The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  He was so fixated that he didn’t notice his bevolder’s approach until Whythe bopped him on the shoulder.

  “Here,” he said, proffering breakfast: a hard-boiled egg and an apple. Peer took a great bite of the fruit, juice running down his chin. He pressed a fleeting kiss on Whythe’s forehead. “Thanks. Where’re the others?”

  “Climbing up now,” his bevolder said. There was a nervous hitch in his voice, and Peer could see the fear in his eyes.

  “We’ve survived them all. We’ll survive this one too.” Whythe’s throat worked, but he only nodded. “We’ve got to this time. Some bloke asked me to marry him this morn.”

  Whythe’s lip twitched. “Some bloke, huh? Good-looking, is he?”

  “He’s not bad,” Peer said.

  “Not bad!” Whythe burst out. He prodded Peer in the rib cage, a spot they both knew was ticklish.

  Peer slammed a hand over his own mouth to stifle a laugh. People were definitely staring. “No ticklin’ in wartime,” he said, his voice sounding quivery and strange as he pinned Whythe’s fingers. “I’ve got a firm policy on that count.”

  The other bevolder pairs had shown up sometime during this exchange. Peer looked them over with sobered eyes.

  They were far from peak condition. Enton had sustained some serious wounds during their recent fight, and though he stood tall, his face was pinched with pain. The rest were bruised and nursing minor injuries. They didn’t present a terribly threatening front.

  “Yarrow’s warned that there’ll be heavy cannon fire. We think he means at about this spot, but we’ll know better when Arlow shows up. We need to stay close. If the wall goes down, it’s us that’ll keep Quade’s men out of the city. Stick to your partner and don’t leave any gaps. Yeah?”

  They nodded—those who were listening, at any rate. Roldon looked asleep on his feet; Avearra, overly intense, had her eyes trained on the threat below; Wynn fidgeted with one of her stray curls, and beside her Malc kept flexing his muscles.

  “Quade?” Peer asked Trevva.

  Trevva’s eyes fluttered shut. “He’s on the move. It will start any moment.”

  Peer squared up with the wall, his hand drifting to the revolver at his hip. He couldn’t see Quade, not at such a distance and amidst so many, but he could imagine how the man would look. Could visualize Quade’s cold eyes, his sharp nose and twisted mouth; the way he strode about as if stalking prey.

  Bray might be a little lost at the moment, but she wasn’t wrong about Quade. The man needed to be put down.

  Bray. Peer wondered where she was. He hadn’t seen her yet that morning. A spike of worry shot through his chest. She wouldn’t go after Quade now, would she?

  He still hadn’t told her about Dolla, despite his repeated promises to himself.

  “Have you seen Bray?” he asked Whythe in a whisper.

  “No, not today.”

  Peer tensed. He was tempted to leave his station and go in search of her. Surely she was here somewhere. She was not one to sit out a fight.

  But then Ko-Jin’s voice cut through the cool morning air. “Ready!”

  Archers all down the rampart nocked their arrows. The blast of a cannon answered. Clea flicked her hand, and the cannonball careened in the other direction, along the perimeter and away from Quade’s men.

  Peer’s fists clenched at his sides. It was too late. The battle had begun, and he could not leave his post, not with so many relying on him.

  He could only trust that Bray would keep herself safe. That she wanted to keep herself safe.

  “Ready!” Ko-Jin bellowed again. Around him, his battered friends fingered their weapons. Clea stood with her hands fisted, but shaking, at her sides.

  Peer could only trust that their telekinetic would deflect every incoming shot. Trust that, should she fail, he and his group could fend off Quade’s men.

  Trust. Trust. Trust.

  It was a hard thing to hold on to when his palms were slick with sweat.

  The blast of the cannon sent a jolt through Arlow’s body, and he flinched. Ko-Jin, across from him, visibly tensed.

  “I’m not arguing with you about this, Arlow,” Ko-Jin ground out. He looked a real mess—his braid half-unraveled, his eyes hooded.

  Arlow pointed over the ramparts, indicating Quade’s army below. “Why switch tactics now? What’s changed?”

  Ko-Jin drew a long breath through his nose. “If we don’t start hitting back, Ar, we’ll be overrun. Eventually, we were always going to draw blood.”

  “Those men down there are innocent,” Arlow said. “Anyone on this side of the wall could just as easily be on that side. It’s—It’s not—” Until this morning, Ko-Jin’s tactics had mitigated loss of life. He was waging a war of prevention, a war of deflection. Arlow couldn’t understand why his orders had changed: why, now, they were meant to hit back and hit hard. “It’s not right, brother.”

  Distantly, cannonfire boomed again, followed by the din of many men bellowing. Ko-Jin’s lips thinned as he turned to his enemy. “We can’t let them get through, Ar. I’m not confident we can deflect everything he’s planning today.” His tone shifted into something distant and academic. “When waves of soldiers fall, their bodies serve as an impediment to those who follow.”

  “Do you hear yourself? Are those lives less valuable than ours?”

  Ko-Jin wheeled back to face him, his dark eyes haunted. “Yes, Arlow. Maybe not in the grand scheme, but here and now, yes. Clear minds are more valuable than clouded ones.”

  Arlow tried to change his tone, to sound less accusatory. “I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

  “Happy for you then, that it’s on mine.” Ko-Jin stalked away, shouting orders to his men. Arlow frowned after him, a twisted feeling in his gut. He barely recognized his friend these days. Ko-Jin seemed to be teetering on a dark precipice, and Arlow didn’t know how to pull him back. Worse, he suspected Yarrow would have known just what to say. But Yarrow was long gone, and who else could talk Ko-Jin around?

  Arlow loosed these worries on an exhale, then hastened to join the archers on the top rampart. He surveyed the line of soldiers, all standing stern and ready in the late-morning light. Half a year ago, most of these men and women had been common denizens of Accord: butchers and merchants, thieves and prostitutes, maids and stable hands. Months of siege had forged them into sharper tools.

  These soldiers might not be uniformed. They might not be neatly trimmed or clean-shaven—in fact, they were a downright shabby, sorry-looking lot. But they had fire in their eyes and steel in their spines. It gave Arlow hope. His people had passion; Quade’s had only mindless acquiescence.

  In the field far below, their enemy charged. They made for the walls of Accord at a dead sprint, the grass disappearing beneath stampeding boots. With Ko-Jin’s new orders, the land would soon be soaked red. Arlow clenched a fist, his wedding band cutting into his palm.

  Plainly, Quade assumed that Ko-Jin would continue his peaceful tactics—either that, or he didn’t care about loss of life—because most of his soldiers lacked shields. They would have no protection from the shower of arrows that would soon rain upon them.

  “Ready,” Ko-Jin shouted from some distance down the wall.

  As a unit, the men took aim. Arlow held in his heart the desire that they should hit, but only to wound. Legs and arms, not hearts and eye sockets.

  “Loose!”

  Arlow shoved the two nearest men. They pitched forward as their arrows flew, hips connecting with the stone wall. The soldiers rounded on him, one of them stormy-eyed, the other merely baffled. Arlow gazed past them, to where a pair of Quade’s men had hit the ground with arrows in their thighs. “Sorry, chaps, but my gift will help your aim.”

  “Draw!”

  Arlow ran down the line, bumping hips, knocking elbows, shoving backs, and being a general menace.

  “Loose!”

  He watched the arrows land and knew he had saved some few lives. But others fell and woul
d not rise again. And even the injured might soon be trampled. There was only so much good Arlow could do.

  He darted along the rampart, towards the Chisanta who guarded the most at-risk segments of the wall. Clea stood tall, her white-blonde hair flowing straight back from her head, her arms raised in the air. Beneath her, men’s weapons flew from their hands, soaring over the wall to land in a clattering pile.

  An earsplitting blast tore through the morning, and Clea flicked her fingers, catching the cannonball in mid-air. She clamped her lips tight as she changed its trajectory.

  “There,” Arlow called, pointing at random.

  The Elevated girl swept her arm, and Arlow watched the round veer toward a covered wagon. Soldiers leapt out of the way. Upon impact, there came an explosion so bright it left holes in his vision.

  “Oh…” Clea said.

  Arlow grimaced down at the wreckage. He had deprived Quade of an arsenal of dynamite, but at what cost? How many had he just killed with so little care?

  “Master Bowlerham!” someone panted from behind him. He was still blinking the spots from his eyes. “Master Bowlerham! There you are.”

  He turned his back on the carnage, his ears ringing. He frowned in puzzlement at the sight of Jeana, his landlady, here upon the ramparts. She wore her filthy apron loose around her neck, and her hair was even frizzier than usual.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, shouting over the pandemonium. “Is it Mae?”

  The woman bent to catch her breath, and Arlow waited with increasing fear. Is it the baby? A blast from behind made him flinch.

  “Yes, Master Bowlerham,” the older woman called into his ear. “The baby’s coming. The Pauper’s Queen didn’t want to send for you, not now, but—but—well, I’m sorry to say, the delivery isn’t going well.” The ringing in Arlow’s ears intensified; he forgot how to breathe. “The babe is breech, and the midwife can’t get it to turn. Mae—she told me not to fetch you, but…but I thought you’d want to know.”

  The woman’s expression sent tendrils of dread spiraling down Arlow’s spine.

  Mae…

  He blinked against the smoky air, willing his broken insides to fall back into joint. A firm hand came to rest on his shoulder. He looked at that hand—large and rough, fingernails in need of a cleaning—and traced it up an arm and over a shoulder, to a pair of concerned blue eyes.

  “Go,” Peer Gelson said.

  “I…I can’t,” Arlow whispered.

  They needed him here. They needed his luck. Ko-Jin wasn’t confident, and men were dying. What if his absence spelt their doom? He felt torn in half—duty to family and duty to country tugging on his heart, ripping it in two.

  Peer’s hand gripped tighter. “Yes you can, man. Go!”

  The word felt like the crack of a pistol—Go!

  And he did. He clambered down the ladder, sliding most of the way and slamming into the pavement. Then he was running, sprinting, his boots smacking against the road-top.

  As he ran, it occurred to him that he was proving Ko-Jin right. Some lives were more important, at least to him. He had chosen Mae over scores, hundreds. He always would.

  Arlow tore around a corner, collided with a group of men, and barely paused to apologize before dashing onwards. The Narrows were quiet. People perched on their stoops, toting pistols, their gazes directed towards the wall. Ready to resist, should the enemy enter the city.

  Their soup shop came into view, and Arlow tripped over his feet in his haste to reach his wife. He flew through the door, and immediately caught the sound of Mae’s voice—a moan of pain. He tore up the stairs and yanked open the bedroom door.

  “Arlow?” Mae gasped.

  She was sprawled on the bed, legs splayed and eyes gleaming. Her face was mottled and red. The local midwife, an ancient, brittle-looking woman named Lil, appeared to be elbow-deep inside his wife.

  “Mae,” he whispered, sliding to his knees at her side and grasping her hand. There were tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, and her brow was damp. She clenched her jaw, baring her teeth in a snarl. “What can I do?” he pleaded. “What do you need?”

  “I need—” She let out a scream, a shriek so unrestrained and charged with agony that Arlow felt it cut into him. “I need to not be pregnant, you bastard,” she whimpered. “You did this to me. Oh, you’re never havin’ sex again, Arlow Bowlerham. I swear it!” The midwife shifted, and Mae screamed again.

  Arlow allowed her to squeeze his hand well past the point of pain. “Whatever you want, dear, just hold on a bit longer.”

  “Oh, I hate you. Oh, Fuck you, Arlow. Fuck—” She keened, the veins in her temples popping. Arlow brushed damp hair from her brow. Despite her biting words, she leaned into the palm of his hand, tears hanging in her lashes like dew.

  “Babe just won’t turn,” Lil muttered, her old face creased into concerned lines.

  Arlow placed his hand on Mae’s swollen womb and closed his eyes. Just turn around, little one, he pleaded with his child. I so want to meet you.

  Old Lil shifted her arm, and then her expression brightened. “The babe’s in position. Thank the Spirits. Now, Mae, darling, you have to push.”

  Mae shook her head, her face pinched. “I can’t…”

  “You can and you have to,” the midwife said, but not unkindly.

  “No,” Mae pleaded, still rocking her head from side to side.

  Arlow took her hand once again, cradling it in both of his. “You’re the toughest person I know,” he said. “You’re the blighted queen of the paupers. You can do anything.”

  After a moment, she nodded. Her face contorted and she cried out.

  “Good, dear. Just like that,” Lil said.

  Mae gasped for breath, screwed her eyes closed, and bellowed.

  “The head’s crowning,” the midwife said, and Mae whimpered in response.

  Arlow braced himself to stand, wanting to catch this first glimpse of his son or daughter. Mae wrenched on his hand. “Don’t you dare look down there,” she hissed between her teeth. His wife looked quite mad, like she might rip the heart from his chest.

  “If we’re never to have sex again, could be my last chance,” he said with a winning smile.

  She dug her nails into his hand, and he sat back down.

  “Push, Mae,” Lil said. “You’re almost there.”

  She cried and clamped her teeth. There came a squelching sound that Arlow wouldn’t care to describe, and then the piercing squall of an infant.

  Lil lifted their screaming babe—a boy. He was purple and wrinkled, and producing a noise that sounded more animal than human. And he was perfect. The midwife settled their son into Mae’s arms, and she bent forward, weeping, to gaze upon their child.

  Arlow leaned close. The boy had a surprising amount of hair for a newborn, a dark shock that looked a lot like his own. He had the tiniest fingers and toes. Arlow’s heart swelled to twice its usual size.

  “Hullo,” Mae crooned, running a fingertip along the babe’s cheek. He began to calm, his little eyes blinking against the light.

  “He’s handsome,” Arlow said.

  “Newborns all look like turnips, Arlow,” she said with a jagged laugh. “But I have to admit, this is a very good-lookin’ turnip baby.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes gleaming with tears. “Sorry about—”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, kissing her brow. “I love it when you’re mean.”

  She laughed, her gaze pulling back to their son. “I want to call him Linton.”

  “I figured you would,” Arlow said. “I thought maybe Yarrow, for the middle name.”

  Mae nodded. She leaned down to smell the baby’s head. “Hullo, Linton Yarrow Bowlerham. Welcome to the world. Sorry it’s in such shambles.”

  They remained quiet, the three of them leaning together, nearly head-to-head. Without a word, Mae transferred Linton into Arlow’s arms. He experienced a quick flash of panic, his abdomen clenching. He could easily imagine
himself dropping and breaking this little man.

  He settled Linton’s head into the crook of his elbow. His son reached up, his tiny hand grasping—little knuckles, little fingernails. And Arlow wept.

  In the distance, he heard the boom of cannons. That sound, now, with his tiny son in his arms, terrified him all the more. He wanted to give little Linton a safe world, and instead Arlow could offer only this broken one. What kind of omen might this be for his son’s future, a boy born to the music of war?

  “You certainly have a knack for dramatic entrances,” he whispered. “Just like your old da.”

  The thunder of battle continued, and Arlow prayed. Spirits, don’t let this be the day Quade wins.

  Chapter Seven

  He regretted it all, and he had not yet begun.

  “Loose!” Ko-Jin bellowed, and a bevy of arrows rained upon his enemy.

  The sound of their screams echoed in Ko-Jin’s ears, filling his head and heart. It was a late-summer afternoon, and the sun-bright field was abloom with dandelions and dying boys.

  Never kill if you can choose not to. A personal code that today must be set aside.

  Ko-Jin swallowed against a dry throat. He rooted himself.

  It was the bloodiest day of the war by far, and this attack had only just begun. He forced himself to watch, to bear witness, though doing so made him ill.

  He remembered Chae-Na’s chastisement at the start of this siege, seven months and a lifetime ago. She’d said he couldn’t carry guilt around his shoulders like a millstone, not if he hoped to be an effective leader.

  “Draw!” he shouted.

  But Ko-Jin couldn’t agree. This millstone he carried—it was all that differentiated him from Quade Asher, a man who could leave a trail of death in his wake and feel no remorse. Ko-Jin must hold on to that distinction, no matter the cost.

  His former self, the happy Sung Ko-Jin of old, might have been an early casualty of this war. That boy might now be dead and gone. But Ko-Jin could accept this, because it was better to lose his joy than his soul. A competent general wins wars; a wise general knows that, in war, there are no winners. Chae-Na may not understand that yet, but she will…