Truthmarked (The Fatemarked Epic Book 2)

by David Estes

  Goggin snorted. “I fear your words are far too poetic for a simple man of few talents like me. I am only as loud and boisterous as I am to distract from my many faults.”

  “And yet you are loved by many.”

  “Most women are afraid I might eat them.”

  Raven shook her head. “You sell yourself short.”

  “There’s nothing short about me.”

  Fire joined the conversation. “You are good at breaking things,” she noted.

  “Much to my mother’s chagrin when, as an oversized youth, I tripped and knocked over her fine clay dishes,” Goggin said.

  “Tomorrow that will come in handy when we shatter the Gates.”

  “Indeed. I will aim my clumsiness at the wall and hope it breaks before my skull.”

  Fire laughed. “The Human Battering Ram. That should be your nickname.”

  “Beats Gogi. That’s what my sister used to call me, before she could pronounce Goggin.”

  “I wouldn’t say that too loud,” Raven said, “or the guanero will grab onto it and never let you hear the end of it.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Goggin said. “They already know about that old nickname, but the last time one of them used it he ended up dangling from his feet with his head halfway down my guanik’s throat. No one’s repeated it since.”

  Though Raven wasn’t sure whether the large man was japing or not, it was a stark reminder that the happy-go-lucky commander of the guanero was a warrior at heart, capable of fierce bouts of violence when necessary.

  Like Fire had said, they would need him and his warriors on the morrow.

  They crossed the river during the dark predawn threads, knitted together like a gray blanket across the Spear. Though the guanik were heavy beasts, they floated as well as wood, carrying their riders easily against the current with their powerful, churning legs. The rest of the army swam, carrying their leather armor and weapons above their heads and kicking ferociously.

  When they’d all forged the river, the tiniest sliver of sunlight peeked over the horizon. The Southron Gates, however, were cast in an ominous shadow, making them appear as an enormous slumbering beast, a pyzon perhaps, without beginning nor end.

  Would it swallow them whole? Raven wondered darkly. She shook her head. It was a foolish thought, for the Southron Gates were intended to keep intruders from the north from invading Phanes. As Fire had cleverly realized, an attack from the south would be completely unexpected. The element of surprise would serve them well on this day.

  Like an army of ghosts, they crept northward, hugging the edge of the river. No one spoke, the only sounds whispered by the river and the gentle scrape of leathers against steel. The lights of the easternmost Phanecian war city, Sousa, twinkled to the west, far enough away that they were not an immediate threat, though Raven knew once the attack began that enemy soldiers would pour forth, charging for the Gates.

  Raven tried not to think about that—the immediate concern was reaching the wall with minimal casualties.

  The eastern edge of the great southern wall rose up like a black cliff. Atop the wall, backlit human slashes patrolled, looking northward, oblivious to the silent invaders sneaking up from behind. In the event of an assault by the west, the Phanecians would shoot flaming arrows, catapult heavy stones, and dump large vats of burning tar over the edge. In the half-century since their construction, the Southron Gates had never been scaled, never been breached.

  Something tickled the back of Raven’s neck. A feeling. Something wasn’t right. “Fire,” she said.

  Her sister looked over at her, a grim expression masking her shadowed face. “The air is amiss,” the empress agreed, without Raven having spoken a single word, other than her name.

  “They should’ve seen us by now,” Raven said.

  “Their attention is elsewhere,” Fire said.

  That’s when Raven realized those patrolling the wall weren’t gazing northward, but to the southwest. And they weren’t moving slowly, they were running at full tilt, away from the end of the wall.

  “What in the name of the gods…” Goggin growled.

  A shout broke the silence, then another. The line of guanero pulled to a halt, scanning the wall. Had they been spotted? Raven wondered. But no, the patrols were still moving away, leaving this portion of the wall unprotected.

  She squinted into the distance, which was still cast in morning shadow, though the sun extended its reach second by second, its light gaining ground, revealing burnt redlands and then—

  “Gods save us,” Goggin murmured.

  A sea of bodies churned in the distance along the base of the wall, like an insectile scourge pouring from a shattered hive. The forms were headed west, their path aimed at the exact point on the wall the guanero were targeting.

  There were thousands, perhaps double the size of the Calypsian force.

  Faata’s slave army, Raven realized. He knows we’re coming.

  “Go!” Fire screamed into the wind.

  Thirty-Seven

  The Western Kingdom, Knight’s End

  Roan Loren

  His sister’s quarters, though lavish, smelled of fire. A charred mound of burnt books and papers sat in a corner next to a table and three chairs.

  “Leave us,” Rhea commanded the furia who had escorted them. Roan was still having trouble getting used to their dark stares and blade-like expressions. He wondered if the red-clad women were capable of smiling or laughing. He thought not.

  The three women didn’t seem to want to leave their queen unprotected with him, but they obeyed anyway. His younger sister wasn’t what he expected. She was stronger, more commanding, though he still had difficulty looking upon her scarred face.

  “Brother,” Rhea said. “Roan.”

  He was surprised, and he managed to meet her crystalline eyes, which sparkled. “You believe me?”

  “Yes. You and your mark explain so much. Too much. Your disappearance. Mother’s death. The lies. Everything. I believe you.”

  “Then you’ll help me?”

  “Of course, dear brother. So long as you make no attempt to usurp the throne. We are kin, after all.”

  There was something off about her tone. Insincere. Then again, he’d only just met her, perhaps this was always how she spoke. “What of the twins, Bea and Leo?”

  “They are safe,” she said, which Roan thought was a strange answer.

  “Can I see them?”

  “Eventually, perhaps. But this will all be very difficult for them to understand. They’re still children. I don’t want to confuse them.” She laughed lightly, though it sounded rehearsed to Roan’s ears. “Wrath, it’s confusing enough to me.”

  Roan gestured to her face. “They say you cut yourself. Is that true?”

  Rhea raised an eyebrow. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d meet you.”

  “That makes two of us,” Rhea said.

  Roan nodded. A question burned in his throat. “That man you executed…” She’d done it herself, plunging the knife into his skin. She’d killed him without hesitation. He couldn’t imagine doing something like that.

  “Yes?”

  “Who was he? What did he do to deserve such a fate?”

  “Ennis Loren. Our cousin. He disobeyed a direct command from me during the fight in the bay. He almost caused us to lose the battle.”

  Oh gods. She killed her own cousin. No, our cousin, he corrected in his head.

  Roan tried to keep his voice even. “Isn’t sentencing him to death a bit drastic?”

  Rhea sighed. She rubbed her eyes, and for the first time since he met her he thought maybe he was seeing the real her, the version that only appeared when she was alone, when her guard was down. Her eyes fell back on his, and there was great sadness in them. “I loved Ennis like my own brother. He was my most loyal supporter.”

  “Then why kill him?” Roan
was trying to understand, trying to reconcile the compassionate girl he saw in front of him now with the fierce queen who’d stabbed her own cousin in the chest during a public execution.

  “I gave him a choice. Banishment or death. The law gave me no other option,” Rhea said. “Who am I but a hypocrite if I don’t uphold the law? Ennis committed treason in wartime, a crime punishable by death. Offering him the mercy of banishment was as far as I dared go.”

  “And he chose death? Truly?”

  Rhea nodded sadly. “Evidently leaving the west was a fate worse than death to Ennis.”

  “But there were no other witnesses, right? You could’ve pretended it never happened. No one would’ve known.” And then he wouldn’t be dead. I wouldn’t have had to watch you kill him.

  “I would’ve known,” Rhea said. “I’d never look at him the same way again. I’d never be able to trust him. And I wouldn’t be able to look my people in the eyes and pretend to be the righteous queen they believe me to be.”

  Roan, in a way, could understand that. His sister was a woman of principle, it appeared. He changed the subject. “Why did you burn these books?” He gestured to the charred pile.

  “They’re from the Archives. I asked for information on the Western Oracle, and it turns out my archivists were not nearly as obedient as I’d hoped them to be.”

  “They tried to destroy everything?” Roan felt sick. They came all this way and the very information they sought had been tossed in the fire just before he arrived. “Did anything survive?”

  “I don’t know. We can go through it in a moment. First I want to talk about your mark.”

  Roan worried he’d made a massive mistake in revealing his mark. He’d agreed with Gwen and Gareth that he wouldn’t. And yet, as he had stood before his sister, his mark had pulsed in his chest. It had seemed to be telling him it was time. Still, he’d acted on instinct, without really thinking about the consequences. She could kill him on principle, as she had their cousin. The furia could force her to act. He needed to find out whether the decision was folly. “Don’t you mean my sinmark?”

  Rhea waved the word away. “I only said that for the sake of my furia. They expect me to act a certain way. I have a reputation to uphold. My people aren’t ready for the idea that they’ve been lied to their entire lives.”

  Roan gaped. This was too good to be true. “But what about what you said earlier, about obeying the western law, about not being a hypocrite?”

  “This is different. This law was based on a lie. The law needs to change.”

  Roan could feel his heart beating in his chest as he asked the most critical question yet. “So you believe the marks have a greater purpose?”

  “You could say that.” She explained what she’d learned so far. The marked girl, Shae Arris, who the furia referred to as the key, being taken south, in search of something; the symbols they’d found, matching known fatemarks; the map that showed the locations of other important documents.

  “I read something about a Peacemaker,” she said. “I wonder who that is? I’ve already met Kings’ Bane, and—”

  “You have?” Roan interrupted.

  “Sort of. I haven’t spoken to him. At the time, I was cowering like a pathetic little girl while he killed half the palace, including Father. I’m rather embarrassed about the whole thing.”

  Embarrassed? Her father had just been murdered and she was…embarrassed? Roan said, “I’ve met Bane twice. I’ve spoken to him. I stopped him from killing the heir to the eastern throne.”

  Rhea’s eyebrows went up, and a flash of anger crossed her face. “Gareth Ironclad? Why would you protect him?”

  “Because I could. Because he’s my friend.”

  Slowly, slowly, the anger melted from her face. “You are a…good man,” she said. “I can sense it. But what does your mark do? What does it mean?”

  Suddenly, Roan felt like this was all wrong, like he was trapped behind iron bars, locked in a dungeon. He spoke slowly, considering each word. “I can heal people. That’s how I saved Gareth.”

  “Hmm.”

  That’s all she had to say? Hmm? He was about to speak when there was a knock on the door. “You may enter,” Rhea said.

  One of the furia came in, glanced at Roan, and then approached the queen, whispering something in her ear behind a cupped hand. As the message was delivered, Rhea’s eyes snapped to Roan’s.

  When the woman had left, Roan asked, “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Rhea waved the question away. “It’s just western business. Nothing for you to be concerned with.”

  Roan had been considering something since he saw his sister. Since he saw her face. “You know, my mark, its power…I can heal your face if you want me to.”

  The question seemed to freeze her, her eyes wide and unblinking, like a deer caught in torchlight. And then the moment passed, and she was the girl on the dais again, executing a man without hesitation. “Why would I want that? I cut my face in honor of Wrath. I am his servant.”

  Roan heard the determination in her voice. There was no point in arguing, not about this anyway. Perhaps later, after they’d become better acquainted. But there was another topic he needed to discuss with her. “Listen, Rhea, we have a chance to forge a real peace across the Four Kingdoms. With my mark and my alliance with Gareth Ironclad, and your reputation as a righteous queen, we can—”

  “I’ve been told Gareth Ironclad is missing. His brother, Grian, has declared himself king. He’s been amassing troops from all corners of the eastern kingdom.”

  “That may be true,” Roan said, “but I know where Gareth is. We can talk to him together, create the first alliance between the east and the west in a hundred years. We can do it together.” All the words he’d been thinking since he decided to finally return to Knight’s End jumbled together in his head, seeking a way out. He couldn’t stop until he’d emptied his brain of them. “We can change the way westerners think about the marks. I can heal the sick and injured, show them the good things the marks can do. We can use my power to unite the kingdoms.”

  Rhea tapped her teeth with long fingernails. Roan was getting more used to the scars on her face now. They almost blended in with the rest of her, becoming a part of her. He might not understand why she wanted to keep her scars, but he couldn’t deny the fact that they seemed to define her in an unexplainable way. “You sound an awful lot like a Peacemaker,” Rhea finally said.

  Roan couldn’t hide it any longer. The truth was the only thing that could set him free. So he told her. Everything. Start to finish.

  When he was done, she nodded, as if she’d known much of it already.

  “You are the Peacemaker,” she said.

  It wasn’t a question, but Roan felt like he should answer. “Yes. I think so. That’s what Bane called me.”

  “The message I received earlier. It was from one of a dozen riders I sent south, to try to recover the marked girl and the map. The rest are dead. Would you like to hear what she has to say?”

  This was why Roan was here. To learn. To solve the mysteries of his past. “Yes.”

  The woman was chained to a bed, her red clothing ripped, clinging to her skin, which was pale between the tatters, except where it was slashed deeply, all the way to the bone. She was convulsing, her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Roan turned to the side and vomited.

  Rhea stepped forward like nothing was wrong. She grabbed the woman’s chin, forcing her face toward her. Eyes still rolled back, body still convulsing. “Tell me what you saw in the Dead Isles,” she commanded.

  The woman froze, eyes rolling forward, her gaze frantic and unfocused. “The dead, everywhere. Not men, not horses. Both. They killed them. They killed them all.”

  “I don’t care about the dead,” Rhea said. “What about the rutting girl? The one with the rutting mark? Shae Arris. And the map. Where is the Wrath-damn map?”

  Roan wiped his mouth, shocked by the obscenity-laden outburst f
rom his younger sister. How did she become this way?

  “Gone,” the woman said. “All gone.”

  “What about the girl’s brother, Grey. Did you find him?” There was desperation in her tone, in her eyes.

  “He found us,” the woman said, spit dribbling down her chin.

  “What happened to him?” Rhea said, grabbing the woman’s torn dress, pulling her face closer.

  The woman shook her head. “Don’t know. Dead all around us. I ran. They hunted me. Everyone dead. I made it to the boats. Somehow. Somehow…”

  Rhea’s teeth were clamped tightly together, her breaths whistling between them. She seemed to be fighting for control of herself. “Is that all?” she finally said.

  “No. Found something else. Swallowed it. It’s inside of me.” The woman’s eyes rolled back and she convulsed several more times before going still.

  Rhea reached out and placed her hand in front of the woman’s mouth and nose. “She’s dead,” she said. Turning to one of the furia she said, “Cut her open. Bring me what she found after you clean it up.”

  Thirty-Eight

  The Western Kingdom, Knight’s End

  Rhea Loren

  Roan was alive and marked. And he was also the Peacemaker foretold by the Oracle’s prophecy. And Grey had gone to the Dead Isles. He had found his sister. And now he was probably…

  She refused to think it.

  Has the world gone mad?

  Rhea and Roan had been going through the burnt documents for a few hours, waiting for the contents of the dead furia’s stomach to be brought up. Roan hadn’t spoken much. Good, she thought. Let him be scared of me. I may need his fear soon enough.

  I can heal your face if you want.

  Wrath. The temptation was great. She could have everything she’d ever wanted back. Her beauty. And it wouldn’t take away her power, would it? She would still be queen. Beauty and power—the combination would be unbreakable.

  No. She knew it would change everything. Change her. Change what her people thought of her. It wasn’t until her face had been mutilated, her beauty stripped away, that she realized she never needed it in the first place. It didn’t define who she was and what she was capable of. The scars on her face were the best thing that ever happened to her.