Mark of Four

by Tamara Shoemaker

  Jordyn Cadell shyly raised her hand. “Is there a set time that it ends, sir?”

  Sprynge nodded. “Midnight. Did everyone get that? If there are multiple students at midnight still on the mountain, the game will be called, and prizes will be split among the winners. Any more questions?”

  No one raised their hands, but the excitement vibrated in the air.

  Manders took over. “All right, all students to the starting line over here.” A long ribbon draped between two poles marked the line. The student body moved toward it, several people pushing to get to the front. “Remember,” Manders called, “the competition starts when you hit the mountain. So even when the starting gun goes off, you may not face off with another student until you’re on the mountain.”

  The clock to the side ticked as Alayne wound her way through the crowd toward the outside edge as far from the others as she could get. Jayme was nearby. Far down the line, she saw Kyle, and nearer, Daymon. He caught her glance and boldly stared her down. No hint of a smile appeared on his face.

  The clock hit zero, and the gun went off.

  Alayne tore onto the prairie like a deer, her long strides skimming the grass as she ran toward the mountain. At some point, she outdistanced most of the others. A quick glance over her shoulder told her she’d lost Jayme. He must have angled away from her somewhere.

  The mountain drew near, and she ducked beneath branches at a full sprint, carving her way up through the underbrush as fast as she could. The mountain was larger than it had appeared at the spire. She wound upward and around trees until she thought her lungs would burst and she would collapse.

  She found an evergreen and swiftly climbed its low-hanging branches, pulling herself up, limb by limb, until she wavered on some thinner branches twenty feet in the air.

  From here, she had a decent vantage point. She could see the prairie at the base of the mountain, and the shuttles that hovered over the grasses waiting to take bonded students back to the spire. Already some shuttles had shot across the prairie to the spire to release the first victims. They unloaded and then returned to their posts.

  Alayne eased herself into a more comfortable position. If we all just waited without facing off, they’d have to split the reward with all of us, she thought with a twist of her lips. There would always be someone, though, who would want to win over someone else. The first few shuttle trips were proof of that.

  Alayne wedged herself into the crook of the tree limb, her back against the trunk, and waited. In the dips and swells of the range, other students faced off. Sometimes Alayne could see them, sometimes she could only hear them. Shuttles came and went, and the sun slowly sank behind Clayborne’s spire.

  As dusk settled over the mountain range, Daymon’s face filtered through Alayne’s thoughts. She shook her mind free of him, but he kept returning. Jayme’s description of Daymon’s tattoo burned itself in her mind, and she couldn’t see anything else.

  He had nearly admitted that he knew the location of the Vale, although he couldn’t tell her on pain of death, he’d said. Well, Marysa was preparing to feel the pain of death if Alayne didn’t find the Vale, so someone was going to die anyway.

  Skies help her if that someone was Marysa. Alayne’s jaw tightened in determination. She knew her next course of action.

  She had to find Daymon.

  Chapter 27

  Night darkened the air around Alayne. She tried to shift again, but she could feel nothing at all in her legs. Her back ached, her neck ached, and her hands had grown numb. She glanced at the ground below her. Nothing moved in the shadows, and she could hear nothing. She wondered how many more students there were, and then decided she was too sore to care. Moonlight was sporadic as clouds chased each other over the night sky, but with a bit of effort, she could make out one more shuttle that waited at the base of the mountain.

  So, not many students then. They’d forgotten to ask Sprynge how they’d know when there was only one person left.

  With an effort, she found the next limb down with her foot and climbed carefully from the tree.

  Her feet hit the ground, and she sighed with relief, stretching out her stiff limbs. The quietness unnerved her. She didn’t like the loneliness of the mountain, and the trees were too still.

  She hiked along the ridges, wondering if Daymon remained on the mountain or if he had returned to the school in a shuttle. She hoped for the first; urgency pushed her through the carpet of leaves and underbrush. Each step whispered beneath her feet.

  Daymon.

  Marysa.

  Daymon.

  Marysa.

  The trees were old and huge, and their towering boughs stretched up into darkness. Alayne could feel their roots digging down into the soil. She stirred the leaves nearby with a brush of her fingers on the air elements, listening to the hoot of an owl and the croak of a tree frog. Then she panicked as she realized anyone nearby would have felt the element bend. She let go of the elements, half ashamed of her careless contact.

  She refocused on her search—the mountain range first, and then Clayborne—wondering whether the exam was over or not.

  She glanced through the trees at Clayborne’s spire. The lights of the common room were lit, shining like beacons through the floor-to-ceiling windows. At this distance, she couldn’t see the students inside, but she half-wished she were one of them. The sooner she found Daymon, the sooner she would have her answers, and the sooner she could contact Macy Foy.

  Alayne crested the peak of the mountain, dropping down a steep hill on the other side, careful to dodge fallen tree trunks and brambles.

  A huge, dark shape lay directly in front of her, rasping heavily. Alayne stumbled backward, her heel catching on a briar. She went down hard.

  A mountain lion panted on the ground, its golden eyes gleaming in the faint moonlight. Its tail twitched.

  Alayne, terrified, pushed herself backward, sliding over rocks and leaves on her hands and posterior. The cat stayed still, blinking at her.

  After a moment, her blind panic subsided. The cat wasn’t crouched, as a feline would do before capturing its prey. It rested on its side, its breath wheezing in gasps against the quiet background. It tried to stand, but collapsed on its side once again.

  “Y—you’re hurt.” Alayne’s gaze traced down the cat’s side to its haunches, where, even in the darkness, a shiny mass of blood gleamed. Tattered skin hung in ribbons from its back leg.

  “Poor thing,” she hummed, hoping that the cat wouldn’t eat her if she soothed it first. “How did that happen?” How far could an injured mountain lion jump? She was nearly certain that mountain lions preferred craggy, dry areas, although she’d seen enough of a variety of wildlife that she knew any breed could be found anywhere.

  She kept her voice soft, humming a lullaby her mother had taught her as a girl, and tried to creep up the hill away from the cat. She let herself look once more at the round, golden eyes, and something passed into her mind—a consciousness that the animal was pleading for help.

  That’s ridiculous. Alayne paused, her feet angled to go, her mind calling her to stay. “I’m going to go now,” she murmured in her soothing voice. “You’ll be okay. You’ll heal.”

  She took another step, shocking herself when she realized she was heading toward the cat instead of away from it. A strong draw pulled her forward. Alayne stopped again, eyeing the lion. “If I see what I can do,” she murmured, “will you eat me?”

  Step by step, she approached the lion, wanting to turn away, to head back up the hill, but it was almost as if she didn’t have a choice. She held her hands up in front of her, palms open. Alayne, you’re an idiot. Turn and run the other way. And yet, she kept going. She paused when she stepped within claw’s reach of the lion. She edged to the side.

  The lion made no movement except to turn its head and stare at her with its huge golden eyes. Its painful rasping grew louder.

  Alayne glanced at the torn leg. At this distance, she could see where t
he skin had been severed from the muscle; flayed flesh gaped open to bone. Blood, black in the moonlight, seeped over the ground.

  Alayne lifted her hand, her fingers trembling, even while her mind screamed at her to back away, to preserve herself. She couldn’t resist the powerful draw. “Just gonna see how bad this is, okay?” Her voice shook in terror. She tried to move her feet backward, but they only crept closer.

  In spite of her fear, her voice seemed to soothe the lion; the animal turned its head away from Alayne.

  Tentatively, so slowly, she touched a ribbon of hanging fur.

  With a scream, the mountain lion sprang to its feet, crouching five yards from Alayne, its tail twitching. Alayne threw herself backward, scrambling away, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. The mountain lion regarded her a moment before sinking heavily onto its haunches and turning its tongue onto the wound.

  Only there was no wound. It was gone. Vanished. The haunch in the moonlight showed the merest trace of a scar.

  Alayne stared, her mouth open. What had just happened?

  The lion stood once again, and Alayne stumbled backward. Instead of advancing, however, the cat turned on silent feet and bounded across the clearing and up the hill into the forest, disappearing into the darkness of undergrowth.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled. Alayne glanced skyward. The moon had disappeared, and the clouds lit with flickers of electricity.

  Alayne stared at the sky, considering. She could continue to hunt for Daymon on the mountain range, or she could wait for him to return to the school. It wouldn’t be much longer until Sprynge closed the exam anyway. She could corner Daymon then.

  She started back up the hill, heading for the ridge. Thunder crashed above her, making her jump.

  A flash lit the edge of her vision. She jerked her head to the right. Lightning? Alayne counted the seconds. But no accompanying thunder with that particular flash.

  There it was again. A burst of flame running through the woods along the top of the ridge. Alayne gasped, staring at the fire as it jogged up a nearby hill, stood still at the top, and then descended on the opposite side.

  That’s not a flame. That’s a—a man. On fire.

  Alayne ran up the hill. Peering over the ridge, she could see the lights of Clayborne, and she pulled in a sharp breath. The flaming man wasn’t the only one. Across the prairie, swarming at the base of the spire, hundreds of other fiery figures moved.

  Alayne pressed her hand over her mouth and blinked, not trusting her own eyes. It was distant, but still distinct. Hundreds of fire-walkers swarmed the fields; many crowded around the entrance to the massive spire, forcing their way inside. The students who were unlucky enough to have strayed outside fared badly. Distant screams tore from their throats as the fire-walkers grabbed them, their flaming hands burning sensitive flesh.

  Alayne’s hands shook. She glanced wildly around. Four spots of flickering light crashed through the underbrush, nearing her spot swiftly. The men encased in the flames singed the greenery on their dash through the woods; the acrid smell of smoke drifted to Alayne’s nostrils as they drew closer.

  Alayne scrambled backward, pressing her back against a tree, peering around the side of it at the men as they jogged down into the hollow where she’d been only moments earlier with the mountain lion.

  One of the men stopped, and turned to the others, saying something in a low voice. Pieces of one phrase reached Alayne. “They said the girl was out here ... beyond the tree line past ... have to meet first ... before him... to get the Vale.”

  Alayne shot to her feet at the last words. The Vale?

  One fire-walker pointed toward the west, and then all of them broke into a run, racing along the ridgeline, out of Alayne’s sight. Adrenaline shot through Alayne’s body. She raced after them, thoughts of the Vale pounding in her head. She lost sight of them a few times, but the smell of smoke continually pulled her forward.

  She barreled across the ridgeline, sprinting past the trees, straining her eyes for the flash of fire in the foreground.

  She skidded to a stop. The fire-walkers had stopped as well. They seemed to be deliberating, perhaps recalculating. Alayne crouched, gasping, behind a tree, peering out at them.

  “This is the rendezvous point,” one of them said. His voice snapped and hissed, like the crackling of a fire. “I don’t see him.”

  Him?

  “Let’s give it a minute. He’s rarely late.”

  A chill that had nothing to do with the pitch-black forest and distant thunder crept up her spine. What in CommonEarth was going on at Clayborne? She stretched to see through the thick hemlocks, but the evergreens hid the spire from her sight.

  “Who is unaccounted for?”

  “Just the girl. Though I’ve had no word yet from either of the others.”

  “You’re sure their information is correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the professors?”

  “Of course, the professors couldn’t talk, but their security footage is quite detailed.”

  Panic lit Alayne’s mind. Something must have happened to the professors.

  “No,” one of the men shook his head. “The image clearly showed her at the start with the others. She hit the mountain range on the eastern end when we lost sight of her. Orders were not to move in until nightfall. She’s no longer there. It’s possible she moved before we could reposition, but certainly not that far.”

  “I say we call in reinforcements from the spire. There are hundreds of us and only one of her.”

  A cold, unsteady, sinking feeling washed over Alayne. They were looking for her.

  A voice boomed behind her. “Well, well, lookie here, boys. We got us an extra party to our conference.”

  Alayne’s heart stuttered to a stop and then jerked back to thunder at triple pace. She swiveled her head. A man leaned against a tree fifteen feet from her. A grin parted his full brown beard, and he polished a knife he’d slid from his brown knee-boot.

  Alayne froze. The fire-walkers stepped closer to her position, their flaming eyes swinging back and forth between the man and herself. “What be your name?” the man asked. The last rumbles of thunder died away, and the moon shone silver across the clearing. The man scratched his eyebrow with the point of his knife.

  Alayne swallowed past her dry throat, working some saliva back into her mouth. “Alayne.” Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak. She cleared her throat.

  The man’s gaze snapped to attention; he stood, taller than she’d first assumed. “Alayne ... Worth?”

  A familiar sinking feeling of dread spread like poison through her stomach. “Alayne C—Creek.”

  The man stared at her, unsmiling. Alayne couldn’t read his eyes; they were too dark, too full of secrets.

  He crooked his neck. “No. No, you’re a Worth. Got your mama’s eyes.”

  Alayne pulled her legs under her until she crouched on the ground. There was no use debating it. “What do you want?”

  The man laughed, a deep belly laugh that rolled across the forest glade. “So boys,” he cackled to the group of fire-walkers, “we were gonna have to search this whole school and mountain range to find one girl, and she falls right in our laps.” He turned his attention back to her. “I’m pleased to meet you.” He grinned, a gold tooth winking from his top row of incisors. “Name’s Simeon Malachi.”

  Chapter 28

  Panic threaded Alayne’s raw nerves. She struggled to keep her head. Even though her mind screamed for her to run, a small portion of her judgment stayed rational. “What do you want?” she snapped.

  “Now hang on, no need to get all sore with us.” Malachi spread his hands in a placating gesture, but the knife spun in a slick circle in the palm of his hand before he grasped it again. Alayne backed up a few inches.

  “You have ten seconds to explain, and then I’m out.” Alayne risked a glance over her shoulder. Empty forest behind her. Where is Jayme? Did he escape? Perhaps by now, he’d be lined up
with the rest of them—prisoners of a war they had never intended to fight.

  Malachi chuckled. “I like your style, miss. You got some heart.”

  “Eight, seven, six...”

  “Now just hold on there, Alayne. You can’t go nowhere ‘til I tell you what I’m lookin’ for. See, your parents were friends of mine—“

  “They were not,” Alayne hotly interrupted.

  “—and I been convinced for years that they know the location of a certain valuable I been wanting to get my hands on.”

  “What valuable?” Alayne asked, although she already knew.

  “Nothin’ much, really,” Malachi jerked his flannel-covered shoulders up into a shrug. “It’s a little thing called the Vale. White, pretty, dainty. Looks a bit like a diamond in sunlight, if you’re into comparin’ things.” He slid his knife back down into his boot. “Seen it anywhere?”

  Alayne felt safer with the knife in his boot, though she knew that was ridiculous. If what her parents had told her was true, he was ruthless. The knife was probably the safest thing about him. “Nope. Can I go now?”

  Malachi snorted and broke into a belly laugh. “First, little girl, I don’t believe you. You think you can tell me no, you ain’t seen it, and walk away? Second, I want to talk to your parents. I happen to know I ain’t up in the chit-chat visit section on their list of friends, so I’m pretty sure the only way they’re gonna let me talk to them and actually listen to what I got to say is if I’m keepin’ their only daughter safe and sound. So sit down and make yourself comfortable. You ain’t goin’ nowhere for awhile.”

  “Hate to disappoint,” Alayne shot back, working to keep her voice from trembling, “but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave me alone!” She turned to go, expecting the element bend even before he did it.