“That’s my price,” I gritted out.
“What more could you ask for?” the King mocked. “I cannot take your marks away, I cannot free you, I cannot undo the events of the past. You have asked for unending glory, for the worship of our citizenship. You could have that simply by agreeing to marry me. You would be queen of this world, no deal required—”
Quietly, I scoffed, and I felt his hands constrict against my neck again.
“No deal required?” I read the warning in Calder’s eyes, but I didn’t need it. “You think I’m fated to defeat the king of Ledenaether. If I marry you, that would make you the king of this world and the afterworld. And when that happens, when you have more power than any man alive or dead, what will you do with me?”
I flicked my attention back to him, bracing for the wave of his power. For just a brief moment, I saw the answer in his half-smile and the careless, lazy crawl of his eyes over my face.
I would disappear.
As soon as he didn’t need me anymore, he would make me vanish.
His power drowned out the thought, and I was lost again, gasping for breath, my hands on his wrists, clinging to him instead of pulling his touch away.
“You will still have to battle for the honour,” the King insisted. “But I will allow it. If you win your battle, you will become the first Legionnaire since Helki.”
“Fine,” I rasped.
“Where do you want the brand?” he asked. “Typically, it’s on the chest or the upper back, visible at all times while the warrior is preparing for their battle.”
I tapped the back of his hand, where he held my neck.
It seemed fitting. I would turn my servitude into my strength.
“I intend to accept the deal.” He seemed to be talking to the Warmaster, though he spoke with his eyes on me. “It’s for all our benefit that I put my mark on her. I think a soul mark will improve her … attitude.”
His statement was met with silence, but I didn’t have any time to be suspicious of their sudden compliance, as the skin of my neck began to prickle, and then to burn, the sensation much worse than when the Weaver or the Inquisitor had marked me. The Legionnaires’ brand felt like it was bubbling my skin, tearing apart tissue, carving lines into my soul. It didn’t feel like war magic, it felt like soul magic, like the King’s long, searching fingers were sorting through the pockets of my heart, painfully extracting every ounce of my bravery to carve the mark, to prove that I was what I wished. I felt a long pull inside my chest, a painful tearing sensation. My vision wavered, and the brand burnt impossibly hotter.
It was judging me.
Deciding if I was worthy.
“Men have died receiving the Legionnaires’ brand,” the King whispered, his voice so low that I almost missed the mocking words. “The lines are not carved by me—they are pulled from inside you, from the strength of your soul, from the resilience of your mind.”
I let a single, strangled sound of pain slip free, my eyes rolling back, my knees weakening.
“I wouldn’t doubt her.” A voice spoke, firm and unbending, unamused and bored. Calder, putting on an act of some kind. Judging me as the others did … but judging me favourably. He was just a wordless advisor, the ghost of my footsteps, throwing out a casual observation. “I’ve seen her do … inexplicable things since her trial.”
“She’s the Fjorn. There’s your explanation, Captain.” The mocking statement came from the Weaver.
“I know what she is.”
“Explains why you haven’t handed off the task of guarding her to one of your men,” the Warmaster noted.
“It’s my duty to protect the people of Fyrio,” Calder returned. “And the biggest threat we’ve ever faced is now tied to her. I’m exactly where I should be. I’ve left the Company in good hands.”
The Warmaster grunted out a reply, but I could no longer concentrate on their conversation. I was held up almost entirely by the King’s grip on my neck, my hands scrabbling for purchase on his thighs, my body arching in pain.
The brand drained me, and then there was nothing but the burn and scratch of lines sketching over my skin, my wounded soul gathering in upon itself as the assault retreated. I swallowed my cries and bid any tears of pain to disappear as they rolled silently down my face. I held my chin up as much as I could, my eyes on the King, accepting what had been my choice. Accepting the pain of the transformation that I had asked for, for which I had traded what precious scraps of free will I might have still possessed.
I had passed up the eagle hood of the Sentinels for the golden-winged brand of the Legionnaires, the lone warriors without garrison, outside the management of the Company; spared the drudging rules of society; the people without masters; the horizon-seekers who had proved themselves to be the strongest fighters in Fyrio. I would be the only person to survive a battle with the Warmaster.
I would wear their brand, and then I would win their sacred battle, and all of Fyrio would look to me as equal to their greatest heroes. I would demand the impossible, because the impossible had been demanded of me.
I would face the Darkness having proved myself in the light.
“Will battle … in … three weeks.” I groaned out the words, my voice husky with swallowed pain.
“That gives you three weeks to prepare, stupid girl,” the Scholar noted dispassionately. “You will be battling Helki, not your mother’s ghost.”
“Two weeks then,” I forced out, ignoring the amused chuckles that scattered the room behind me.
13
Taste
I managed to stay conscious as my brand was completed, and barely noticed when the King’s hands left my neck, one of his fingers pressed to my lower lip. I felt the echo of a scratch, the memory of a burn, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that he was putting his mark on my lip. I battered at his arm weakly, but he was already finished, sitting back as his touch fell away, bright green eyes drinking in his handiwork.
“She’s yours this day, Helki,” he murmured. “Why don’t you test the mark.”
“She’s not to my taste,” the Warmaster replied as I stumbled back from the King, dizzily searching the room for a safe place to sit.
“Is she to anyone’s taste?” the King asked as I fell to the ground, crawling toward one of the driftwood chairs, my head swimming, my limbs trembling with the aftershocks of pain.
“Too weak for me,” the Inquisitor’s voice sounded, his face swimming in my vision as I pulled myself up to the chair, curling my legs up and resting my head on my shaking knees, trying to calm my rising nausea.
“Her skin is too dark from the sun,” the Scholar replied. “Her hair is a mess. She looks like a Vold.” He spoke as though disgusted by such things.
Despite my situation, I found a laugh bubbling to the back of my throat as I realised what they were discussing, only to be followed by another wave of nausea as I realised that they were discussing my relative attractiveness in relation to my new mark.
I touched my lip, my fingers trembling, and looked to the King.
What kind of mark had he given me? I had thought it to be a debt, as were the others. He folded his hands behind his head, settling his large body further back into the chair—sprawled where the Scholar was straight, lazy where the Scholar was stiff, his eyes half closed and soft where the Scholar’s were still hard and sharp.
Sitting there beside each other, it was hard to see any similarities between them at all, except that they were both entirely focussed on me and entirely displeased with what they saw.
“She’s too skinny for me,” the King said. “We should probably start feeding her.”
“She’s too small,” the Weaver agreed, almost conversationally.
“But you have no objections otherwise?” the King asked, his eyes flicking to the other man.
The Weaver’s lips twisted, a semblance of a smile. “Her hair is garish, her eyes too dark, and she carries the marks of so many, her skin reeks of conflicti
ng energy.”
“Is that all?” the Inquisitor asked, a soft laugh following him as he rounded the Weaver’s chair, his dark eyes hardening on me as the laugh died off.
“No,” the Weaver murmured. “I believe she would taste of sad things best left alone. Bitterness, fear, and the like.”
“Very well. We will let her choose.” The Inquisitor took a seat, a booted ankle crossed over his knee, his hands folded into his lap.
“Tempest.” The Warmaster turned his back to the glass wall, his right hand on the hilt of a knife at his hip. “Choose one of us.”
“For what?” I croaked, barely able to lift my head.
“For a kiss, stupid girl,” he lashed out, as though that should have been obvious.
“No.” My tone was flat, my surprise hidden, a little strength leaking back into my body. “I am a servant, not a kynpen.” I spat out the word, tasting the wrongness of it. The kynpen were the steward men and women who had run out of options and turned to prostitution in the stone huts fashioned along the waterline of Breakwater Canyon, creating a den of despair deep in the mountain, like a rotten root ball creeping up through our homes to get to the surface. “You can’t ask these things of me.”
“Fjor,” the Warmaster glared at the Inquisitor. “Take her voice away again.”
The Inquisitor’s mouth curved up, but his voice was unfriendly when he spoke to me. “You’re fond of deals, aren’t you, Lavenia? What would you like in exchange for this?”
I didn’t even pause to think about it, the demand falling from my tongue. “Tell me why, to start with. And then I’ll consider it.”
“We must test my mark,” the King replied. “It’s a special sort of soul mark. It should enhance your needs and emotions, and it should prevent you from developing those needs for … others.”
I smiled, my eyes mocking them. “I am not a toy.” I carefully enunciated the words, though my voice remained weak. “If I don’t wish to marry any of you, it’s not because there’s something wrong with me. It’s because I find each of you as repulsive as you all seem too find me. No soul mark can force me to have feelings for you. Since the day I stood trial at the Citadel, you’ve dismissed me, belittled me, and manipulated me—”
“And yet…” The Inquisitor interrupted, surveying me coldly. “There is still something that you will ask for.”
I glanced away, reflexively, to Calder. I couldn’t read his expression, but he was no longer standing by the hearth. He was a few paces beyond their driftwood chairs, his stance mirroring the Warmaster’s—legs planted apart, hand on the hilt of a knife, eyes wary.
“You’re right,” I said, pulling unsteadily to my feet. “I want one hour to myself every morning. No matter whose service I’m in. Starting at sunup.”
Each of them stared at me, unspeaking. The King and the Warmaster stared as though seeing me for the first time, while the Scholar and the Inquisitor didn’t seem in the least surprised. They all knew why I wanted that precious hour to myself. I needed to train. I had bargained to become a Legionnaire, but without Calder’s help and without the time to train, I stood no chance at beating the Warmaster in battle.
After the weight of their stares lifted from me, they all seemed glance at each other, coming to a silent agreement.
“Very well,” the King said. “Now choose one of us.”
I hadn’t thought this far ahead, and I now couldn’t seem to look at any of them. I swallowed, trying to choose between their shoes, and when that failed, I simply closed my eyes and walked forward. It was the Weaver who sat directly across from me, the Inquisitor at his side. I stopped before them, a flutter of nervousness sparking to life, a seed of doubt wriggling roots into my brain.
What if I had mocked them too early?
What if the soul mark created desire where previously there was none?
What if they were right?
I turned away from the two men before me, moving toward the person I disliked most in the room. The one who had shown me no kindness. The one who had dismissed me at every turn.
The one who taught me that I needed new heroes.
I stopped before the Warmaster, my eyes on the bare upper half of his chest, where the golden wings of the Legionnaires should have been etched. Everyone knew that to become a Legionnaire, you must defeat the last known Legionnaire in battle … but the Warmaster wasn’t a century old. He was a man neither old nor young, caught at the height of his strength and power, riding a high so far above the rest of us that it was impossible to see him coming back down. I simply couldn’t imagine him growing old or weak.
He must have defeated the last Legionnaire when he was very young. The previous would have been an older man who had become a Legionnaire himself over a century ago, and who had since died. The Warmaster must have been so young that people had forgotten the tale of his battle in the shadow of his growing legend. Like all things ancient and impossible, the people of Fyrio had demoted the sacred warriors to characters in stories. I had thought myself unworthy of those stories, but I saw things differently now. The old legends had become my own waking nightmares, amassing armies to claw at my arms, tales of dread tugging in one direction and whispers of hope in the other, precious sanity threatening to spill out if I were to be rent apart. I was collecting the broken tales of the past and laying them out carefully beneath my feet, stepping stone after stepping stone, trying to create a future in which I prospered, turning myth into knowledge, forgotten things into weapons.
I was trying to prove that I wasn’t wandering around blindfolded—crippled by the dark, unknowable world—but instead slowly, desperately making it my own.
I grabbed a driftwood chair from beside him, dragging it before him, the sound of the wooden legs sliding over the floor unseemingly loud. I listened to the little thuds of the chair moving to the carpet, and the finality of it lying directly before the Warmaster. I paused there to catch my breath, still weakened from the mark on my neck. He watched me, neither scowling nor smiling, his hand still resting on his knife. I stepped up onto the chair and was rewarded by the distinct light of discomfort in his oaken eyes. I leaned forward, my lips close to his, frozen before contact.
Bitterness. Fear. The Weaver had been right—that was exactly what I would taste like. I quickly pressed my lips to his, ignoring the slight baring of his teeth. I could feel the spike of my fear even as I tried to ignore it. It rose sharply, encouraged by my roiling stomach. The more I tried to ignore it, the worse it got, the mark on my lip prickling strangely as the wave of feeling inside me quietly melted into something else.
My brows pulled in, my breath short and sharp through my nose as I kept my lips pressed hard to his. The mark had turned my fear inside out, adrenaline exposed, my heart beating to a dangerous rhythm. I felt the emotion splintering inside my heart, breaking apart into kindling, each prickle of the mark on my lip a spark attempting to ignite whatever built inside me. I hadn’t been afraid that the mark would create desire for either of the masters, because the soul magic couldn’t create something out of nothing … but I was now staring into myself, realising that I was made out of a thousand somethings.
There was longing in me. Longing to belong, to be precious, to be surrounded in strength, to grow close to another person, to have something unbreakable, unending, unconditional. To know that I would never again be left alone. I longed to find my match in strength, to not be afraid of hurting who held my heart. My tiny needs became desperate cravings, and though I could feel that there were other options in the room—other ways for me to seek the attachment I desired—the Warmaster was closest.
My lips softened, my body drifting forward, one of my boots shifting against the base of the chair, edging a step closer. I was no longer forcing my mouth against his scowl, but actually fitting my lips to his. My tongue touched his lower lip, my hands rising to his arms, and then to his chest, and then to his shoulders. I tasted no fear and bitterness in the kiss, only my own fragile yearning and a strange
, answering burn.
His power, I realised, as the burn spread across my lips, almost painfully, scalding my tongue. I felt a touch at my side, a large hand shaping to my waist, slipping around to my spine and pulling me right to the edge of the chair. His lips moved, a sound vibrating from his chest to mine. It was the sound of a beast in the wood. A sound of warning.
The touch disappeared, moving to my front. He pushed me—a lazy but sharp movement—and I flew backwards off the chair, landing against another body, arms hooking under mine and setting me on my feet again.
My back was on fire, energy scalding my skin, and I froze with wide eyes, realising what was happening.
Calder had caught me.
His energy was leaking into the room, mixing with the Warmaster’s. That was why I could feel the burning of my skin. I turned, my eyes meeting his. He was breathing hard, his hands trembling by his sides, fury sampling the air.
“What’s this?” the Weaver asked, standing, his attention switching from the Warmaster, to Calder.
The Warmaster was wiping the back of his hand across his lips, shock in his eyes. “It’s impossible,” he spat, staring straight at Calder. “He was the last Blodsjel, that’s why we—”
“Helki,” the Scholar snapped, finding his feet in a frighteningly fast movement. “Watch your tongue. Get yourself under control.”
The Warmaster growled, his chest heaving, his eyes still locked on Calder. The Scholar appeared before me, taking my shoulders in his hands, his eyes flicking over my expression.
“As impossible as it is, they are bound,” he stated, throwing the room into chaos.
Each of the masters began to advance on us, but Calder moved suddenly and rapidly, his Vold energy crackling through the room. He tugged me away from the Scholar and my head spun dizzily, nausea threatening to return with a vengeance as my back hit the sandstone wall, the edge of the hearth against my left shoulder, a sweltering, raging man caging me in, his back turned to me.
A Tempest of Shadows Page 19
