Division of the Marked (The Marked Series)

by March McCarron

  “I won’t be ordered about on me own ship,” the bearded man said. His wife crossed her arms, the hard lines of her face equally mutinous.

  Bray nodded absently at Yarrow and chewed on her lip. Her feelings thrummed with tension, worry. He leaned against her and she aided him down the stairway again.

  “I have a plan,” Yarrow said to her, when he was once again deposited in the chair.

  Bray’s eyebrows rose.

  “I will need time though. Stall as long as you can, and keep the others away.”

  “Yarrow, what is—”

  He cut her off. “No time to explain. Just trust me.”

  Then Yarrow took her hand and pulled her down, pressed his lips to hers with force.

  She broke away, anger flashing in her eyes. “Don’t you kiss me goodbye, Yarrow Lamhart.”

  “That wasn’t goodbye,” he said, letting her go. “It was for luck.”

  She offered him one last uncertain glance, then pounded back up the steps, leaving him alone.

  He heaved a great breath. It had to be done. Involuntarily, Arella’s face sprung into Yarrow’s mind. He wanted to rumple her hair, hear her laugh, hold her close. But he could not—he never would. The shards of his heart ached, a hard lump formed in his throat.

  When the thing you must lose is too great to bear, when the thought of it makes you weep like a child, beat your breast like a madman, and rip your hair like a widow, only then may it be sacrificed.

  He understood that quote now in a way he never had before.

  Yarrow closed his eyes; he needed to go to the Aeght a Seve. It was more easily done by bodily practice of the Ada Chae, but he knew that to be a physical impossibility. He would have to do the exercise mentally.

  Yarrow took a deep breath and, in his mind’s eye, began the form. Warm Hands over Fire yielded smoothly into Brush the Dragonfly. The forms helped to ease some of his frazzled, desperate feelings. But the peace, the relaxation, would not come. Slow Lash made way to Wafting Arms, and still his mind would not settle.

  It’s the drugs. They still pumped in his veins. That was why he could not sleep. They had been given to him just for this reason—if his mind could not find peace, he could not enter the Aeght a Seve. And if he could not enter that place, he could receive no additional gifts.

  He heard the scuffle of boots on wood above him and raised voices. Were the enemy upon them already? He formed To and Fro then Floating Down Stream, but, if anything, his success was lessening.

  More footsteps—too many footsteps—sounded above him. They had been boarded.

  Yarrow tried to fight down his panic, his mind frayed.

  And then it occurred to him: if Bray could enter the Place of Five though the Ada Chae, he must be able to do so through the Tearre.

  Again, Yarrow closed his eyes. There was a yell followed by the thud of a body hitting the deck. He shoved it aside. Instead, he imagined his Mearra standing across from him. He lent his mirror-self detail, imagined what he would be feeling. That was easy enough; he would be panicked, concerned, distraught, just as Yarrow was.

  His alternate self popped into existence with uncommon alacrity. Yarrow lacked the physical ability to fight. He would have to perform the Tearre mentally. He hadn’t done this with any success before, but there was nothing for it.

  He imagined himself taking a swing. His Mearra dodged. Almost instantly, Yarrow felt a kind of frenzy stir within him. The stimulants, the fear, the desperation coming together, making him sweat, making him breathe heavily, making his mind vibrate. His Mearra kicked but he stepped fluidly out of harm’s way.

  He became aware of the Aeght a Seve, but rather than relaxing into it, he grabbed hold of it. Yanked it towards himself. Thrust himself into it.

  The boat disappeared, as did his pain. The Aeght a Seve appeared as it ever did, peaceful and warm. A soft breeze cooled his skin. It was a place indifferent to the plights of the living.

  I did it, Yarrow realized, but he could not summon any pleasure at the thought. To have succeeded was to bring himself one step closer to making the first sacrifice. To unmaking his daughter.

  Yarrow crossed the dry grass and came to the sheer edge of the place, shooting up into the sky like a monstrous stair. He knew he would have to climb it to attain his second gift, though it appeared impossibly high.

  Yarrow took a breath and backed away several steps. He ran and jumped, but thudded into the wall and fell back to the ground, scuffing his elbow.

  He picked himself up and dusted his robes clean, then backed up to try again. He charged, leapt, and crashed.

  Yarrow looked up at the ledge, at its impossible height, and recalled what he had learned long ago. The Aeght a Seve is not a physical place, though it seems physical once inside it. It is a place that tests strength of will. He would not make this jump by leaping higher, but by proving his willingness to give up what must be lost.

  Reluctantly, Yarrow called to mind what he had seen in the sphere. He made himself experience it again—holding his daughter in his arms, smelling her hair, laughing at her jokes, feeling that comfort she would give him as he died. He cherished her, touched at her memory with soft, fatherly fingertips. His chest ached and tears spilled forth once again.

  “I’m sorry, my baby girl,” he said softly. Then he ran, jumped, and, this time, his fingers found the edge. His other hand took hold as well, and slowly, with a great deal of effort, he pulled himself up. He rolled onto the second tier and lay there, flat on his back, panting and staring up at the clear blue sky.

  And he felt the loss. She was gone—utterly, irrevocably gone. But he also felt a gain, pathetic and small though it seemed by comparison. He could get them out.

  Bray watched the enemy board with a growing sense of alarm. There were perhaps sixty of them in total. They seemed to be the elite, the older. Though varied in nationality, and a mix of Chiona and Cosanta, they all bore a stunning resemblance in expression. They were cold-eyed, grim-lipped.

  Vendra stepped aboard with the air of a queen descending from her throne. Her features were haughty, her almond-shaped brown eyes triumphant.

  “Search the vessel,” she said, and several black-clad figures dispersed themselves about the boat. Three pounded down the stairs, where they would find Yarrow, helplessly wounded. Bray held her breath.

  They returned after several long moments, carrying Yarrow between them. For a moment she thought him unconscious, or worse. They carried him as if he were a dead weight. But after he had been thrown to the deck she saw the rise and fall of his chest. He rolled onto his back, his expression pained and his face tear streaked.

  There was something odd about his face, she thought. Something different—as if he had aged, somehow, in the minutes since she last saw him. She could still feel his lips pressed against hers, but looking at him, he seemed not to be the same man who had kissed her.

  “The sphere?” Vendra asked.

  “It’s not there, mistress,” a young man said.

  “Impossible. It must be hidden, is all.”

  Yarrow laughed, a strangled, desperate sound. She looked down at him, her mouth drawn thin in anger.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “It went for a swim,” Yarrow said, still laughing.

  Vendra’s eyes widened. “You lie.”

  “How big is this boat, Vendra?” he asked her. “Look at Ko-Jin. Can the sphere truly be here?”

  Vendra did look at Ko-Jin then, taking in his whole form, and her eyes narrowed. She dealt a swift, hard kick to Yarrows side, and he hissed in pain. Fresh blood began to soak his shirt.

  “You must have hidden it somewhere before boarding.”

  “No,” Ko-Jin responded coolly. His gaze darted to the railing, where he had dropped the sphere. “Go fish.”

  Vendra crossed the space between herself and Ko-Jin in an instant and struck him full across the face. He would have collapsed if he were not being held around the armpits by two large men.

&nb
sp; “You will board the ship,” Vendra said between clenched teeth, “and if you believed yourself mistreated before, you are about to discover the meaning of the word.”

  “No.” Bray said. Her jaw popped as she clenched her teeth.

  “No?” Vendra asked, her voice soft and dangerous.

  “You can’t take me.”

  Vendra pulled a pistol from the holster at her hip. “Did Yarrow tell you how your friend died?”

  Bray’s stomach clenched in anger. She did not reply, could not trust herself to speak.

  “I said I would shoot him. And then I did.” Vendra cocked the firearm with a resounding click. Then she pointed it directly at Yarrow’s head. “So know that I speak truth when I say this: if you do not come quietly, I will kill him.”

  Her dark eyes appeared almost bored, her tone flat and uninterested. Bray did not need Yarrow’s gift to know that this woman meant what she said.

  “We will all go quietly,” Yarrow said, “if you promise to leave these civilians alone. They did not know what they were doing.”

  Vendra gestured impatiently with her hand. “They aren’t important.” Then she turned to the orderly group of youngsters behind her. “Take them to the ship and lock them in the brig.”

  Rough hands pulled at Bray, and only the knowledge that Yarrow would otherwise be shot gave her the resolve to remain solid. She saw the same two young men pick Yarrow up and, as they bore him across the planks to the cruiser, she saw him wink at her.

  Bray’s brow furrowed. Had she imagined it? Could Yarrow truly have a plan? She hoped that he did, because what else was there to hope for? He was a handicap to her. She cared for him, and that would keep her as bound and contained as any normal woman.

  With a good deal of unnecessary shoving, she was guided onto the plank and pushed forward. She considered allowing herself to fall over the side, into the churning sea below. But what would that accomplish? Nothing at all.

  The cruiser must have been recently commissioned. Its impressive expanse of gleaming wood had a definite aura of newness. Bray was shoved into the shadow of the sail, a massive cream sheet against the sky. She did not have long to admire the grandness of the ship before she was forced below deck and into a cell.

  Vendra followed them, keeping her pistol pointed at Yarrow’s head. She handed the weapon to a young Adourran lad. “Take it in shifts. He needs to be at gunpoint at all times. If she does anything, shoot him.”

  Then she reached into a satchel strapped round her waist and extracted a black leather case, now familiar to them all. They were to be drugged again. Bray’s hope deflated. Even without the sphere, she would be irremediably trapped in fog and nightmares.

  “Come here,” she said to Ko-Jin. His mouth clenched and eyes flashed, as though he might defy her. His handsome face set in obstinate lines, but then he stood and crossed the small space. He even rolled up his sleeve for her.

  Bray watched as she stabbed Ko-Jin’s arm and pushed the horrible poison into his veins. Vendra moved to Yarrow’s cell next. She didn’t have to ask this time. He came, clutching his stomach wound, and allowed her to drug him.

  Yarrow looked right into the Adourran woman’s eyes with a hatred and a determination Bray had never seen there before. “You will pay, for what you have taken,” he said, his voice cold enough even to match her own.

  Vendra smirked, but did not rise to the taunt. She clearly found his threat too empty to concern her.

  She moved on to Bray, who summoned a look of such intense loathing that Vendra laughed. The sound made Bray sick to her stomach.

  The woman grabbed her arm through the bars with needless force and stabbed her with the needle. Bray felt the cold liquid surge into her body, and knew what its effect would be.

  Vendra did not let go of her arm. Fingers dug into her flesh, but Bray did not flinch.

  “I hope you know, as the greatest liability, you will be the first to die,” Vendra said. “Will you allow yourself to be killed to save your boyfriend?”

  She expected no answer and Bray gave her none. Her tone had been taunting, but Bray suspected she spoke the truth. They would kill her. And if she did not allow them to, they would kill Yarrow. She wondered, in that moment, what she would do.

  Vendra stalked across the cabin and proceeded up the stairs. The brig hung in shadow and the drugs seeped into her system quickly. Taken with the gentle rocking of the ship, Bray’s eyelids already began to droop.

  She sunk to the floor in an awkward heap. Here she was again, captive and drugged. And what had they gained? Surely nothing that could compensate for what they had lost.

  Her mind shied away from Adearre’s death. It was like an open wound. Like a bright light to unadjusted eyes. She knew she would have to come to terms with it in time, but just then it seemed too absurd to be true. How could he be dead—gone? He was so young and smart and kind. A good man, a far better person than herself. He had been right, entirely right, about her methods in the field. And she would never have the chance to confess that to him—to ask his forgiveness.

  She imagined him, his bright honey eyes, his wide white smile, saying to her, “I cannot pardon sins. Only you can forgive yourself. And if you are truly repentant your spirit will lighten once again.”

  He would have said something like that. Adearre had believed in such things. He had believed in the goodness of man, in his ability to change himself. About that, he had been wrong, she thought. His very absence was proof. Man was not good. Man killed.

  A popping sound wrenched Bray from her thoughts; her head shot up. Yarrow no longer crouched in his cell. Inexplicably, he was standing behind their Chaskuan guard. He rammed the boys head into the cage that had, moments before, held him. The boy crumpled to the ground, out cold.

  Bray felt a surge of pride. That move was Chiona through and through; a Cosanta didn’t act with such speedy aggression.

  Pop! Yarrow no longer stood beside the inert body of his guard. He vanished from sight then appeared again, in Ko-Jin’s cell.

  “Yarrow… how?” Ko-Jin asked.

  “I’ve received a second gift,” Yarrow said, though his tone was flat and bleak. He took hold of Ko-Jin and, with another burst of noise, they disappeared. In an instant, the two of them reappeared in Bray’s own cell.

  Ko-Jin looked around, startled. “You can teleport? How far?”

  “As far as I like,” Yarrow said. “To the Cape in an instant. Shall we?”

  Ko-Jin laughed and Bray, though her mind had gone fuzzy, pulled herself back to her feet.

  “Why did you wait?” Ko-Jin asked.

  “I didn’t want her to kill that nice couple,” Yarrow said. “It seemed the least I could do after she sewed me up.”

  “Really?” Bray asked, her voice even sounded slurred in her own ears. “You can take us that far?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take us to the Isle,” Bray said, leaning into Yarrow and taking a firm hold of his hand.

  “Why?” Ko-Jin asked. “Why not the Cape?”

  “Because of Kellar Samgrid,” Bray said around a fat tongue.

  “Who?”

  “He’s the only living Chisanta with a second gift—or was,” Bray said.

  “So?” Ko-Jin asked.

  “He can heal…” Bray yawned loudly, “…for Yarrow.”

  Yarrow held onto her tightly, and, she presumed, onto Ko-Jin as well. “Very well,” he said, “to the Chiona Isle.”

  Bray leaned into him and felt the floor of the cell vanish beneath her. For a moment, she spun into nothingness. She imagined herself shooting through the air, though this was a fancy. In reality, she had been in one place and, in another moment, she was elsewhere.

  The sunshine of the Isle glared down at them. Bray felt the dry heat against her skin, welcome and familiar. Though she clung to consciousness with mental fingertips, she knew where she was. The familiar swirling pattern of the stones beneath her, the palm trees, the spicy smells in the air. This was the
main courtyard of the Chiona Temple.

  Cries of alarm erupted around her. She did not wonder at them—three people appearing out of nowhere must have been a startling sight, let alone three people in a state such as they.

  The Chiona crowded in, the wash of questions running over her like a summer rain. One voice stood out, though—Dolla.

  “Bray?” she demanded. She pushed her way through the bystanders. “Great Spirits, Bray, what has happened?”

  “We need Kellar,” Bray managed to say, though she felt as one just on the cusp of sleep.

  “Are you injured?” a voice asked. Not Dolla, but familiar. She could not place it.

  “No,” Bray said, “Yarrow…”

  “My Spirits, look at that blood!”

  The din of voices made her head pound.

  A warm hand wrapped around Bray’s waist. She opened her eyes and focused. It was Dolla, her shorn white hair and sharp face the finest sight Bray could have asked for. Dolla was the closest thing to a parent Bray had.

  “What has happened, child?” Dolla asked.

  “Yarrow?” Bray said as she realized she was no longer touching him. Where was he?

  “He’s being treated. He will be well. What has happened?”

  It was Ko-Jin who answered. Bray was glad of it. She had so little energy. The fog closed in.

  “A man named Quade Asher has been kidnapping marked children these past ten years. He’s formed an army. He intends to conquer Trinitas.”

  The crowd must have grown since they had arrived, the babble now significantly louder. She heard the protests of disbelief, even several people asking, “What are Cosanta doing here?”

  It was incredible to Bray that the rest of her people should not have progressed along with her. She had nearly forgotten that the two halves disliked each other. How could such a trivial thing matter when they now had a true enemy—a common enemy?

  “Bray?” Dolla asked, giving her a small shake.

  “Mm?”

  “This can’t be true.”

  “Of course it’s true,” Bray said with another yawn.