The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

He was surrounded. Trevva, Ko-Jin, Yarrow, Arlow, Mearra, and herself all wanted him dead. And yet it felt rather as if he had won. And there was a part of Bray that wanted nothing more than to surrender. It seemed a seductively easy option.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  Behind her, a shrill pop announced that Mearra had teleported; Bray’s hair swayed in the slight wind of her disappearance. She reappeared behind Quade, and dove for the pistol on the ground. With two shaking hands, she lifted the weapon and trained it upon Quade.

  “My lovely girl,” he said, in his most alluring voice. “You don’t want—”

  She pulled the trigger, and it clicked—empty. Quade laughed, and the rich and amicable sound put Bray at ease.

  “I confess, I thought it was loaded as well.” Quade swiped his knife towards Mearra, but she teleported away, reappearing on the other side of the tent. He growled in frustration. But he had released Yarrow during this exchange, who had begun to crawl away.

  “Well, where were we, Ms. Marron? Oh, yes. You were going to tell me—”

  Arlow gestured for her attention. “Don’t listen, Bray! Cover your ears!”

  Quade, looking bored, flicked the knife in his hand at Arlow. The hilt bloomed high in his chest. He goggled down at it before thunking to his knees.

  “Arlow,” Yarrow called out.

  Quade rolled his eyes. “Really, he must be the most irritating person ever born. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes.” He bent down and retrieved the sword from his feet and, two-handed, raised the blade over Yarrow’s hunched back. “You were going to tell me where my dear sister has been hiding all these years, in exchange for this sorry life before me.”

  Bray had not expected this. A flurry of panic shot up from her gut, tightening in her throat. She thought of her little nephew, of all the children that Quade’s sister had fostered. She had promised that she would never betray them—but what if she were powerless to keep her word?

  “It isn’t asking very much, is it? Surely you must see the importance of family. What would you not give to see yours again?”

  She pictured her father’s weary, smiling face. And the way Adearre’s amber eyes would turn so charmingly smug when he knew he was right. Anything.

  “Don’t—” Arlow coughed wetly. “Listen.”

  Quade and Bray both ignored this interruption. Quade once again wound his gloved hand into Yarrow’s hair and yanked his head up, so that their faces were nearly side by side. “You and I have much in common, do we not, dear? We hail from the same part of the country, and each of us lost our fathers at a young age.”

  Bray’s heartbeat slowed and Quade came into better focus. She was seeing him more clearly, now. He had such kind eyes.

  “How would you feel, if a stranger concealed the location of your dearest relative?”

  Bray opened her mouth to answer, then shut it again. I promised, she reminded herself with difficulty.

  “I see that you—”

  Quade stopped speaking as the echoing pop of teleportation sounded once more. Tae-Young appeared.

  Bray watched in confusion as Yarrow turned his head and deliberately grazed his cheek against Quade’s. They both jerked. Yarrow cried out and crumpled forward; Quade fell nearly on top of him, his limbs rigid and shaking, a long moan of pain hissing from between his teeth.

  “Tae-Young, Mearra,” Ko-Jin said through a clamped jaw. “Get everyone away—and don’t forget Su-Hwan and Elda.”

  “I will go for Peer and Whythe,” Mearra said, “After.” She knelt down and pressed her hand to Arlow’s pale cheek, and the two of them disappeared.

  Tae-Young dragged a dazed Trevva over to Ko-Jin. He looked to Bray. “Grab ahold of me.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t leave Yarrow. Get everyone else to safety.”

  Tae-Young nodded. In an instant he disappeared, taking Trevva and Ko-Jin with him. The space suddenly felt quite empty, with only three of them left behind.

  Bray rushed to Yarrow. She slid to the ground and pulled him out from beneath Quade. His eyes streamed tears, and he had curled into a fetal position, but he was breathing.

  Bray wetted her lips. She was unphased for the first time since arriving on the scene. Her solidity made her feel vulnerable, but she could not kill Quade as a ghost.

  She took up the sword that had fallen from Quade’s hand. She could tell, immediately, that it was an uncommonly elegant and well-balanced blade. But it quivered uncertainly in her hand. She rested the point directly against Quade’s throat.

  But did she truly want to kill him? He had certainly done wrong, but so had she. She had killed innocent people, like Quade. He was right to say that they had much in common. Had she not nearly killed a man earlier this very evening?

  Quade whimpered and blinked, as if trying to force his eyes to focus. It was a pathetic sight.

  Bray took a breath, trying to steady herself. All it would take was a push, or a mere flick of the wrist. And he would be gone from this world.

  “Bray,” Quade said in a dry, rasping voice. He seemed so pitiful, so pained. “If you kill me, it will never stop. You know that. If you kill me like this, I will have won.”

  Bray clenched her eyes shut. Her hand shook so violently that she accidentally nicked Quade’s throat, and a violently red stream of blood crept along his pale neck.

  Go ahead, then, she thought. But still she hesitated.

  Yarrow rolled onto his back with a hiss of pain. “Bray?”

  “I’m here.”

  “We need to get out of here. Arlow…”

  “You’ll have to go without me,” Bray said. “You can send Mearra or Tae-Young later.”

  “Are you both so eager to leave me?” Quade asked, and there was a magnetism in his voice that was far beyond what Bray had heard before. She realized, suddenly, that she had never once faced Quade at the height of his abilities. “I have longed for you to come to me for so very long. I love you, Bray Marron. You and I are just the same. We see the big picture.”

  She removed the blade from his neck, then let the sword fall to the ground.

  “Bray,” Yarrow said, groaning as he tried to push to his knees. “Don’t listen—”

  Quade’s hand darted out and slipped around her ankle. He worked his thumb up under the hem of her trousers, so that it grazed her calf. Her eyelids fluttered closed—it seemed a wonderful pleasure was blooming from his fingertips. She could phase, but she had no desire to do so.

  “You’ve been mishandled in the past,” Quade said. “But I could help you forget all that. My touch can heal you, dear.”

  Yarrow collided with her bodily, ripping her from Quade’s grasp. They began to fall, and she felt his hands snare her arms. And then she felt the press of his lips to hers, and there was a brief thrill at this longed-for contact. But then the pain—

  It was as if she were being pulled apart on the smallest level, incinerated piece by piece. An excruciating lightning spread from her lips and through her whole body—and, dimly, she knew that Yarrow had teleported. Although she was certain she would die within the all-encompassing agony of his touch, she also knew that she could not pull away, could not let go. She was in the blackness of the no-place, the in-between nothingness that would surely consume and destroy her if she were to push free.

  The torment grew too great, and she lost all sense of herself and seemed to sleep, or die.

  When, an immeasurable time later, consciousness returned to her, it did so slowly. It was cold, and the sound of the ocean had gone. The ground beneath her was hard and icy, and the sky above was overcast. She blinked the tears from her eyes.

  Yarrow?

  “Bray,” a familiar voice demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  She tried to move, and found that every speck of her body protested. She whimpered. Rolling her head to the side, she found Yarrow sprawled beside her, ghostly white and vomiting onto the snowy ground.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Bray blinked,
and Ko-Jin’s face resolved into focus. He did not look well. She nodded.

  “Quade?” he asked.

  “Lives,” she whispered, her throat hoarse. Had she been screaming? She could not recall. “Peer?”

  Ko-Jin sighed, and glanced over his shoulder. “He’s here. Everyone’s…here.”

  Bray made herself sit up, though it caused a thousand torturous splinters to shoot from her very bones.

  “Peer,” she said, but her voice did not carry.

  She could see him plainly enough. He was kneeling, head bowed, over the motionless form of…

  “No,” Bray said. She lurched to her feet, ignoring her protesting joints. She fell back to her knees after a few steps and crawled the remaining distance.

  Su-Hwan looked as solemn in death as she had in life. Her smooth cheeks were still rosy, but the color seemed to be dimming by the second.

  “She came to help me,” Peer said in a flat, detached voice. His eyes were unfocused. “It’s my fault.”

  “No,” Bray said. “It’s not. And you know she wouldn’t…wouldn’t have…”

  Bray’s throat was not cooperating. She wanted to cry, but she was all wrung out. She fell back onto her heels. The cold was beginning to make her teeth chatter. She looked around, and found herself surrounded by misery and suffering: Yarrow, still trying to push himself to his feet; Arlow, alive but grievously wounded; Ko-Jin, painted red by his own blood. And Su-Hwan and Elda, gone from this world. May their spirits find joy.

  And then Bray’s eyes locked on Chae-Na, and it was as if she had been struck in the gut. She knew the pain on the queen’s face; it was like looking in a mirror.

  Spirits… Bray thought.

  How could they have failed so entirely?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chae-Na’s toes grazed the rug as she roamed towards her own chambers. Her abstracted gaze locked on the floral runner beneath her feet. She had played atop these flowers as a girl.

  She stepped nearer to the hallway wall, onto the cool marble floor. She would not risk touching those well-loved, woven roses, for fear they might shrivel up and die.

  “Can I draw you a bath, Your Highness?” a tentative female voice enquired from somewhere to her right.

  She nodded silently and continued her dazed march up the hall. Her hand reached for the latch to her door, and she pressed down on the cold metal. It seemed a great effort: all of this standing, walking, door-opening, breathing.

  Behind the silken screen that concealed the basin, her maid, Leaya, hummed as she worked. Chae-Na heard water sloshing into the tub.

  Leaya appeared with an empty bucket swinging on her arm. “Would you care for assistance?”

  As the girl caught sight of Chae-Na, her expression shifted to curious concern. Does she know? Can she see it?

  “No, thank you.”

  Leaya curtsied and hustled from the room. Chae-Na heard the latch bolt secure, and found herself at last alone. Alone.

  The ache in her chest, which had been dull yet constant, abruptly sharpened. She sucked in a gulp of air, but it seemed to rush into her wounded core rather than her lungs, like puffs of smoke sucked into the ether. And without that air, she was suffocating.

  She tried to pull breath, but it was catching, stuck. She dropped to the floor, her palms flat against the smooth wood. Her breaths were high, whistling, unsatisfying.

  Wetness in her eyes set the room shimmering. She could not move—it seemed as if she would spend the rest of her days in just this position, choking and alone.

  Behind her the door opened without announcement. She wheeled around, eyes blazing. She did not wish to be seen this way, not by servants or friends.

  She was surprised by the identity of her visitor. Bray looked solemn as she shut the door and came to her knees before Chae-Na, near but not touching. Her green eyes held a horrible understanding, but no pity or reproach, no disgust.

  “It isn’t your fault,” she said in an even tone—determined, her gaze faultlessly direct. “Whatever he did to you, whatever he made you do; it isn’t your fault. Not in the least. It is terrible, and you have every right to feel angry or devastated, or however you’re feeling, but whatever happened—it says nothing about you, about who you are or who you will be.” It had the sound of a rehearsed speech. She wondered how often this Chisanta had comforted women who had been…

  Chae-Na’s insides unknotted, but it seemed that vanishing tightness only left space for a more complete understanding of her misery. However, Bray was speaking to her with the seriousness of one who had experienced a similar pain, and so she could not bring herself to lash out or push away.

  On the contrary, she wanted to pull Bray closer, into her. She wanted to steal some of that calmness. Chae-Na reached for the other woman and tugged her near. She buried her face in Bray’s neck, and the sobs that had been lodged in her throat escaped in searing gasps.

  Bray stiffened, but after a few seconds her shoulders eased. She rubbed soothing patterns into Chae-Na’s back with her fingertips, and whispered steadily: “It’s alright. It will be alright. This is just one day in your life, it doesn’t decide your future. He doesn’t have that power…”

  Chae-Na could not say how much time had passed. At length, she regained some control over her emotions, and she hiccupped rather than sobbed. She extracted herself from Bray.

  “I…” her voice sounded foreign in her own ears. “I don’t know what to do now…”

  “A bath can do wonders, I find.”

  Chae-Na nodded numbly. Bray winced as she stood, and then extended a hand to help Chae-Na to her feet.

  “If word of this spreads, the crown could be taken from me,” she heard herself say. She had no doubt that her cousin would use this event to his advantage. But, more painfully, she thought Veldon Gorberry might move against her as well, out of sheer disappointment. He believed strongly in the rules of propriety.

  Bray sighed. “Yes, that was doubtless Quade’s motive.”

  Chae-Na slipped behind the privacy screen and stared at the smooth surface of the water within her bathing tub. Her hands hung heavily at her sides, and she blinked at her rippling reflection.

  Bray was correct. This thing that had been done to her, it had nothing to do with herself, and everything to do with her crown—a crown she had never been meant to wear. Quade had created a means of toppling the Bellra monarchy, even should his plans to marry her himself fall through. People would not rally behind a despoiled queen.

  Chae-Na dipped a finger into the water. It was still tolerably warm. She reached for the hem of her soiled shift.

  Her mouth twisted in disgust at the sight of it, so filthy and blood-smeared. The thing should be burned. She wrenched it from her body and threw it to the ground. Then she stepped into the basin.

  “I can give you some privacy…” Bray’s voice drifted from the other side of the screen.

  “No,” Chae-Na said. “Please stay awhile.”

  It was selfish, she knew. Bray was no doubt exhausted. But having her there—it did not make Chae-Na feel better, but it did make her feel less alone. In more ways than one.

  She sank down into the tub. The water lapped about her shoulders, insufficient and ineffective. No ablutions could wash away the dirtiness that clung to her. Nevertheless, she scrubbed every inch of herself three times, until her skin was pink and stinging.

  “Bray?” Chae-Na asked, her voice slurred and soft. “Now what do I do?”

  No answer came, and so Chae-Na rose from her bath and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. When she came around the screen, she found Bray slumped sideways, asleep upon the settee. There were dark, finger-shaped bruises on the Chiona’s fair neck, and she slept fitfully.

  Chae-Na roamed to the window overlooking the gardens. Dawn had cast a soft light upon the landscape. She found a man walking through the gate, cradling the slight form of a dead woman in his arms, a spade slung across his back. Peer Gelson, she realized, treading towards the royal cem
etery. There was such grief in the set of his shoulders.

  Chae-Na rubbed her brow. She was not the only one who had been wounded by Quade this past night. Two lives had been lost.

  As queen, she would need to honor those departed. It was their due, as they had died in saving her life. This thought lent her a new energy of purpose, even if it did nothing to treat the hollowness within her breast.

  She walked to her writing desk and unscrewed her ink pot. Her pen hung over blank paper, waiting for inspiration, and her gaze locked on her brother’s leather notebook. What speech would Jo-Kwan have given at such a time?

  Her pen tip scratched at the page, and she slipped into the relative easement of strong focus, her misery set aside, for a time.

  Peer cradled the bundle in his arms with great care as he picked his way through the palace cemetery. He walked past the tombs of kings and queens, lords and ladies, without regard.

  Daybreak had stolen over the frosty grounds, faint still but growing brighter. The shapes of the gravestones stood deep blue against the pale horizon. His breath fogged in the chill air.

  He came to an empty place on the far side of the clearing, near an aged, frozen willow tree. Reverently, he laid his small friend to the ground. Within a simple white burial shroud her body had already turned cold and stiff. Peer swallowed against the lump in his throat, and he stood.

  He could not be undone, not yet. He had a task to complete first. He unslung the spade from his shoulder and detached the strap. Gripping the wooden hilt, he examined the ground. It was a good spot; in the spring the willow would sway greenly above her. Weeping, some would say.

  He had received no permission to bury her here, among the rulers of Trinitas, and he didn’t give a blight. She had died to save the queen, and he would see her properly put in the ground. He had failed to do even this much for Adearre—a recollection that still woke him at night.

  Su-Hwan deserved a burial. He had not protected her; he had not even been near when she lay dying on a foreign beach. Finding her a place in the dirt was the least he could do. The very least.