The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (7 page)

The questions roll through my mind, disconnected. But then I remember something Imelda said when she took me to her room, something that has been in my mind like an itch all evening:
Even a king may be brought low by a whore.

Heborian knew of the Trader’s Choice, and he was irritated by it. Perhaps Prince Rood has been there, against his wishes.

I jog for the door, glad to have been forgotten. I have to get to the Trader’s Choice. I have to find Imelda.

Chapter 7

THERON AND I navigate the Drift—blessedly free of the Hounding—to the Trader’s Choice, where I recognize Imelda’s lighted form by her quiet beauty. But energy shivers through her. She’s nervous.

I step from the Drift into her room, where a broken chair has been pushed into the corner. Imelda halts her pacing when I appear. When Theron appears beside me, she stumbles back, her heel clanking the folding fireplace screen, which screeches protest against the brick hearth. To her credit, she doesn’t scream.

I pin her with a glare. “What do you know of Prince Rood?”

She swallows nervously. Good. She won’t be much of a liar.

I shape my Drift-spear to speed things up. “Where is he? Does Martel have him?”

Her eyes fix on the spear and her mouth works, but no sound comes out. Theron stalks toward her and grabs her throat. I wince as he slams her into the fireplace mantel. “Speak!”

Imelda whimpers. When Theron growls, she stammers, “He-he was here. He comes here often! The Count took him, yes! Please!”

I lay a hand on Theron’s arm, and he lets go. Imelda sags, coughing, and rubs her throat. She flinches when I touch her shoulder. “Where did they go?”

“Who are you?” she whispers without looking at me.

“Imelda,” I warn.

“I don’t know where they went! Do you think Martel would tell me?”

“Land or sea?”

She thinks. “They had horses.”

“When did they leave?”

“Twenty minutes ago?” she guesses.

At least that gives us a radius. It would have taken them half that time to get out of the city. They can’t have gone more than a few miles.

I’m turning to Theron to suggest we search through the Drift—Rood is a Drifter, so we should be able to identify him—when Heborian bursts through the door. Imelda screams. I jump. Heborian stares at me. He shouts something I don’t understand because Theron and I are already stepping into the Drift.

* * *

By the time we locate Martel and his band of sixty men, they are about five miles from Tornelaine, cutting through a forest that spreads wide from the Kiss River. Another four or five miles away, a much larger group of perhaps two hundred is waiting. We have to slow Martel down so that Heborian can catch up before Martel reaches his other men. Two things have to happen: Heborian has to rescue Rood, and Martel has to escape. We need Martel alive and desperate to wrest Tornelaine from Heborian. We also need Martel to believe we had nothing to do with his failed plan.

While I am still in the Drift, following an unconscious Prince Rood held in the saddle by one of Martel’s men, I notice two disturbing things. First, my Leash is glowing too brightly, which means Belos did not go back to the Dry Land—he’s nearby. Second, so is the Warden. I sense his wild energy not far behind. I only hope Theron didn’t notice and that Logan has the sense to stay away.

I position myself ahead of the horse carrying Rood and his captor, who is thankfully not Martel himself. I have to time this right.

I step from the Drift as the horse bears down on me. The animal screams and skids, then darts to the side. Prince Rood and his captor are thrown from the saddle. The man rolls and skids. Rood tumbles like a rag doll. Theron appears and grabs the man. They both vanish, and I swallow a brief queasiness. I know the man had to die, to prevent him from informing Martel that he saw me, but Theron’s method, however expedient, is cruel. To take a non-Drifter into the Drift without proper preparation is to do more than kill him. The unprepared human mind cannot comprehend the Drift and will be severed from its body. The man’s body will dissolve into the energy of the Drift. But his mind? His soul, if such a thing exists? No one really knows. It seems to vanish. Not a thing to do lightly. But I have no more control over Theron than I have over Belos.

Sliding over deadfall, I rush to Prince Rood, hoping the fall didn’t break his neck. Martel’s company surges forward, not realizing they’ve lost their prize. By the time they are straggling to a stop and turning back, I’ve reached Heborian’s son.

He looks like his father, broad for his age and handsome, though his face is soft with youth. Unlike his father, he has no tattoos that I can see. A gash crosses his forehead, but he is breathing. Nothing appears broken. I grab him and step into the Drift. Because he, too, is a Drifter, it will do him no harm.

From within the Drift, I watch Martel’s men mill about in confusion as they search, arguing, gesturing. I glance at Theron, who hovers nearby, his energy form bright with power. There is no sign of the man.

I wait.

Soon enough, the blazing energy of several Drifters streaks toward us. I pull Rood from the Drift, not wanting to be caught there. Fighting within the Drift is dangerous.

Heborian appears moments after I step from the Drift. His eyes are wild with fury, his mouth curled in a snarl. The tattoo around his right eye seems to sharpen.

He says nothing but grabs his son from my hands. They vanish into the Drift. My heart hammers in my throat.

I turn to the fight, where Heborian’s Drifters are tearing through Martel’s company. Even though it’s a fight of five to sixty, Martel’s men hardly stand a chance.

I see Theron guarding Martel, and I travel through the Drift to them. Unfortunately, Martel is not a Drifter, so we can’t simply take him into the Drift and away to safety. We’ll have to fight.

One of Heborian’s Drifters appears before us, a blaze of light and heat around his fists. He channels this at Theron, and the burst of energy strikes Theron in the chest before he can dodge or block. As Theron falls back and Martel shouts in surprise, I shape my spear and lunge for the Drifter. He vanishes.

He appears behind me but doesn’t strike; he’s not after me. Martel blocks the Drifter’s first blow with his own sword, giving me time to spin. I catch the Drifter across the shoulder with my spear, though his shoulder guard takes most of the damage.

The earth rumbles. It shakes me and the Drifter both to our knees. Horses bolt. Men shout. Stony spikes burst from the earth, spearing men and spreading chaos.

Theron’s signature earthmaking.

My opponent is scrambling away from blades of stone when Theron leaps for him. I don’t see what happens because pain, white-hot and blinding, splits my side.

I scream and swing my spear blindly to drive off the attacker. My spear connects with a sword, and the blow shivers up my arm. The moonlight filtering through overhead branches and the faint glow of my opponent’s Drift-sword reveal the towering figure of a man. His sword whips and darts. He is fast and strong. I block clumsily, hampered by the wound in my side and the too-close engagement. When I manage to hit him in the gut with my spear butt, he makes a grunt of surprised pain. I seize the chance to step back, to make room for my spear and whip its deadly, notched blade into position.

I don’t get the chance to use it. Pain bursts across the back of my head.

I fall to my knees as the world darkens and recedes. A dim part of my mind knows that I should get up, but I can’t. I wait for the next blow, the last one.

As though they are far away, I hear the ring of swords, the shouts of men. The earth rumbles again, shaking me flat onto my stomach. I smell leaf mold, damp earth, and blood. Then a hand clamps on my shoulder, pulling me up, drawing my cheek away from the cool, moist ground.

As I flop onto my back, the Warden’s face, a blend of shadow and moonlit beauty, comes into view. He pulls me up, and I am caught in his strength. He is otherworldly, powerful, and for a moment I believe the stories of the Lost Gods, who the Runians claim shaped this world. The Lost Gods, they say, were chaos and danger and heartbreaking beauty. My fingers stretch toward him, drawn, as they were when I studied his wild energy from within the Drift.

He is shouting something, and I recognize the shape of fear in his face. At last his words pierce the haze of my mind: “Get up!”

When he shouts it again, I will strength into my legs and stand on my own, though his hands don’t leave me. They are on my wound, like he’s holding me together. Then he cries out in pain. His hands slide away as he drops to one knee. I dimly register the fading glow of a Drift-arrow in his leg. My mind sharpens at once. I look up to see Theron lower his bow.

“No!” I shout thickly, surprised to find my voice.
Theron shapes another arrow and sets it to his faintly glowing bow.

Logan staggers to his feet. He shoves me behind him, and I brush against his hip and back. He is shaking, with pain perhaps, or anger.

Then nausea wracks me, and I clutch at Logan’s shirt. My blood runs cold with the familiar violation.

Belos.

Chapter 8

BELOS STEPS FROM the Drift, light and heat washing from him like water. As it fades, moonlight glints on his shoulder studs, gleams in his pale hair, flashes along the edge of his sword. He stares at Logan, at me. His lip curls.

“Earthmaker scum,” he snarls. “Another blind fool, about to die.”

A growl thrums through Logan’s body. I can’t hear it, but I feel it in the hand I have pressed to his back.

Belos and Logan charge at the same time. I am alone, my hand still raised, my thoughts lagging from the blow to my head. Their swords ring against each other twice before I stumble forward, my right arm pressed to my side to protect the wound.

Logan makes a downward cut that sweeps inches from Belos’s face, but that is the last strike Belos allows. The glow starts in his fist and travels down his sword. When he swings and Logan blocks, Logan’s blade shatters like glass.

Logan staggers back.

Belos draws back his sword with a cruel grin.

Heart leaping, I do the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, the thing that guarantees Belos will take my mind, that he will make me no more than a body, a vessel for his will. I shape my spear, aim.

Throw.

It flies through moonlight and shadow, arcing silently toward its mark. Belos looks up as the point flashes toward his face.

A Drift-sword, flung from somewhere to the right, spins end over end. It catches my spear, and the two weapons tangle and clatter into the underbrush.

I barely register Theron straightening from his throw before Belos lets out a scream of rage. He vanishes.

My heart gives one hard thump before Belos appears before me. So fast. His teeth are bared, his eyes wide with madness. He grabs my throat, his fingers cold and tight. I can’t breathe, can’t think. My eyes play tricks with light and dark. I scrabble uselessly at his hands.

The surge of panic fades. Belos’s face darkens, recedes. I start to float. Thank the Lost Gods, or the Divine Light of the Ibrisians, or luck—I hardly care which. He will kill me. I will die with my mind my own.

When the earth cracks and shakes, I don’t feel it until I’m falling. Belos staggers back, bracing. Air rushes into my lungs.

Earth breaks and rises. It rolls like a wave on the sea, shaking the fighting men to their knees. Wind begins to shriek. For one disoriented moment, I think it’s the Hounding. Then I see Logan, face wild with power, standing in the wind’s heart. Air whips and streaks around him, tearing through the trees, ripping leaves, cracking branches, throwing stones.

Two feet from me, Belos staggers to his feet. He yells something furious and inarticulate. The earth rumbles away from him.

Logan stumbles, catches himself. He drops to a knee, one fist coming down like a hammer. When he strikes the earth, it ripples and buckles, catching men in its heaving.

Belos vanishes.

I cry out as the earth jerks beneath me. I tumble and roll, banging over roots and stones. I catch myself against a tree and cling to its rough bark. Wind and earth roar. This is not Belos. Or Theron. Neither has such wild earthmagic. Primal fear spikes through me. This power is uncontrolled. It’s chaos. It will destroy everything.

I strain against the screaming torrent of wind and earth, nails bending against the tree’s bark, muscles burning. I cry out when a loose branch streaks by, scraping down my injured side. I manage to work an eye around my tree and try to blink Logan into focus, but he is a shape only, a wavering one within the furious heart of the wind. Something glows beside him. I recognize Belos’s dark figure within the glow, like the painting in Heborian’s castle.

What happens next is unclear. My eyes must lie to me because Logan does something impossible. He vanishes into a wild rush of wind.

The wind streaks toward me. It tears at my face and chest, ripping my dress, scouring my skin. I scream.

Suddenly, it calms. In what seems a dream, the wind slips around me, envelops me.

But what holds me becomes real, solid, a strength already familiar. I smell ocean breeze, clean linen.

Logan presses me to his chest.

The world disappears. I am gone.

* * *

I wake at some point to find myself in the golden flow of the Current. It moves in many directions, like a network, like the Drift. But it lies deeper, moves more slowly. Though it flows, its points don’t shift.

I am pressed against Logan’s lighted form, enveloped by his wild energy. It is primal, deeply male. Something in me answers to it, and our edges blur, blending us. I feel him, I know him. I know that rage and pain lie deep within, that it wears him down to control them, to keep them hidden. I have never known such intimacy. Some distant part of my mind is shocked, frightened of what he might sense of me, but I don’t draw away. His face angles down, and his eyes look pained. I have no strength to ask him why, so I let myself float, losing myself in his wild, beautiful pattern.