The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  Yarrow’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

  “Besides,” Arella said with a smirk. “Davis knows well enough who wears the pants in our relationship.”

  Yarrow laughed. “That’s my girl.”

  She hugged him—and he couldn’t help but think of how small she had once been. But there was no use holding onto the image of her as a child any longer. She was a woman now. An intelligent, vibrant woman who stole the spotlight in any room she entered.

  Blue.

  “Are you ready to meet your granddaddy, little man?” Arella asked the baby in her arms. He drooled in response and looked around with wide curious eyes. Yarrow took hold of his grandson gingerly—he hadn’t held a baby in over two decades. He had forgotten how small they were, how breakable they seemed.

  His grandson babbled nonsense words then spit up all over the front of Yarrow’s robes. The babe laughed, pleased with himself.

  Arella snickered. “I swear, he does this every time I let someone else hold him. Like he’s saving it up or something.” She pulled a cloth from her bag and wiped at the spit-up on Yarrow’s clothes.

  The room blurred and, this time, Yarrow knew it was the last of these visions he would see.

  He lay on a bed, and he could see by the spots on his hands, by the dry wrinkled skin of his arms, that he was quite old. He felt old—old and tired and sick.

  He was dying.

  The thought did not inspire any fear. He was prepared to die, eager for it. He longed to be with his wife again. The past four years without her had been lonely and flat. As if, by her departing, he had lost one of his senses, and could no longer experience the world properly. Had it not been for his daughter and grandsons, he was sure to have been in a desperate state.

  The door opened and Arella came in, trailed by her husband and four sons. What a handful they had been a few years back, when they were young and boisterous. Normally they were boisterous still, despite being in their teens. Only, they were reserved now in the face of their grandfather’s imminent passing. A pity—Yarrow would have liked to die to the sound of laughter.

  “Daddy,” Arella said, taking his hand in her own. Tears ran down her face, and Yarrow felt her pain, her fear of losing him. He wished he could ease it. He was always surprised to see how old she had become. Her face was lined around the eyes and cheeks, the marks of a woman who laughed often. She looked so like her mother had at that age.

  “No tears,” Yarrow said. He smiled.

  “You can’t go…I’ll miss you too much.” Arella squeezed his hand.

  “I’ll miss you too, baby girl. But I’m ready to go—to be with your mother again.”

  She nodded, trying to look brave. A tear dripped from her chin and hit his bed.

  “Arella, you brought us so much joy. I…”

  Yarrow trailed off, the darkness closing in. The last thing he knew of the world, before he departed from it, was the pressure of his daughter’s hand in his own.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Yarrow—the Yarrow of the present—jerked alert, pulling sharply at the wound in his gut. The sphere rolled out of his hands and hit the floor with a thump.

  Where is Arella? It seemed as though she had just passed from the room, as if he should be able to hear her laughter through the wall.

  All he heard was the worried voices above them and the rocking of the sea. As his mind found purchase, he felt a peculiar dejection settle upon him. A tear fell from each eye simultaneously, as if synchronized, hot and wet on his cheeks. Arella had not just left the room. She did not exist. She had never existed.

  The sphere rolled along the floor with the rocking of the ship. Yarrow watched its lazy progress and wondered at its nature. All he knew was that it helped a person understand the sacrifice at hand, because only with full understanding, and with a great deal of regret, could a sacrifice be given. But did that mean it could show the future? Was Arella Lamhart the child he and Bray would have, or was she merely a possibility?

  It seemed impossible that a person so real and solid, a person he could remember holding in his arms, could be hypothetical. Either way, he knew he could not give her up. She was vital, to both him and Bray. How could he have possibly considered making such a sacrifice? No. He would not.

  Footfall sounded on the stair and Bray returned, her face pale and eyes wild.

  “Yarrow!” Her hands gestured frantically. “Why did you move?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Her eyes trained on the wetness upon his cheeks. “Does it hurt so bad?”

  It did, rather. He made a noncommittal nod.

  “Ko-Jin reckons we’re out far enough now to throw the thing overboard,” Bray said, catching the sphere as it made to roll by her.

  “Can you help me up?” Yarrow asked.

  Bray’s lips pursed, but she did not protest. Rather, she pulled Yarrow up, allowing him to rest his weight against her. Together, they made their way up the stairs.

  It was full morning, but the sun had hidden behind a veil of clouds. Yarrow crossed the deck, though every step pained him. He located the cruiser immediately. By comparison, every other vessel looked small as toy boats. It was still a short ways off, but at the speed it progressed it would be upon them soon enough. Would they know that this was the correct ship? How long would it take for them to discover the truth?

  Bray eased Yarrow down onto an overturned barrel.

  “So, we just drop it overboard?” Bray asked.

  “Yes,” Ko-Jin said. He leaned against the rail for support, as his deformed foot taken with the swaying of the boat clearly made it difficult for him to stand. “Do you mind if I do the honors?”

  Bray handed the sphere over. Ko-Jin looked down at the thing for a moment, it illuminated the sharp planes of his face in blue light. He then held it out over the railing.

  “Good riddance.” He turned the palm of his hand and let the sphere roll from his grasp and fall. Yarrow heard the plunk it made as it hit the water. In his mind’s eye, he watched it sink beneath the depths, puzzling fish with its light, until it finally found its home in the seabed, far far below. Its effect winked out and Yarrow’s mind filled with the feelings of others. Ko-Jin transformed before their eyes, his back and leg straightening, his muscles expanding.

  The fisherman whistled. “Well there’s a thing I never thought I’d see.”

  Ko-Jin exhaled in relief.

  “Do you think they’ll be able to find it again?” Bray asked.

  “No,” Yarrow said with utter confidence. It would rest there for five hundred years—the modern-day Fifth had predicted it.

  “Now what?” Bray asked.

  “We’ll have to surrender,” Ko-Jin said. “What else is there to do? We couldn’t outrun them and we owe it to these people not to try. Besides, they won’t be able to contain you, Bray. Not without the sphere. You can go back, tell our brothers and sisters what is happening here.”

  The cruiser had halved its distance. It passed a fishing ship without halting and continued towards their own vessel.

  They know.

  “Do you have a spy-glass?” Bray asked the fisherman.

  “Aye,” the bearded man said, handing over a brass tube. Bray took it and peered through the long, gleaming object.

  “Vendra,” she said, handing the spy-glass to Ko-Jin.

  Yarrow’s stomach clenched. Vendra—Adearre’s murderer. She would kill without remorse.

  “You should head back to shore after this. You’ll make fast time on the train,” Ko-Jin said to Bray.

  She glared at him. “If you think I’m leaving you, you do not know me. I will stay and I will fight.”

  Yarrow knew she meant what she said, and dread filled his gut. After watching Vendra shoot Adearre, and feeling her total lack of concern, he could not imagine this confrontation ending without further death. As little as he wanted to think it, the rational voice within him whispered: Is it really worth risking their lives to save a spirit that does not, may n
ot ever, exist? His gaze lingered on Ko-Jin, his dearest friend. He appeared barely able to stand.

  “Bray?” Yarrow asked. “Could you help me below again?”

  “That would probably be for the best,” Ko-Jin said. “If things go badly, you won’t be much use in a fight. Henril and Molla, you’d better go below as well.”

  “I won’t be ordered about on me own ship,” the bearded man said. His wife crossed her arms, the hard lines of her face equally mutinous.

  Bray nodded absently at Yarrow and chewed on her lip. Her feelings thrummed with tension, worry. He leaned against her and she aided him down the stairway again.

  “I have a plan,” Yarrow said to her, when he was once again deposited in the chair.

  Bray’s eyebrows rose.

  “I will need time though. Stall as long as you can, and keep the others away.”

  “Yarrow, what is—”

  He cut her off. “No time to explain. Just trust me.”

  Then Yarrow took her hand and pulled her down, pressed his lips to hers with force.

  She broke away, anger flashing in her eyes. “Don’t you kiss me goodbye, Yarrow Lamhart.”

  “That wasn’t goodbye,” he said, letting her go. “It was for luck.”

  She offered him one last uncertain glance, then pounded back up the steps, leaving him alone.

  He heaved a great breath. It had to be done. Involuntarily, Arella’s face sprung into Yarrow’s mind. He wanted to rumple her hair, hear her laugh, hold her close. But he could not—he never would. The shards of his heart ached, a hard lump formed in his throat.

  When the thing you must lose is too great to bear, when the thought of it makes you weep like a child, beat your breast like a madman, and rip your hair like a widow, only then may it be sacrificed.

  He understood that quote now in a way he never had before.

  Yarrow closed his eyes; he needed to go to the Aeght a Seve. It was more easily done by bodily practice of the Ada Chae, but he knew that to be a physical impossibility. He would have to do the exercise mentally.

  Yarrow took a deep breath and, in his mind’s eye, began the form. Warm Hands over Fire yielded smoothly into Brush the Dragonfly. The forms helped to ease some of his frazzled, desperate feelings. But the peace, the relaxation, would not come. Slow Lash made way to Wafting Arms, and still his mind would not settle.

  It’s the drugs. They still pumped in his veins. That was why he could not sleep. They had been given to him just for this reason—if his mind could not find peace, he could not enter the Aeght a Seve. And if he could not enter that place, he could receive no additional gifts.

  He heard the scuffle of boots on wood above him and raised voices. Were the enemy upon them already? He formed To and Fro then Floating Down Stream, but, if anything, his success was lessening.

  More footsteps—too many footsteps—sounded above him. They had been boarded.

  Yarrow tried to fight down his panic, his mind frayed.

  And then it occurred to him: if Bray could enter the Place of Five though the Ada Chae, he must be able to do so through the Tearre.

  Again, Yarrow closed his eyes. There was a yell followed by the thud of a body hitting the deck. He shoved it aside. Instead, he imagined his Mearra standing across from him. He lent his mirror-self detail, imagined what he would be feeling. That was easy enough; he would be panicked, concerned, distraught, just as Yarrow was.

  His alternate self popped into existence with uncommon alacrity. Yarrow lacked the physical ability to fight. He would have to perform the Tearre mentally. He hadn’t done this with any success before, but there was nothing for it.

  He imagined himself taking a swing. His Mearra dodged. Almost instantly, Yarrow felt a kind of frenzy stir within him. The stimulants, the fear, the desperation coming together, making him sweat, making him breathe heavily, making his mind vibrate. His Mearra kicked but he stepped fluidly out of harm’s way.

  He became aware of the Aeght a Seve, but rather than relaxing into it, he grabbed hold of it. Yanked it towards himself. Thrust himself into it.

  The boat disappeared, as did his pain. The Aeght a Seve appeared as it ever did, peaceful and warm. A soft breeze cooled his skin. It was a place indifferent to the plights of the living.

  I did it, Yarrow realized, but he could not summon any pleasure at the thought. To have succeeded was to bring himself one step closer to making the first sacrifice. To unmaking his daughter.

  Yarrow crossed the dry grass and came to the sheer edge of the place, shooting up into the sky like a monstrous stair. He knew he would have to climb it to attain his second gift, though it appeared impossibly high.

  Yarrow took a breath and backed away several steps. He ran and jumped, but thudded into the wall and fell back to the ground, scuffing his elbow.

  He picked himself up and dusted his robes clean, then backed up to try again. He charged, leapt, and crashed.

  Yarrow looked up at the ledge, at its impossible height, and recalled what he had learned long ago. The Aeght a Seve is not a physical place, though it seems physical once inside it. It is a place that tests strength of will. He would not make this jump by leaping higher, but by proving his willingness to give up what must be lost.

  Reluctantly, Yarrow called to mind what he had seen in the sphere. He made himself experience it again—holding his daughter in his arms, smelling her hair, laughing at her jokes, feeling that comfort she would give him as he died. He cherished her, touched at her memory with soft, fatherly fingertips. His chest ached and tears spilled forth once again.

  “I’m sorry, my baby girl,” he said softly. Then he ran, jumped, and, this time, his fingers found the edge. His other hand took hold as well, and slowly, with a great deal of effort, he pulled himself up. He rolled onto the second tier and lay there, flat on his back, panting and staring up at the clear blue sky.

  And he felt the loss. She was gone—utterly, irrevocably gone. But he also felt a gain, pathetic and small though it seemed by comparison. He could get them out.

  Bray watched the enemy board with a growing sense of alarm. There were perhaps sixty of them in total. They seemed to be the elite, the older. Though varied in nationality, and a mix of Chiona and Cosanta, they all bore a stunning resemblance in expression. They were cold-eyed, grim-lipped.

  Vendra stepped aboard with the air of a queen descending from her throne. Her features were haughty, her almond-shaped brown eyes triumphant.

  “Search the vessel,” she said, and several black-clad figures dispersed themselves about the boat. Three pounded down the stairs, where they would find Yarrow, helplessly wounded. Bray held her breath.

  They returned after several long moments, carrying Yarrow between them. For a moment she thought him unconscious, or worse. They carried him as if he were a dead weight. But after he had been thrown to the deck she saw the rise and fall of his chest. He rolled onto his back, his expression pained and his face tear streaked.

  There was something odd about his face, she thought. Something different—as if he had aged, somehow, in the minutes since she last saw him. She could still feel his lips pressed against hers, but looking at him, he seemed not to be the same man who had kissed her.

  “The sphere?” Vendra asked.

  “It’s not there, mistress,” a young man said.

  “Impossible. It must be hidden, is all.”

  Yarrow laughed, a strangled, desperate sound. She looked down at him, her mouth drawn thin in anger.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “It went for a swim,” Yarrow said, still laughing.

  Vendra’s eyes widened. “You lie.”

  “How big is this boat, Vendra?” he asked her. “Look at Ko-Jin. Can the sphere truly be here?”

  Vendra did look at Ko-Jin then, taking in his whole form, and her eyes narrowed. She dealt a swift, hard kick to Yarrows side, and he hissed in pain. Fresh blood began to soak his shirt.

  “You must have hidden it somewhere before boa
rding.”

  “No,” Ko-Jin responded coolly. His gaze darted to the railing, where he had dropped the sphere. “Go fish.”

  Vendra crossed the space between herself and Ko-Jin in an instant and struck him full across the face. He would have collapsed if he were not being held around the armpits by two large men.

  “You will board the ship,” Vendra said between clenched teeth, “and if you believed yourself mistreated before, you are about to discover the meaning of the word.”

  “No,” Bray said. Her jaw popped as she clenched her teeth.

  “No?” Vendra asked, her voice soft and dangerous.

  “You can’t take me.”

  Vendra pulled a pistol from the holster at her hip. “Did Yarrow tell you how your friend died?”

  Bray’s stomach clenched in anger. She did not reply, could not trust herself to speak.

  “I said I would shoot him. And then I did.” Vendra cocked the firearm with a resounding click. Then she pointed it directly at Yarrow’s head. “So know that I speak truth when I say this: if you do not come quietly, I will kill him.”

  Her dark eyes appeared almost bored, her tone flat and uninterested. Bray did not need Yarrow’s gift to know that this woman meant what she said.

  “We will all go quietly,” Yarrow said, “if you promise to leave these civilians alone. They did not know what they were doing.”

  Vendra gestured impatiently with her hand. “They aren’t important.” Then she turned to the orderly group of youngsters behind her. “Take them to the ship and lock them in the brig.”

  Rough hands pulled at Bray, and only the knowledge that Yarrow would otherwise be shot gave her the resolve to remain solid. She saw the same two young men pick Yarrow up and, as they bore him across the planks to the cruiser, she saw him wink at her.

  Bray’s brow furrowed. Had she imagined it? Could Yarrow truly have a plan? She hoped that he did, because what else was there to hope for? He was a handicap to her. She cared for him, and that would keep her as bound and contained as any normal woman.