I’ll tell them I’m a whore from the Trader’s Choice. I am, after all, dressed the part. I’ll say that I saw Martel there. I recognized him by his scar because my father, who had served in the war, told stories of Count Martel’s slashing. The story is simple, clean, with an edge of truth. The perfect lie.

The castle sits high on the bluff, connected to the city by the wide stone bridge. I will be seen long before I reach the gates, which offer the only entrance to the stone-walled courtyard. As the bridge curves high, I catch a glimpse of the moonlit ocean beyond. The Floating Lands are hidden behind one of Heborian’s towers. I crane my neck to see them but snap back to attention when a guard yells from the platform over the gate.

“Halt! Show your hands!”

I raise them. I am lit by the moon. My shape and the pale expanse of chest above my low neckline reveal that I am a woman.

“I have information for the king.”

“Come back tomorrow and request an audience. No admittance after dark.”

“This can’t wait until tomorrow.”

I continue my approach, ignoring the shouted warnings. When I am ten paces from the gate, I stop. Torchlight shines on the guards’ crossbows.

“I have urgent information for the king.” That alone will not get me through the gates, so I add, “Count Martel is in the city.”

The crossbows don’t move, but the guards whisper to one another. One shouts, “Where?”

“Let me speak to the king.”

“You will speak to me!”

“And let you take credit and cheat me of my reward? Not a chance.” I am fully in character now. I’m a woman who knows what it means to buy and sell; I’m a woman who gives nothing away for free.

More whispering. A groan of metal and a clatter of chain. The heavy gate creaks open.

One of the guards meets me at the bottom. He pats me down, searching for weapons. Good thing I thought to pass my knife to Theron. Good thing, too, I suppose, that he stayed behind. My story is more believable like this. Maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe my instinct was wrong. The guard is thorough in his search, and I have to grit my teeth as he runs his hands under my breasts and down my hips and thighs. I want to punch him in the face when I see his grin.

Instead I comment, “You’re lucky Madame isn’t here. That would have cost you a copper.”

His grin widens, and he says, friendly now, “Come on, lass. Let’s get you your reward. But mind you, if you’re lying, thinking to get a silver for false information, Heborian will have you whipped and locked in the stocks, pretty face or none. You’re sure you want to disturb him?”

I give the guard a cool look. “I’m not lying.”

“All right, then.”

He leads me across a cobbled courtyard lined with trees. The king’s castle, unlike Belos’s rough Fortress, has perfectly rounded walls, smooth sided towers, ornate doors, and stained-glass windows. The moonlight doesn’t reveal everything, but it shows enough.

As the door guards, smartly dressed in black and silver and holding sharp-edged pikes, push open the thick, finely carved doors of the castle, I feel an edge of nervousness. I am about to meet the king of Kelda. Another Drifter, and a Runish one at that. I know it’s silly to be impressed. I’m here for Belos, and no king’s power, no Drifter’s power, can compare to his. Besides, though I don’t know all of Belos’s plans, I do know that if he succeeds, Heborian won’t be king much longer.

I wonder, though, as I have before, why Belos doesn’t try to make a deal with Heborian. Surely Heborian would be the stronger ally? Then it occurs to me: could Heborian have already refused him? Is this revenge? As I follow the guard into the foyer, I drive these questions away. As Belos so often reminds me, it’s not my place to wonder, only to serve.

The ceiling sweeps high, but the vast overhead space is nearly filled by a massive crystal chandelier. The chandelier’s candles are unlit, but silver sconces lining the stone walls blaze with light, picking out a few sparkles in the glass faces above.

I wonder if the guard will lead me to a huge audience chamber, where the king will look down on me from a raised dais, his hands draped casually over the gilded arms of a throne. To my relief, he takes me instead to what looks like a sitting room. Chairs with short, curved backs are clustered before a huge, empty fireplace. Paintings line the walls, but none of them are portraits. They are horses, dogs, battle scenes. The room is so casual that I am uncomfortable, and when the guard tells me to wait and his footsteps fade down the hall, I pace.

I pass a painting of a huge black horse with a high, proud head and streaming tail. Another horse. A battle scene. Another battle scene. I stop at the third one. It features all the typical elements: horses rearing, men trampled under them, spears, swords, armor. But in the background, almost hidden behind the fight, is a pale glow surrounding a dark figure. Some might take it for a mistake in the work, but I don’t. It’s a Drifter. One standing back, watching.

“I see you admire LeCarte’s work.”

I spin at the low, gravelly voice. Heborian stands in the doorway. It can only be him. Tall and broad, handsome, just like people say. His hair, as dark as mine, is braided down one side of his face in the Runish style but otherwise makes a dark mane around his shoulders. His beard is neatly trimmed. A blue tattoo curves along the outside of his right eye and spikes down his cheek. I am suddenly conscious of my own tattoo, glad it’s hidden under loose hair. Most people don’t know what it means, but a Runian like Heborian would see it for what it is: a symbol of my mother’s rejection, a failed attempt to kill me.

I don’t know the meaning of any of Heborian’s tattoos. Another peeks above the fur-edging of his tunic. A third curls around his right wrist, twisting down his hand and around his fingers. Those fingers are relaxed, his body language easy and confident. All of it gives him a predator’s grace. And his dark eyes, narrowed at me with hidden study, tell me why they call him the Wolf.

He paces into the room with that animal grace and nods at the painting. “You like it?”

I want to say, “Yes,” because it’s an eerie, powerful image, but Amara the whore would not think like that. I want to ask about the Drifter in the background, but Amara would never notice it. So Amara mutters, “I don’t like the fighting.”

He halts, disappointment washing the curiosity from his face. “I hear you have information regarding Count Martel.”

He is formal now, a king, and I feel an unexpected loss as the chance to speak casually with him slips away.

I grasp at my story. “I work at the Trader’s Choice, a brothel—”

“I know it,” he cuts me off irritably.

That surprises me. There must be fifty brothels in the city. Why would he know of a little place like that?

“Tonight,” I go on, “Count Martel came in. He may be gone by now, but he was there when I left to come here. I thought you’d want to know.”

“How did you recognize him?”

“His scar.”

Dark eyebrows come down. “Many are scarred.”

“My father fought in the wars. He told stories. He says the king”—I let my eyes dart to Heborian—“you—cut him, but he escaped.”

“Who is your father?”

“He’s dead, my lord, but his name was Jean Adarre. You wouldn’t have had cause to know him.”

Heborian studies me. “That’s a Keldan name. You’re Runish.”

I shift uncomfortably. I didn’t expect him to ask so many questions. “My mother,” I mumble, feeling exposed by the information, by this thread of truth.

His eyes narrow, and he starts to walk a circle around me, as Madame Adessa did. I can’t help but tense. I don’t like to be the center of attention; I’ve learned it’s a dangerous place. When he comes again to the front, a crease wedges between his brows, and his mouth is drawn low in a frown. There’s something in his eyes I don’t like and for a second I think it’s recognition. But I know he’s never seen me. He can’t know I work for Belos.

He’s about to say something when a man, dressed in the black and silver of the house guards, bursts into the room.

“My lord! Prince Rood! Gone!”

Heborian wheels on the guard. “What?”

“You told us to tell you at once if he—”

“I know what I told you. I also know that I ordered discretion.” Heborian grounds out the last word.

The guard’s eyes dart to me, and he swallows hard.

Heborian says nothing more, but his face warns of punishment. He glances back at me, eyes narrow with suspicion, then stalks from the room.

Heborian’s footsteps beat down the hall, and I am seemingly forgotten. My mind races. Prince Rood missing. Is it just coincidence? The prince could be out doing whatever it is fifteen-year-old boys do, even royal ones. He is, I’ve heard, a little wild. But. I came here tonight because I was expecting Martel to move quickly. Could this be his move? But how could he have gotten Rood out of this castle? Impossible. The prince must have left. But why? More importantly, could Martel have intercepted him? But how would Martel have known where the prince was going?