The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  “What’s that burning, hey?”

  “As I said, sir, it’s Chevrre. He’s really lost it this time. I don’t know what we can do…”

  “Who?”

  The kid sighed. “You know Chevrre. He has the fire gift?”

  “Ah,” Charlem said. There had been a few of them with fire in their blood, if he remembered correctly. These gifts the Spirits gave these young marked ones, they could be wonderful. And dreadful. When he joined the Company of Spirits, he intended to give them a real talking-to on that matter.

  They at last made their way around a bend in the lane and came to the gardens. The smoke thickened, and Charlem coughed and squinted against the ash in the air. Two of the three gazebos were already up in flames. Even Charlem’s poor left eye could detect the blaze.

  “Keep back,” a young Adourran man called out, his posture full of desperation. “I’ll do it, you know I’ll do it, so stay back.”

  His hands were full of fire, and the flames grew in size and heat as he spoke. He stood upon a small bridge that crossed a dry riverbed. “I said stay back,” he bellowed, though no one had moved any closer. He jerked his hand and a ball of flame shot to the ground, turning a rose bush to ashes.

  Charlem frowned at the young man. “Where’s his bevolder?”

  “I’m his bevolder,” his young guide said, not concealing his exasperation. “I told you. But I don’t want to hurt him. It’s not his fault—you know he’s not right in the head. He sees things that aren’t there; sometimes the paranoia just takes hold.”

  Charlem nodded. He had seen a lot of things in his years as the head of the Chisanta. A number of these young ones had been given the gifts they were least equipped to handle. “Then you can stop him.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” the young man repeated. “And I’m afraid if I approach…he might not really see it’s me, you know?”

  “You two are connected,” Charlem said. “All bevolders are, right down to the spirit, in life and in death.” Are we not, Jae-In? “You are the only one who can help him. You are his counterpart.”

  The young man huffed, clearly annoyed that he had bothered to bring Charlem along in the first place. He sighed and inched forward, hands outstretched in a kind of peace offering.

  “It’s me, Chevrre,” he called out, stepping carefully towards his bevolder. “It’s Anton. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Stay back,” Chevrre bellowed, and the flames flared.

  The young man, Anton, stepped steadily onward. “No one will hurt you, Chev. Everything’s going to be alright.”

  He stepped up onto the bridge, palms extended. At that proximity, he had to be feeling roasted by the fire.

  “I said stay back!” Chevrre shrieked, and then fire exploded around him in a monstrous burst, like an explosion. Even at a distance, Charlem’s cheeks were scorched by the heat of it. He coughed, wiping his eyes.

  “Anton,” several voices called out in anguish.

  Charlem blinked in amazement. The fire appeared to be pulling back in upon itself, as if time were moving backwards and he were witnessing the explosion in reverse. When the bright flame had receded entirely, they could all see that both men were intact, and apparently unharmed. The bridge was gone.

  Anton knelt in the ash, holding onto his weeping bevolder, head pressed to head. He stroked his spirit-mate’s hair and made soothing noises. “Everything will be well. Be calm, Chevrre. I’m here now.”

  Charlem, leaning heavily into his cane, gaped at the two men. He had believed himself beyond surprise, but apparently even he had not yet witnessed all there was to see in this life.

  “How?” someone called out.

  Anton shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s as if…as if I took on his gift for a moment, and was able to shut it off. I don’t understand it myself. It felt very surreal…”

  Charlem leaned onto his cane and croaked a laugh to himself. He felt tears forming at the corners of his eyes—though that may well have been a consequence of the smoke. He shook his head in amusement.

  How do you like that, Jae-In? He thought, still chuckling. We were each other’s antidote all along. Suppose even I don’t know all that we are…

  And then Charlem and his students, the newly constructed Temple and its gardens, began to fade from view, to disappear entirely. And Bray recalled herself.

  Yarrow fell forward, into the Confluence itself, into nothingness. For a fearful moment it seemed he had ceased to exist—there was nothing but blackness. And then that blackness grayed, coalesced, shifted—like a scene painted from clouds. Finally, colors bloomed.

  He gazed down upon a scene as if he were floating above it. It was not a place he knew, but it was comforting nonetheless: a library, far larger than any Yarrow had ever seen. The shelves of books seemed to stretch infinitely. Rain pattered against the windowpanes, and there came a rumble of thunder in the distance. A set of doors crashed open, and a harried figure charged into view, trailing pools in her wake—Bray?

  She gasped, as if she had run a great distance. Her hair was plastered wetly to her face, turned a deep cinnamon red-brown. She paused for a moment to consider her direction. Then she took off at a dead sprint down the passageway, and Yarrow found himself moving along with her, above her.

  The panic stamped across her features had infected Yarrow as well. His own heart would be racing, if he were not incorporeal.

  Bray reached the end of the library proper and came to an abrupt standstill before an office door, her chest heaving. She paused for a second, screwing her eyes closed and hanging her head, before pushing the door open. Where she had been in the utmost haste before, she now moved slowly, fearfully.

  “Yarrow?” she called out in a choked voice.

  He wanted to answer. I’m here. Up here! But he had no tongue, no lips.

  Bray hiccuped. “Ya-Yarrow?”

  She ran forward, and as she did so Yarrow’s perspective lowered, so that he might take in the far end of the room.

  He saw himself—which was, on its own, a most strange experience—and yet at the same time it was not himself. Not really. This man had his face, but there was no expression upon it. He spoke in a voice too flat and detached to be his own. The words that streamed from his mouth were pure nonsense:

  “The pull of the earth is constant. Lightning strikes the highest tower. Angry, angry, angry, he’s so angry. Look to the boy, the bevolder…”

  Yarrow, from above, was voicelessly screaming. The terror of this vision seemed a physical thing. He had never stopped to consider his greatest fear, but he knew now it was this: madness. The loss of his mind, his intellect, the one thing that remained to him.

  In addition to this spirit-altering fear, he felt anger. Was this meant to be a vision of the future? Did the Spirits truly expect this of him—this too? Had he not given enough already?

  Bray was shaking the Fifth by the lapels of his robes, but the senseless words poured forth unhindered. “Yarrow, no. No. No. Yarrow, please, no.” She sobbed and stammered. Finally, she pressed her head into that Yarrow’s chest, her words unintelligible.

  A man charged into the room, streaming with rainwater. “Bray?”

  He tried to pull her away from the Fifth. Bray, without looking, elbowed the man in the gut. Then she punched the Yarrow who was not Yarrow in the chest. Twice. He did not react.

  “Bray,” the blond man began again. “I’m sorry. He said he’d no choice…”

  Bray wheeled around, her eyes sharpening. “You knew,” she breathed, crouching on the floor like a predator ready to spring. “You knew, and you didn’t stop him?”

  “I couldn’t—”

  Bray’s fist connected with the blond man’s cheek. His head wrenched to the right. He stumbled, and she sprang forward, striking him again. The man redirected her blow. He held up his hands. “Please, just listen.”

  Bray was apparently not interested in listening. She charged straight through the man like a ghost, then spun and
kneed him sharply in the kidney. He grunted and went to his knees. She kicked, but he rolled clear, springing back to his feet.

  She punched him once more, and he appeared to accept the blow. Her next strike lacked force, and her chest started to heave. With her final jab, he pulled her tightly to his chest in an embrace.

  “Sorry,” he said roughly in her ear. Blood flowed down his cheek. “Spirits, Bray, this is just…”

  She gripped the front of his shirt in balled fists and succumbed to body-wracking sobs. For a long while, they kneeled there on the office floor, the Fifth’s words going unheeded. The man rubbed Bray’s back, and over time her breathing slowed and her chest hitched with less frequency.

  Yarrow wished it was himself down there, offering her comfort. This is not real, he would tell her. I’m still here.

  “What did he say? Before?” she asked in a voice dead enough to rival the Fifth’s.

  “That he’s regretful, but he was seeing no other way. He said, if he’d waited to say goodbye, he wouldn’t have had the courage to go through with it. He said…” The man looked a bit uncomfortable and cleared his throat. “Said no matter where it went, his spirit would be tied to yours.”

  Yarrow listened with hungry fascination. Bray shuddered. She pushed herself free of his embrace, not angrily or with any particular force. She blinked up at the man.

  “Sorry about your face.” Her voice still sounded devoid of feeling.

  He shrugged, smiled, winced. “You’ve given me worse.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the Fifth, but jerked her head away again almost immediately. “Do…do you think he’s still in there? Do you think he can hear?”

  The other Chiona swallowed, then shook his head. “Can’t know for certain of course, but I saw him when…” He swallowed. “It—it seemed like he’d gone. I think he’s gone.”

  Her face remained smooth. “I feel like I’ve gone too.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’ll feel like that for a while. But, it’ll get—”

  “Don’t,” she cut across sharply.

  “Alright. But I’m here for you when you need me.”

  She straightened and turned away. She walked as if she were in a daze. She walked, and the Yarrow that observed from above followed, straight through the wall, out into the rain. She did not weep, but she tilted her face up to the deluge and fell to her knees.

  Yarrow wished he could speak—he wished he could console her. “Don’t worry,” he would say. “This isn’t going to happen.”

  He would not make her suffer in this way. Every time he made a sacrifice, she lost something too. They were, both of them, bleeding already from all that he had given. If the Spirits wanted a Fifth, they would need to apply elsewhere.

  Dimly, though, beneath this resistance, there came another voice that insisted he might be unable to change his course. He had studied the Fifths since he was a lad, because he had apparently been drawn to them. And he had made every sacrifice up until this last one. If it was his fate…

  No. A sacrifice is a choice. He would not do this, he was not willing. No one could force it upon him.

  He gazed down at his love’s rain-washed face, and tried to speak to her: Don’t be distraught, Bray, because I won’t leave you.

  The scene began to fade, shifting back to gray clouds, and then to blackness.

  I won’t leave you.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vendra released Kelarre’s hand the moment they reappeared. She shivered as the warmth of Adourra was abruptly replaced by a cold Dalish evening. The university grounds stood shrouded in the darkness of late night, and yet there were a surprising number of Chisanta out and about. She pressed her back to the brick wall of the dining hall.

  “Keep to the shadows,” she hissed to Kelarre, whose face was illuminated in moonlight. Since the death of the king some weeks ago, the Chisanta had been more vigilant.

  “Oh, should I really?” he whispered back. “I shouldn’t light a torch, sound my trumpet—”

  She hushed him with a quick, venomous look. The idiot boy needed to learn when to hold his tongue.

  “Too many people in the main courtyard,” she said. “Let’s move towards the library.”

  She crept forward on silent feet. Behind her, Kelarre’s boot snapped a twig. She rolled her eyes skyward in a plea for patience.

  Voices drifted from around the side of the building, and she stopped, raising a hand to signal that Kelarre remain quiet.

  “Hey, the Tearre’s not easy. Even I had a tough time with it, back when. Keep trying and you’ll get there.” Vendra watched a large Chiona man throw an arm around a younger woman. She turned, and her familiar face caught the light from a window. Wynn nudged the Chiona man in the ribs. “Perhaps it would be less difficult if I had a better instructor.”

  He belly-laughed and the pair moved on. Vendra peeked over her shoulder to share a bewildered expression with Kelarre. He mouthed “weird” and she could only nod agreement. She craned her neck to look more closely at the courtyard and found that many of the people were working in pairs—Chiona and Cosanta. And they were not all Elevated.

  Mentally, she tucked this oddity away—perhaps Quade would be able to make something of it—and then refocused on the task at hand.

  “Come,” Vendra whispered. She darted from the sheltering shadow of the dining hall, across a pathway and then behind a dormitory. She peered into the third window, but the bottom bunk on the right was vacant.

  “Any thoughts where he might be?” she asked.

  Kelarre frowned. “It’s nearly midnight. I’d think he’d be sleeping. He could’ve changed rooms, I guess…”

  Vendra pushed away from the window and her lips thinned. They had two goals for this night, but it might be dangerous to take care of the second before setting eyes on the first. She shuddered at the thought of returning to Quade with only a half-success.

  “If he isn’t asleep, then perhaps he is out with the others,” Vendra said. She sincerely hoped that he hadn’t taken up a new bunk; they certainly could not look in every room.

  “Come,” she said, creeping back towards the courtyard. A cold wind tugged at the scarf around her neck, and she fought a shiver.

  Kelarre grabbed her elbow with sudden urgency. “There. He’s there.”

  Vendra sighed in relief as she set eyes on their target. The young man was walking alongside Peer Gelson. Despite the hour, they seemed to be heading into the library.

  “Good. Now the other.”

  “Why are they all in couples?” Kelarre whispered. “Think he’d mind if we did two instead of one?”

  “Yes,” Vendra answered with certainty. Quade did not like initiative; he preferred obedience. Vendra crouched, waiting, scanning the courtyard. Her breath puffed whitely before her. She was reluctant to leave their current position, as she would prefer not to lose sight of the library. If he left, she needed to know.

  “Her,” Vendra finally said, relieved. A young woman bid farewell to her companion and paced briskly in their direction, her head bent against the wind and hands in her pockets.

  “Her?” Kelarre said, with a slight tremor in his voice. “Couldn’t—couldn’t we just do the bloke who was with Whythe?”

  “He wants a woman this time,” Vendra whispered back. “This isn’t a problem, is it?”

  Kelarre seemed to be shaking, his brown eyes wide.

  “No,” he answered, but he sounded uncertain.

  The woman was nearly upon them. “You said you wanted to do it,” Vendra reminded him.

  He nodded. “Yes. I do.”

  The Elevated didn’t even look up as she turned the corner, which seemed incredibly foolish to Vendra. Did she not want to live?

  Kelarre shot forward, the knife in his hand glinting. He knocked the Elevated girl off her feet and pinned her to the ground beneath his knee. She appeared more confused than afraid in that last moment. “Kelarr—?”

  His hand slapped down over her
mouth, silencing her, as his knife plunged into her chest. He withdrew the blade, and her heart’s blood flowed free. She jerked and bucked beneath him, but her twitching soon lessened, and in short time she stopped moving altogether.

  Kelarre pushed himself up onto unsteady feet, the weapon in his hand dripping. He shook violently and stared at the dead young woman with horror-filled eyes.

  Something compelled Vendra to pull the glove from her hand and reach out to the young man, skin-to-skin. “You did well, Kelarre. Quade will be pleased. There is no sense troubling yourself over blood that must be spilt for the greater good.”

  He nodded, and his tremors slowed. Vendra gave him a moment to wipe his face while she pulled a thick piece of vellum from her coat pocket. Gently, she pinned the card to the dead girl’s coat. The ornate numeral thirty-eight was just legible in the moonlight.

  “Come,” Vendra said. “Let’s finish this and get out of the blighted cold.”

  Kelarre appeared calm once again as they crept on to the library. She led the way around the side of the building, until she found an illuminated window. She stopped and looked within. A lantern gleamed from a desk, where Peer appeared to be working. Whythe was talking with great animation, pacing back and forth. Peer appeared to be fighting back a smile, and failing.

  Vendra crouched to the ground and snapped open her valise. She carefully loaded her dart gun.

  “Wait until he paces to the far end of the room,” Vendra whispered. “No sense in having a fight. I’ll drug him, you grab onto us and take us back. Got it?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe you should run through it one more time.”

  She glowered at his sarcasm, but was privately glad that he was behaving normally. His shaking earlier had alarmed her.

  Kelarre took hold of her wrist and gazed through the window. They watched as Whythe drew close to Peer, as if to read over his shoulder, and then darted a kiss on the other man’s cheek. Peer dropped his pen. Whythe moved off again, a spring in his step.