The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  “So he’ll be here?” she asked, perking up. “The Pauper’s King?”

  “He’s here already. Somewhere or other.”

  Bray grinned. “Really?”

  She’d always wanted to see the man in person, to discover if he resembled his posters. She’d taken a liking to that rogue’s grin a long time ago.

  Yarrow cocked a dark brow at her and she shrugged, slumping back against the wall. “He’s a modern legend. Who wouldn’t want to meet him?”

  “Mmm,” Yarrow answered, smiling. “Here’s the last one.” He presented the final bloom.

  The strand of daisies was pooled on the floor before Bray, though she could barely recall having done the work. She tugged the last ribbon tight and held up the line of flowers. “There.”

  Yarrow turned to the completed bower. “I think the ceremony’s to start soon.”

  “I’ve never been to a wedding before,” Bray said. Funny, that Arlow Bowlerham’s should be her first. And that she should’ve helped with the decor. Lousy bastard.

  “Nor I,” Yarrow said, a twinkling in his eyes. Bray wondered if this were true. Had any of his Cosanta friends married? “I understand there is dancing. Perhaps you could teach me?”

  She laughed. “I’m liable to tread all over your feet.”

  “Have we danced before?”

  “No,” she said, thinking back to the ball in Accord. She had only danced with Jo-Kwan. The memory of that day felt warm and wonderful, despite the horror of it. Yarrow had been whole then, and they had been at the beginning of things. Adearre had been with them still. She wished she could slip back there, to that time.

  “Ah, we missed one,” Yarrow said, finding a single flower on the floor. He held it out to her with more ceremony than before. “This one should be yours, I think. A tip.”

  She smiled and took the offering, though she wasn’t certain what to do with it. “Thanks.” She spun the bloom between her fingers, shaking her head at the strangeness of life. “You’ve never given me a flower before either, come to think of it.”

  “It sounds as if I was a poor suitor.”

  She bit her lip at the word suitor. It wasn’t the right term, but there was little point in correcting him. “Well, dancing and flowers aren’t really my style, to be honest.”

  “No?” he asked, and his face was quite serious. He scrutinized her expression. She could not meet his gaze; it felt too hot, too sharp. “What is your style, then?”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps we should learn as we go?” Her heartbeat accelerated. “If you’d be willing to keep my company.”

  “I think,” he said, and her stomach clenched with dread at the slowness of his tone, “that I would like that very much.”

  She turned away so he wouldn’t see the relief wash over her features. For the first time since they parted ways, so many months ago, something hard within her chest eased. When she felt herself able, she rolled her head back to him. He wore a small, unconscious smile. She had to blink away a sudden hotness in her eyes, because she had seen that expression on his face many times before.

  Her initial diagnosis of him had not been quite right, she thought. He wasn’t the same as he had been, not exactly, but he was more himself than he was not. And she would have him, in whatever form.

  He could’ve been much more altered, and she would still have craved his presence. Any amount of Yarrow was enough. It would have to be.

  Chapter Four

  Vendra meandered up University Avenue, her old leather valise dangling from her fingers. The foot traffic skirted her like a river current round a stone. She felt herself to be a specter drifting amongst the living—less solid, less present than those around her.

  Despite the fog in her mind, she experienced a pang of nostalgia as she trod up that familiar lane. She had studied at Accord University in her youth, and before taking off with Quade had taught several classes in human chemistry as well. Those memories, however, seemed not to be a part of her. A tangent life.

  The day was cold but bright, and as she walked she angled her face to the sky. Sunshine, good for chemical balance.

  She approached Dedrre’s shop in the engineering building and found the door ajar, the sound of banging audible from a distance. Vendra always felt a child again around her grandfather’s work, soothed by the clangor.

  She ambled towards the sound. Leaning in the doorway, she watched Dedrre bend over a work table, and tried to recall just when his hair had turned to solid white. Her mental image of him remained gray-haired.

  “Making progress?” she asked.

  He removed a pair of goggles, but red circles remained around his eyes. “Might’ve had a breakthrough this morning. How are you? You look tired.”

  She roamed to his table. Pieces sprawled across the surface, but she could deduce the way the weapon would work based on the shapes before her: a pistol with a rotating chamber, able to fire multiple rounds; back-loading rather than front-loading. If it worked, it would change the face of violence.

  “What breakthrough?” she asked.

  He studied her with sharp brown eyes, clearly attuned to the fact that she had evaded his question.

  “Accuracy was a problem with my first prototype. Look here.” He tapped the blueprint on the table. His neat hand had drawn a spiral pattern, a groove within the barrel of the pistol.

  Some of the haze in Vendra’s mind dissipated as it began to churn, entering puzzle-solving mode.

  “The bullet would revolve…” She pointed a finger and spun it in a tight circle, mimicking the trajectory of a projectile shot from such a chamber. Something like a smile came to her lips. “Clever.”

  He bowed his head in acknowledgment, a quick grin flashing beneath his mustache.

  “I’m surprised, though,” she said. “That you would design a weapon like this.”

  His white brows descended. “I can’t say I don’t have fears about what might be done with it.” He placed a hand on his plans. “But when a dog’s gone feral, it needs to be put down. This is how I can help, this is all I can do to…”

  There was such bile in his voice. She could hear the protective rage on her account. She supposed she should be touched, but instead she frowned. Quade was her monster, and she would deal with him. She needed no defender.

  She tossed her bag down and hauled herself up onto an adjacent table. “Do you have any special plans for tomorrow?” The question left her lips coldly, almost like an accusation.

  She noticed the way his shoulders hardened, and the flash of emotion in his dark eyes. He returned his gaze to his work. “I’ll light a candle,” he said, “as I do every year.”

  “A candle,” she said, tonelessly. “Why did I never think of that?”

  He turned to her and a blazing look transfigured his face. “Don’t trivialize, Vendra,” he said in a tight voice. “The pain of losing a child—by all the Spirits, may you never know it.”

  She sighed. “Sorry, Grandfather. I didn’t mean…” Which is the sharper pain? she wondered, to lose a child or to lose a parent while yet being a child? She fiddled with a loose button on her robes. “That anger is for him, not for you.”

  Dedrre blinked at her in surprise.

  “I know better than anyone that he was sick—likely faulty mood regulators, a chemical imbalance…” she shrugged and looked away. “But still…”

  But still, she couldn’t forgive him. She had known, even as a young girl, that there was something broken inside her father. She had imagined him as a great, complex clock, and deep within his mind some gear was jammed, some vital cog out of mesh with its fellows. She had liked to picture herself opening the door to his being and using one of her grandfather’s tools to click all his pieces back into joint. And then his mind would whir into perfect working order, and at that moment he would smile. A real smile, with life in his eyes.

  But of course, this had been a childish fancy. She could not make him happy; how could she, when he could not make himself so?
Rationally, she understood all of this. Even so, she resented him his weakness, his cowardice. To suffer is one thing, to yield another.

  It came to her mind, again, as it always did: herself as a child, throwing wide the door to their flat in Accord, to find the shape of him, silhouetted by the far window, head cocked at a horrible angle. The sound of the rope creaking as it slowly swung—to and fro, to and fro. Well-polished shoes not quite skimming the floor.

  Dedrre folded her into his arms, and the embrace brought her back to the present. Her cheek pressed into the fabric of his robes. But his efforts to comfort were futile, given that her eyes were dry and her mind numb.

  He would need to see some emotion on her face, she knew, or he would worry. So before she disentangled herself, she summoned a mask. She arranged her features carefully—sadness that had been, to a degree, eased by his support.

  She smiled sadly and patted his shoulder. “I have to go, I’m afraid. I have a plan to meet with a friend for lunch.”

  He looked surprised by the existence of a friend, but not suspicious. “Oh, good. That’s good. Have a nice time.”

  She retreated to the door. “If I don’t see you tomorrow…” She held her valise before her in two hands, as if it might shield her. “I love you, Grandfather.”

  “Love you too, girl.”

  As she strode from the building, her mask of emotion slipped away. She directed her feet towards the dining hall. It hadn’t been a complete lie; she did intend to meet with someone during lunch. That person was not a friend, nor was he expecting her, but all the same…

  Where she had felt drifting and insubstantial before, she now marched with solid purpose. Perhaps thinking of her father had put the iron back into her spine. He had been weak, but she was not.

  The dining hall buzzed with conversation. The long tables were populated with clusters: Chiona, together; Cosanta, together; Elevated, together. But no mixing. The atmosphere held a distinct bite of tension.

  Lunch, served by several unhappy-looking Elevated, appeared to be stew and stale bread. It didn’t smell appetizing. At her entrance, the chatter briefly dimmed in certain quarters. The Elevated didn’t appreciate her presence, she knew. Having been Quade’s right-hand woman, she didn’t wonder at their reluctance.

  Nevertheless, she marched in their direction. She prowled the area, searching faces. There were three teleporters she might choose from, and—perhaps not by coincidence—she found them sitting together, heads bent close in conversation. Vendra stared at the three of them, weighing and measuring her options. Mearra, a girl who flinched at even the slightest movement, was easily eliminated. Tae-Young, beside her, was a nice lad and would make a tolerable companion, but an inclination towards self-doubt made him liable to hesitate at inopportune moments. She suspected that such traits would be common amongst those who could teleport, a gift that suggested a preference for flight over fight.

  She sighed. That left her no choice but to ask the third. She studied him from where she stood, still at a distance. He was laughing, his wide white smile flashing against his dark face. He was unquestionably her least favorite, but he had more backbone than the other two.

  She crossed the room, drawing gazes as she moved. She planted a hand on the back of Mearra’s chair. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like this seat,” she said in a voice too hard to sound polite.

  The girl, predictably, jumped with an expression reminiscent of a startled rabbit. She scrambled up to offer Vendra her chair and excused herself. Vendra sank into the seat, facing the Elevated whose aid she required.

  His laughter dimmed, but his grin didn’t fade. “Well, if it isn’t the Viper herself,” Kelarre said. “To what do I owe the dishonor?”

  She offered him a tight smile. He had a bad attitude, and thought himself rather wittier than he was. “I need a word with you.”

  He leaned back in his chair, arrogant amusement playing across his features. “With an underling such as myself? How exceptional.”

  Tae-Young, on Vendra’s left, bent forward with interest. She noticed that several other Elevated, further down the table, had quieted to listen. The curly-haired Wynn, a girl who could amplify other Chisanta’s gifts, had frozen with her fork halfway to her mouth. Across from her, Clea had stopped compelling the ice cubes to dance in her cup.

  But Vendra would prefer less of an audience. She wheeled a hard look along the table, spearing each of them with her displeasure. Most took the hint and departed, standing with a screech of chair legs against the floor.

  Kelarre dipped bread into the remaining broth in his bowl and chomped down, taking pains to appear unconcerned. “Have you settled on your word yet? I assume you’ll be asking for a favor—to make use of my gift, I’m thinking. Let’s hear it.”

  Behind Kelarre, a big, scarred Chiona man collided accidentally with an Elevated girl, whom Vendra recognized as Elda. Their respective trays of food clattered to the ground in an earsplitting crescendo. “Watch it,” the man barked.

  Vendra scowled at the disturbance fleetingly, then returned her focus to the young man before her. “I mean to kill Quade Asher.”

  Kelarre looked unimpressed. “How?”

  Vendra pulled her valise from her lap and extracted a small leather case. She unfixed the clasp, revealing a phial of clear liquid. It glinted with afternoon light.

  “Of course it would be poison,” he said. He no longer sounded amused.

  “I never made such things before him,” she said. “It has a certain poetic justice to it, don’t you think?” She tapped the phial with a fingernail. It had been her project for the past weeks. To poison was easy enough, but given Quade’s teleportation and the existence of healers, she needed a drug that would kill almost instantly.

  “Why me?” Kelarre asked, crossing his arms before his chest.

  “Why shouldn’t it be you?” Vendra challenged. “Do you not want to kill Quade?”

  “We all want to kill Quade.”

  “No, you all want Quade to be dead. They aren’t exactly the same thing, are they?”

  He frowned, contemplative. “He had my parents and my brother killed,” he said. It was hardly a unique wound—all of the Elevated could say as much—but he said it with a mouth full of hate. “Yes, I want to kill him. And may the Blighter take his spirit.” He appeared as if he wanted to spit, but took a sip from his cup instead. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “We have to find him and get close undetected; that will be the trick. Then, either a dart or a drop into his cup. He just can’t see us coming. He’ll flee.” Or worse, he would look them right in the eye and speak loving words.

  Over Kelarre’s shoulder, Elda continued to shout at the Chiona, her petite form looking all the smaller compared to the man’s bulk and height. He made as if to shove past her, and she flicked up her hand, causing the man to freeze in mid-motion. While he stood immobilized, she back-handed him across the face and shouted, “Learn some manners, you oversized boor!” Several Chiona rose from their seats.

  “Quade won’t be easy to find,” Kelarre said, his gaze on the ceiling, as if unaware of the commotion behind him. “He’s probably on the move.”

  “I don’t expect it to be the work of an afternoon, Kelarre,” she said. “It will take time.”

  He lofted his cup, though it contained only water. “To us, then. May we watch the bastard gasp his last breath.”

  She held up her empty hand and mimed a toast.

  “When do we start?”

  “Now, if you’re willing.”

  He smiled mirthlessly. “Oh, I’m willing. Where do we start?”

  “The Isle. We know he went there, at least for a time. He would have needed the old healer. Outskirts, though. We should approach quietly.”

  Kelarre stood and held out his hand.

  “Not here,” she said in an undertone. “We don’t want to have to deal with the quarantine should we need to return for supplies. But no one will notice us leaving now.” Not with the
fight, which was rapidly becoming a brawl, serving as a timely distraction.

  He considered this for a moment and retracted his hand. “Right. That would be annoying.” He jerked his head to the exit. “Let’s go then, partner.”

  They proceeded to the door while most were surging in the opposite direction, towards the conflict. She heard angry shouts and the sound of a thrown object, but didn’t look back. It wasn’t her problem.

  Vendra’s heart began to thump in her chest with new urgency as they marched back out into the sunshine. She clutched her valise and inhaled slowly.

  She would see him again, Quade. See him and kill him. And then perhaps she would have peace.

  Peer squinted at his notes and sighed. “My thinking is, if we keep it on a rotational basis, but with the option to apply for permanent partnership, we might avoid bad match-ups.”

  Outside the window, the wind howled across the university grounds, snow caught up in the gust. As Peer leaned forward in his chair, the leather squeaked beneath him. He scanned his new office, located at the rear of the main library, and yet again thought that the stately grandeur ill-suited him. On the wall just opposite his desk, a portrait of some former dean glared down in agreement.

  Ko-Jin glanced up at the ceiling. “They’ll likely think any pairing outside their kind is a bad match-up. But if they’re forced to spend time with the same person again and again, they might develop a grudging respect.” He took a sip of his cold coffee. “I take your point, though; personality clashes beyond the divide between Cosanta and Chiona could prove a problem. The ability to choose a partner might reduce friction.” He laughed, flashing all of his straight, white teeth. “I can only imagine the awkward proposals of partnership. Which do you think will ask, the Chiona or the Cosanta?”

  “The Cosanta,” Peer answered without pause, thinking of Yarrow. He called to mind those tense days before Quade, and he smiled. Then he returned his focus to the problem at hand. “I’m thinking maybe we announce that the rotational patrols will be temporary. That after a time, maybe a month or so, partnerships will be assigned if not chosen.”