The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  Su-Hwan’s cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”

  Jedoh shrank away in the distance and, as the sun began to set, the chill turned biting. Bray glanced back down at the list of names in the paper, still clutched in her fist. Her eye landed immediately upon the name Allon Lamhart.

  Her lips compressed. If Yarrow’s family had been attacked, he would have sensed it. He would have gone to them, without hesitation. That was his nature.

  Be safe, she thought to herself like a prayer. By all the Spirits, Yarrow, be safe.

  Chapter Twenty

  Quade Asher is a cruel man.

  “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, Arlow,” Quade said, not turning his face from the window as he spoke. Silhouetted against the bright morning light, his mien—wide, erect shoulders, hands clasped at the small of his back—appeared somehow spiritly, indomitable.

  “Yes, it is,” Arlow agreed, tone light. He sipped his tea and set the cup on the mahogany desk before him. Quade Asher is a cruel man.

  Quade turned his head just enough to peer in Arlow’s direction. “You brought your own tea?” he asked, and Arlow feared he detected suspicion in the man’s question.

  “Mm,” Arlow said. “Doc gave it to me for headaches.” He smacked his lips a few times. “Nasty stuff, I’m afraid.”

  “Headaches? Are you unwell?”

  The concern and warmth in Quade’s tones sent a wave of calm through Arlow’s frame. He braced himself against the sensation and swilled another mouthful of tea. Quade Asher is a cruel man. “Nothing serious.”

  Quade at last moved from his window, turning the full force of his presence inward. He strode around his desk, his gait slow and predatory, until he came to rest just behind Arlow’s chair. “You are under duress.” Arlow’s stomach muscles clenched as gentle fingertips probed his temples. “It must be taxing—pretending to be something you are not, fearing detection, fearing what should happen should your perfidy be uncovered.” Quade’s fingers moved in soothing circles, his voice humming beautifully in Arlow’s ear. Arlow hoped that it was paranoia alone that heard the double meaning in the man’s words.

  “I don’t worry about it much,” Arlow said, summoning every ounce of bravado he could muster. “Nor should you. I’m nothing if not lucky. No, if anything can be said to cause my aching head, it’s the smell. You would simply not believe how filthy these people are.”

  Quade let his hands drop and took a seat in his own chair, the leather squeaking as he leaned his weight back. He laughed, though Arlow could not judge if the humor were genuine or not. “How trying.”

  “Indeed.” Arlow sipped his tea, grateful for the distance. “Thievery I might forgive, but negligent personal hygiene? Never.”

  Quade laughed again, his black eyes glinting in his pale face. “You say he smuggled my workers out by boat? That was cleverly done.”

  Arlow shrugged. “He is clever. That much I must allow.”

  “Is he in contact with the disaffected Chisanta?”

  “I think he must be,” Arlow said, assuming a look of thoughtfulness. “I know he had someone on the inside at the dig, someone posing as a site director. He must not trust me, yet. I was not offered the position. I have not seen any Chisanta, but he does write a great deal of correspondence.”

  Quade sighed. “I’ve spoken with several eye-witnesses. They say the Chisanta was a young Dalishman with dark hair. A Cosanta. It would seem he did not offer a name and the staff were too in awe to ask.” He said this with a clipped, annoyed tone that made Arlow almost feel badly for Ms. Topher. She likely was not dealt with kindly for that oversight. “Any notions?”

  Arlow shook his head. “Could be any number of people…sounds a bit like Yarrow.”

  Quade smirked, sending a chill down Arlow’s back. “If Yarrow Lamhart was involved, I will know for certain quite soon.”

  “Oh?”

  The office door opened and a young Elevated girl entered with a tray of sandwiches and a fresh pot of tea. She bowed to Quade. “Anything else?”

  “No, this will do nicely. Thank you, Edina.”

  Quade was quiet for a time, as he poured two steaming cups and distributed the lunch things between them. Arlow contemplated the beef sandwich before him with little enthusiasm. His gut seemed to be clamped too tightly for the admittance of food.

  “I presume the Pauper’s King has seen the news,” Quade said lightly as he squeezed lemon into his cup. He licked his fingers in a languorous way.

  “He has.” Arlow took a bite of his sandwich, if only to give himself an excuse to think and not answer.

  “Does he intend to involve himself?”

  Arlow was having a hard time swallowing. The food lodged itself in his throat. When at last his mouth was clear, he said, “I believe he is considering it. In fact, I think he may be close to trusting me. Knowing I was to meet you today, he asked me to wriggle certain information from you—a test of my loyalty, I think.”

  Quade patted his mouth with a linen napkin. “Interesting. What is he hoping to learn?”

  “He asked that I discover where you are housing your prisoners and if you truly mean to kill them, or if it is merely a ploy to root out the rebels.”

  Quade’s thin lips curled at the corners like a roll of parchment. “Ah, intriguing.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “And what should we tell him?”

  “I expect he will feel less obligated to obstruct you if he believes no innocent lives are in danger.”

  Quade unexpectedly rose, tossing his napkin down. “Come, Arlow. I have something to show you.”

  Arlow followed Quade down the hallway, a growing sense of unease compromising his outward cool. They passed few others as they made their way down several flights of stone steps and crossed the main atrium, then took yet another flight of stairs tucked discreetly beside a suit of armor. The dankness in the air and the lack of natural light did not help Arlow’s increasing panic. What if he knows? What if he knew all along?

  An Elevated lad stood guard outside a thick wooden door. He straightened at Quade’s approach.

  “You are relieved,” Quade said. The boy bowed and scurried back the way they had just come. Looking up and down the hall, Arlow grew certain that this basement was a prison. It seemed like something out of a sensation novel—torture chambers hidden deep underground, below the palace itself.

  If Quade were to lock him away, what would become of him? What would Mae think if he simply never returned?

  “Do you know what I like about you, Arlow?” Quade asked. He placed fingers around the base of Arlow’s neck and applied pressure.

  Arlow felt dizzy at the contact. Quade Asher is a cruel man. He gazed into Quade’s face, rendered gaunt in the torchlight. “No.”

  “You are not given to heroics. You are someone who looks out for himself above all else. A man like that is easy to trust as long as you are offering him more than any competitor.” Quade stepped terribly close, so that he was whispering directly into Arlow’s ear. His breath tickled at the small hairs within. “The Pauper’s King has nothing to offer a man like you. I, however, can give you power, wealth, security. All you could want.”

  Arlow gulped. He could feel Quade’s influence washing over him like a warm rain shower. Half his mind had grown drowsy and content, the other desperate at the thought of losing himself once again. “That is how I know I can trust you, Arlow. But I understand the Pauper’s King can be a persuasive man, so let me show you one more thing of yours that I have.”

  Quade opened the cell door. It was too dark within to distinguish anything, so he removed a torch from the wall and directed the light into the chamber.

  “Yarrow!” Arlow bellowed, before he could stop himself.

  His friend was tied to a chair, naked, plainly the worse for wear—his face puffy and discolored, flesh chafed around the bindings. His head slumped to the side, unconscious. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest gave Arlow any comfort.

  Quade made a shushi
ng sound, as if to calm a startled colt. Arlow froze as a hand began to stroke his hair, affectionately. Quade Asher is a…is a…

  “If you trust me,” Arlow finally asked, his voice quavering. “Why are you threatening me?”

  “It is not a threat, my friend. It is a reward.” Quade paused. “Despite the fact that your friend is an enemy, I will let you have him. If you do your part well.”

  Arlow swallowed with difficulty, his mouth parched. “What would you have me do?”

  Quade smiled, baring all of his perfect teeth. “An excellent question.”

  Yarrow’s hips swiveled and his arm extended in a slow swoop, forming Floating Down Stream. The long grass on the second ledge of the Aeght a Seve brushed at his bare calves.

  Bare? he thought, distantly. Why am I naked?

  Sunlight soaked into the top of his head and shoulders, the warmth not quite touching something cold deeper within.

  Like a mental fracture, he experienced a short flash of confusion, as if being in two places at once: one part of him in the Place of Five, another part in immense agony, in a dark room that smelt of pain, full of the metallic tang of blood, the pungent bite of sterilizer.

  The moment of dissonance passed. He closed his eyes and his lips curved into a contented smile. He lifted his foot, toes pointed, and turned, weight shifting from his left side to his right. The alignment of his body and the earth sang a harmony through his core and limbs. The tree in the clearing below him—the Confluence—kept company like an old friend, a guard against the distant terrors that tugged at him.

  Divide the Air smoothly transitioned to Circle, his hands cradling a sphere of wind as he shifted.

  White-hot pain shot up his hand, halting his step. The Aeght a Seve quivered around him, then shattered. Its peace and light crumbled away in an instant, forcing him back to reality.

  “I see,” a gravelly voice said with mocking empiricism. “Cutting arbitrarily could not pull you from your mental hiding place, but divesting you of a finger does the trick. I will bear that in mind.”

  Yarrow stared in round-eyed disbelief at his right hand, splayed spread-finger on a rough oaken table—at the place where his pinky finger had once connected to his hand. The finger lay on its side, like a discarded thing, a few inches from his hand. Blood gushed from the wound, but for a long second he could feel nothing. It isn’t real. If it were real, it would be painfu—

  And then his senses caught up. He bellowed, despite a previous resolution to remain mute in the face of torture, and twitched against his bindings. It felt like fire to a nerve. Sharp, searing—the pain centered in his hand, but firing up his arm, shooting all the way to his toes curled against the bare stone floor.

  His muscles slackened and his head drooped, the bearded face of his tormentor grew fuzzy.

  “No you don’t.” Icy water struck him full in the face. He shuddered and spewed, blinked furiously. Freezing rivulets ran down his exposed skin. The man tsked. “No passing out. Not when you’ve only just joined us. That would be terribly rude.”

  The palm of a hand struck his left cheek with a resounding slap. His head wrenched to the right as far as his neck would permit.

  “Get Quade,” the man said to someone behind him. “Tell him I’ve got him out at last.”

  A sliver of torch-lit hallway appeared and, just as quickly, disappeared as a door opened and closed. Yarrow panted, panicked. Not Quade.

  He screwed his eyes shut and clamped his jaw, tried with every ounce of his remaining mental force to envision himself performing the Ada Chae. To see his hands rise up before him in Warm Hands over Fire.

  That same palm slapped his cheek a few more times, lightly, as if with affection. “Now, now, none of that. Go away again and I’ll just have to cut off more fingers.” His glove circled Yarrow’s ring finger. “Or perhaps there are some other parts you could stand to lose. I understand you don’t have much use for this one anymore.” Yarrow felt the blunt end of a knife tap the bit of him in question, between his legs. “Want me to rid you of it?”

  Yarrow’s eyelids sprung open, horror slithering down his insides—even the fire in his hand, for a moment, forgotten. His tormentor squatted before him, so they were face-to-face. His black beard split, revealing a line of unusually straight, white teeth. A smile, Yarrow supposed. The man was older by at least a decade; not a kidnapped youth, but a regular Chisanta. The thought made Yarrow’s mouth turn down in disgust.

  “Don’t you dare,” a cheery voice said from the right side of the room. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a nude model these days?”

  Yarrow lolled his head to the side to look at the speaker. A young, sandy-haired man hunched over a drawing pad—the reason Yarrow could not use his gifts. The lad’s blackened fingertips gripped a stick of charcoal, his brown eyes darting up from paper in regular intervals.

  The bearded man snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think Quade went to all this trouble for your sake, Whythe.” He stood and strode behind Yarrow. A gloved hand clenched around Yarrow’s neck, forcing his head straight. “If you want to draw the poor bastard, better do it fast. He won’t be with us for long, I think.”

  “A pity,” Whythe murmured to the sound of charcoal scraping paper. “He has perfect bone structure.”

  Yarrow’s mind strayed from the inanity of this conversation, back to the agony of his hand. His eyes flicked to his severed finger. He wondered, had he the use of his gifts, whether he would be able to heal himself. He was not certain, but suspected not. He’d only needed to heal others when he’d made the sacrifice. Gifts had an unpleasant way of including such inconvenient parameters, as they were usually born to meet the need of a particular circumstance rather than out of general utility.

  This none-too-buoying contemplation was cut short by the opening of the door. The form of Quade Asher crossed the small space like a shadow, silently. Yarrow discerned the sharp profile of his face—the spear of a nose, the thin mouth, two black eyes alight with firelight and malice.

  “Yarrow Lamhart,” he said in deep, honeyed tones. “How good of you to join us.” He looked down at the bloody mess on the table and tutted. “Was this really necessary, Jorren? They were such nice hands.” Quade withdrew a handkerchief from his own pocket, sat in the seat beside his prisoner, and began to tenderly wrap the wounded appendage. Yarrow choked back a scream as the fabric pulled against the open wound. He watched the snowy cloth turn crimson.

  Quade sandwiched Yarrow’s fingers between his own two gloved hands, delicately. “How is the pain?”

  Yarrow had to admit that, with Quade’s attention, it had become far more manageable. Rationally, he knew this was Quade’s gift in play, but the alleviation was so sweet it was difficult to keep that fact in mind. He cleared his throat. “Is this your plan?” He raised his eyebrows with a censure he did not truly feel. “Your dog there is the stick and you the carrot? A bit transparent, don’t you think?”

  Quade laughed. “Oh, very good. Excellent bravado, really.” He scooted his chair in closer and relaxed his posture. He kept one hand gently clasping Yarrow’s injury, the other he placed on a bare knee, much to Yarrow’s discomfort. “My mother used to say there are as many kinds of people as shells on the shore,” he said conversationally. “But she was wrong. There aren’t so many types, only a few. Most can be grouped easily. Still, I find them fascinating, people. What makes them tick. Who they really are, when all inhibition and expectations are stripped away. You might be surprised, Mr. Lamhart, how a man changes when under duress.”

  Yarrow responded with only a glower, though Quade’s words inspired a spasm of fear.

  “It is one of my keenest pleasures,” Quade continued, “to discover a man’s breaking point. To find out just how much he can stand.”

  Yarrow shivered again.

  “Ah, you’re cold.” Quade said. “No wonder, wet in these damp chambers.” He stood and moved beyond Yarrow’s line of sight. He returned with a towel.

  Eve
ry muscle in Yarrow’s body tensed, he turned his head away as Quade’s intention became clear. The man kneeled and, with gentle, fastidious movements, blotted away the wetness from Yarrow’s skin. “You have done well, Yarrow Lamhart. You have held strong in the face of torture. You have not betrayed your friends. I admire that. Loyalty is an admirable quality; in fact it is one I seek in my own friends.” The towel worked its way across Yarrow’s chest, drying but also rubbing the countless lacerations he’d received over the past days. He gritted his teeth.

  “What I admire most about you is this, though.” Four gloved fingers drummed against Yarrow’s forehead. “Ah, what a mind. What a tool for our cause. So much information. Because I respect you, Yarrow Lamhart, I am not going to break you, no matter how much I should like to. And I could, I hope you know. Not only could I inflict more pain upon you than you could bear, but I have your entire family in my custody. I have a feeling that if it was your old ma’s fingers at risk, we’d hear you sing.”

  Yarrow’s lips thinned, his heart slamming in his chest cavity.

  “But I won’t do that. I’ll let you win, Yarrow. You don’t have to betray your friends, nor watch your family suffer. Soon, an exceptional young lady will join us. She has the ability to hear thoughts and pull information from the mind. You see, this way everyone wins. I get the intelligence I so need, and you get to know that you did not crack under pressure. And then you and I can spend more time together.” Quade flashed a blinding smile. “You’ll like me better than you think. We have much in common, you and I. We share a certain—well, never mind that for now.”

  The full force of Quade’s charm hit Yarrow like a physical wave. His muscles went slack and his heart slowed to a normal rhythm.

  Quade tossed the towel aside. “There. That’s better, isn’t it?” Against Yarrow’s will, his head bobbed in assent. “Wonderful.” Quade stood. “Until tomorrow, then.”