Bray teetered, but remained on her feet. She assumed a fighting stance once again.
The bald woman flashed a humorless smile. “Some of these plebes have backbone after all.”
Then Bray did what the boy who preceded her never attempted—she took a swing. But the woman was ready. She grabbed Bray’s arm, pulled her forward, delivered a sharp kick to her abdomen, and thrust her to the ground. The arena hushed and the Chisanta woman strode away, the fight quite obviously at an end.
“Brutal…” Arlow whispered.
Yarrow clutched his hands into such tight fists that his nails dug into the flesh of his palms. He wanted to go to her, to help her—and only with the greatest effort did he manage to keep his seat. He did not care if the woman mocked him, or what his peers thought, but he knew Bray would not thank him for making her appear weak a second time.
So, he sat motionless as she pushed herself to a sitting position, clutching her stomach. Then, awkwardly, she pulled herself up to her feet and hobbled out of the arena, each step taken delicately. Peer hopped out of his seat to let her pass, the concern in his eyes unmasked. She sat, her chin lifted in defiance, but Yarrow could tell by the set of her jaw that she was in pain. Her split bottom lip trickled blood down her chin, leaving dark stains on the bodice of her dress. She kept her gaze resolutely forward and refused to meet Yarrow’s eye.
“I think, perhaps, the boy would like to avenge his lady love,” the woman in the ring announced. She regarded the evident rage on Yarrow’s face with amusement. Again, every head turned to look at him, their expressions, for the most part, conveying pity.
Yarrow refused to give this woman the satisfaction of knowing he was afraid. He schooled his features and silently stood. He tromped down the steps with all of the determination and fearlessness he could muster—at least on the outside. Within, his heart beat so fast he could hear the blood pumping in his ears. He kept his hands balled into fists, to hide the fact that they trembled.
He strode into the arena and took a moment to be grateful that the ground was dirt and not stone; it would make for a softer fall. He pictured Bray crumpled on the earth there, as she had been moments ago, bleeding and in pain. Abruptly, his heart stopped pounding, his hands ceased to shake. A strong breeze tousled his hair and brought, again, the strong salty smell of the sea. It cleared his mind. He came to the center and turned to face the woman. She was close enough now that he could see a thin scar running along her jaw, see the bright blue of her eyes. The fear left him. The anger did as well. His body was suffused with a sort of numb readiness.
“Prepare yourself,” the woman said.
Yarrow heard, distantly, the words of his father in his head: “Keep your chin up and your feet flat.” He spread his stance, bent his knees, and felt completely grounded—as if roots had sprung from the soles of his feet and dug deep into the earth.
The bald woman lunged to attack. Though Yarrow knew from watching at a distance that she moved with blinding speed, her motions in that moment appeared slow and obvious to him. He could see what she intended clearly; her left fist would meet his right jaw if he did not move. But before that could happen, she would need to plant her raised foot on the earth—ground herself. Without grounding, there could be no strength or control.
He moved out of instinct. He placed his foot with care and lifted his hand, palm outstretched, to the proper location. Right on cue, her booted foot landed on top of his and her strike, still lacking the force of the earth, made contact with his hand. He grabbed her fist—saw her blue eyes widen in shock—and pushed her back, knocking her off balance. She stumbled, but did not fall.
He expected her to strike again, was ready to counter her. But she did not. Rather, she offered him a small bow and turned away. He heard the drone of whispers from the stands and looked up at the group—at Bray, Arlow, and Peer especially. Bray was beaming encouragingly at him, Peer’s mouth was agape, and Arlow had his arms crossed and his mouth pulled into a close-lipped smile, as if the victory of his traveling companion was also his own victory.
The two robed Chisanta rose from their seats and swept across the arena to where he stood. One was a man with graying hair and a tightly trimmed beard, the other a young blonde woman. They wore the long billowing robes of those he had seen dancing earlier, one a deep blue and the other charcoal gray.
“What is your name?” the man asked. His voice resonated in his chest and his dark eyes glinted genially.
“Yarrow Lamhart.”
“Welcome, my brother, Yarrow Lamhart.” He held his hand out, and Yarrow made to clasp it in his own. Instead, the man took hold of Yarrow’s forearm in an ancient greeting.
“You are Cosanta, and one of us.”
Yarrow’s heart began to thud anew.
The steel-colored sea thrust a foam-tipped fin up the shore. Bray squealed as the cold water lapped around her ankles, and darted up the beach, small pebbles and shell fragments jabbing the bottoms of her bare feet.
“It’s freezing,” she said, looking down at her toes, surprised to find them their normal fleshy color and not blue.
“That’s why you’ve got to be running faster at the start,” Peer said. “Watch me.”
He ran down to the water as the ocean pulled into itself. His black uniform whipped in the wind.
The wave turned back toward the beach; Arlow shouted, “Now!”
Peer’s legs tensed then sprang, propelling him up the shore ahead of the wave, his large feet kicking clumps of sand airborne as he ran. He smiled, rosy-cheeked, and bowed several times as if before an applauding audience.
“Your legs are longer,” Bray said and crossed her arms before her chest.
“And freakishly muscular,” Arlow added, attempting to ring some of the cold wetness from the cuffs of his own trousers. “This is a stupid game anyway.”
“What would you rather be doing, then?” Peer asked. He collapsed onto the beach, then buried his hands and feet in the sand. The sun illuminated the puffiness around his right eye. The lid had swollen in such a way that it drooped like a half-drawn curtain over his blue iris.
Bray leaned back, letting the sun soak into her skin. She’d probably be sunburnt, despite the coolness of the day, but she didn’t much care just at that moment.
“This isn’t at all what I thought it would be…” Arlow said, his hand gingerly assessing the lump on his right cheek.
Bray ran her tongue along the jagged cut inside her bottom lip and thought of the purple bruise forming on her abdomen. She had to agree.
“How do you think Yarrow did it?” Peer asked.
“Blighted if I know.” Arlow flung an offending seashell at the water.
“I wish we could talk to him,” Bray said.
She turned, and so did her companions, at the sound of voices and footfalls. Several of the other marked children worked their way along the steep cliff that ran from the Temple’s perch down to the beach. Bray recognized a few of them, but several wore civilian clothes. New arrivals.
“Hello, Magery,” Arlow called with a wave. “Hello, Roldon.”
They waved back. “What are you up to?” Roldon asked, as he hopped down the last few rocks.
“Nothing much.”
Bray’s eye was caught by the figure at the rear of the promenade. He was obviously Chaskuan, by his dark gleaming hair and the distinctive way his eyes were set in his face. He was so small she would have guessed him to be nine or ten years old, not the fourteen he must be. More than that, his back curved strangely, and his left foot turned inward and did not seem to bend properly. He made his way down the sharp incline with slow careful steps, but without aid.
“Peer was showing us how to outrun the ocean,” Arlow said.
Magery’s gaze lingered on the apparent wetness on Arlow’s pants and she smiled.
“We were just showing some of the newbies around,” she said. She gestured to a Chaskuan girl who had her shiny black hair cut to frame her face. Her cheeks were like sm
ooth plains and her mouth a rosebud. “This is Mi-Na.” Mi-Na bobbed her head in acknowledgement. “Adearre,” Magery continued, pointing to a boy with dark skin and honey-colored eyes—an Adourran, clearly. “Rinny.” A girl with sandy hair and a mousy face. “And Ko-Jin,” she said, as the small boy finally caught up with the group.
Bray and her friends introduced themselves and the newcomers took seats on the shore, forming a circle in the sand. They took turns saying where they were from. Magery was from a wealthy family in southern Daland. Roldon’s family ran an animal preserve down in Andle. Mi-Na’s mother had been a seamstress in Anask, a city in southern Chasku.
“What about you, Adearre?” Magery prompted.
The boy Adearre ran sand through his hands, feeling the coarseness between his fingers. “I come from a town outside Leonna,” he said in a musical cadence. “My people had cattle.”
“And Rinny?” Magery asked.
The girl twitched. “I’m from Accord,” she said with a rough accent that Bray associated with the uneducated.
“Really?” Arlow asked. “What quarter? I’ve spent a lot of time in the capital.”
“No quarter you’ve ever been to,” she said, examining him with dislike, “though I did on occasion conduct business in the green district.”
“Conduct business?” Arlow asked dryly. “What kind of business?”
Rinny gave him a wide smile, revealing a large gap between her front two teeth, then tossed something to him. Arlow caught the object in his hand and stared at it dumbfounded. “My wallet?”
“It was already empty,” she said.
“I’m aware of that fact,” Arlow replied, jamming the item back into his pocket. “And you could hardly call that business.”
She shook her head. “You’d be surprised; ever since the Pauper’s King took charge, theft in the city has gotten real organized.”
“Have you met him?” Bray asked. She knew his face from the ubiquitous wanted posters. Was he as handsome in person?
“The King?” Rinny asked, rubbing her nose. “Sure I have. Well I’ve seen him, anyway. He doesn’t have much to do with street runners like me.”
“So you’re a real professional pickpocket?” Ko-Jin asked. Unlike Mi-Na, he had no discernible accent. “I’ve always wondered how that’s done—how do they not feel your hand?”
“I’ll show you,” Rinny said and hopped up to her feet. “It’s a real art, you know.”
Ko-Jin pushed himself up off the sand, leaning the majority of his weight on his one good foot.
“Now the trick is to have them bump into you. If you bump into them, it’s more suspicious…”
Rinny began guiding Ko-Jin through the proper etiquette of thieving, and he listened with rapt attention.
“How long have you three been here?” Adearre asked.
“Just two days,” Peer said.
“That’s quite a redrre you have.”
Peer’s brow quirked in confusion, so Adearre pointed to his swollen eye.
“Aye, my shiner,” Peer said, touching the purple skin with delicate fingertips.
“Shiner,” Adearre repeated, trying the word on.
“You’ll probably have one of your own soon enough,” Arlow said.
The sound of the waves lapping rhythmically against the beach was lulling Bray to sleep. She looked up at the sun—the morning had grown late. In a few hours they would need to return for their third round of testing. She wondered what would happen if they just refused to go. Would they be dragged into the ring?
She aroused from her stupor at the sound of Ko-Jin sitting down next to her and Rinny rejoining the other side of the circle.
“So Ko-Jin, what’s your story?” Roldon asked, his soft brown curls dancing in the wind.
“Yeah,” Rinny said. “What happened to your foot?”
Bray thought this rather rude, but Ko-Jin merely shrugged and said, “Nothing happened. I was born this way.”
“You’d be good on the streets, you know,” Rinny said. “Cripples always are.”
Ko-Jin frowned, a touch of color blooming on his cheeks. The circle grew uncomfortably quiet.
“What? Did I say something wrong?”
Ko-Jin shook his head. “I just don’t like that word—cripple. It isn’t even accurate. It comes from the old Dalish word for ‘creep.’” He offered them a wide, dimpled smile. “I don’t creep. I shuffle.”
They laughed, and the tension eased. Mi-Na asked him a question in Chaskuan and he answered in that language, leaving the rest of them in the dark.
“How do you speak such good Dalish?” Peer asked.
“My step-dad is Dalish. He’s a fisherman in Ucho Nod.” Ko-Jin tucked his deformed foot underneath him. “So, is there something we are meant to be doing now?”
“Not really,” Bray said as Magery nodded agreement. “We have to be in the gardens for testing every day, but other than that we’re allowed to do as we please.”
“We were thinking on a game to play before you lot showed up,” Peer said.
Roldon perked up, a boyish smile crossing his face. “I know a great game.”
Roldon and Peer bent over a hand-drawn map of the Temple grounds, intent. Bray and her new friends had taken refuge in the Philosophy library, a small, round den of books near the cliffs. Bray chewed on her lip and gazed out the window. She could see straight out to the horizon, the sea glittering with morning sun.
“I think our best shot lies up here,” Roldon said, pushing his brown curls from his eyes.
“Nah, B team took up there yesterday,” Peer said.
Roldon’s shoulders slumped. “Yes…yes, you’re right.”
“I say still,” Adearre’s musical voice sounded from behind a bookcase, “that we should stay mobile.”
Roldon smoothed the map with his hands, pressing it flatter to the table. “We already tried that—it was an utter disaster. No, a good concealing location is best.”
“Besides, I’d hold you back,” Ko-Jin said.
Bray shot him an annoyed look. “How many times do I have to tell you? Our team is stronger with you. We’d have been out in the first ten minutes yesterday without your quick thinking.”
Ko-Jin smiled thankfully at her.
“Why don’t you get your great brain over here? Help us choose a spot,” Peer said, moving to make a spot for the Chaskuan boy.
“Hey now,” Ko-Jin said, rising awkwardly from his chair. “I’m more than just a brain. What I lack in foot speed I make up in upper body strength.” He raised one bone-thin arm and flexed, winking at Bray, then turned to the map.
“The real problem is me,” Arlow said, his bruised face morose. “I’m famed for my atrocious luck. Always have been.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Roldon said. “It’s tactics we need.”
Bray smiled. The game—Smugglers and Scrutineers—had, in the week since their first round down by the beach, become a serious business. They played every morning, and with such a sizable group and wide, interesting landscape, it had reached an impressive scale. Bray lived for the game, as did they all, for the simple reason that it served as a distraction. A distraction from the testing, the pain, the failure and humiliation.
Roldon removed the quartz paperweight from his pocket and placed it on the table reverently, as if it were really the diamond they purported it to be.
“Here’s what I think,” Ko-Jin said, his brows drawn together in concentration. “We hide it in the foliage here.” He pointed at the map. “It’s got good visibility but a limited entrance. Peer and Adearre will serve as runners again. Bray and I will act as lookouts in one of these trees.” He looked over at her. “Do you think you could help me up again?” Bray nodded. “Roldon and Arlow scout. I’m willing to bet B team will be up in this area again.” He ran his fingers along the lake. “C team is less predictable.”
Roldon shook his head and whistled. “You should have been a general, Ko-Jin.”
“There has
n’t been a war in over two hundred years. Generals are forgotten things these days.”
Ko-Jin rolled up the map and handed it to Roldon.
“Is it all settled, then?” Arlow asked. “Truthfully, I could really use a win today…”
“We all could, mate,” Peer said, clapping Arlow on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”
They left the library and hurried, keeping low to the ground, to their selected location. The Temple grounds sprawled, massive and winding. It was easy enough to get lost. Playing the game for the past week had familiarized them better than any tour could have, but they still found themselves easily turned around. As they approached the Cosanta portion of the Temple, Bray crouched lower still, careful to keep out of sight. The Chisanta didn’t seem to mind what the plebes did, as long as they stayed out of the way.
“Hey,” Arlow whispered, halting and peering between two shrubs. “It’s Yarrow.”
Bray shifted a clump of bushes and peeked into the opening. Yarrow hunkered beneath the shade of a tree. He wore long emerald green robes and sat near several Cosanta in their mid-twenties. The others carried on an animated conversation, but Yarrow did not join them. He had placed himself apart and leaned over a thick book in his lap. Bray felt an ache in her chest at the sight. He looked lonely. Spirits, how she missed him. As much as she adored all of her new friends, none of them could replace Yarrow.
“Lamhart,” a blonde woman said, her face so covered in freckles that even her lips and eye lids were spotted.
“Yes?” Yarrow looked up.
“You need to practice. Books won’t get you to the Aeght a Seve.”
Yarrow sighed but nodded. He set his tome aside and stood, then crossed to a circular clearing. His legs bent and he began to move with slow, fluid steps—the warrior dance Bray had seen many Cosanta do since coming to the Temple. Her breath caught as she watched him. He was so graceful, his face a smooth mask. He looked so unlike himself.
Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) Page 6
