Division of the Marked (The Marked Series)

by March McCarron

  “She needs sleep,” Ko-Jin’s voice said beside her. “She’s been given a strong sedative. I can explain everything; I won’t be able to rest for a long while, anyway.”

  “Very well,” Dolla said tartly. Clearly, she did not like being told what was best for Bray, certainly not by a Cosanta.

  “Tell me where to take her,” Ko-Jin said. Bray felt herself lifted off the ground and cradled in strong, familiar arms. She looked up at his weary face. “Look after Yarrow.”

  “I will,” he promised.

  He must have been guided by Dolla, because some short time later Bray found herself placed into a soft bed—gloriously soft. After so many weeks sleeping on a stone floor it felt like the clouds of the Spirits’ home.

  “Bray?” Dolla’s voice asked. Bray roused herself as best she could, opened her eyes. Spirits, but she just wanted to sleep!

  “You can tell the whole story later, but where are Peer and Adearre?”

  Bray felt a lance of pain to her chest, hot tears leaked from her eyes. Dolla’s face grew alarmed by her response. She must have thought them merely separated.

  “Very well, dear,” Dolla said. “I understand.”

  “Peer lives,” Bray managed to say. Dolla nodded and retreated. The door shut behind her with a soft click.

  Bray realized she had confessed Adearre’s death in just the same way Yarrow had. As a contrast from Peer. As if Peer had done something right and Adearre something wrong. As if he had committed the sin of dying.

  The tears continued to flow as she fell to sleep, the soft cloud of a bed not nearly heavenly enough to chase away the remorse-driven terrors that awaited her resting mind.

  She found herself in their beachside cave, preparing to undertake the ill-fated venture of stealing the sphere. She was saying her farewells. It snowed and the roar of the ocean and wind battered her ears. Adearre embraced her, a firm, friendly hand on the back, pulling her close. He smelt like…well, like him.

  He leaned in to whisper, tickled her ear with his breath. “Try not to kill, love. They are astray, not wicked.”

  How wrong you were, my friend.

  Peer shrank away from the abrupt glare of sunlight as the sack was pulled from his head. He blinked, preferring the darkness. A black boot prodded his battered side, but rather than scoot back as the prodder intended, Peer glared up at the man and remained stationary.

  More boy than man.

  The lad had a set of violently blue eyes that couldn’t quite work in unison, the left seemingly having its own agenda. His face was round and boyish.

  “Where’ve you brought me?” Peer slurred around a heavy tongue.

  He scanned what he could of his surroundings through puffy, bleary eyes. They appeared to be at the entrance of a great balcony. Below he could hear the babble of a large crowd. The sun shone offensively in a clear sky.

  “You’re back at the ruin,” the round faced lad said.

  “Stop it, Mick. Don’t answer his questions,” a girl said in an unpleasantly nasal voice.

  Peer’s eyelids drooped, but he forced them open again.

  “Don’t see the harm,” the boy, Mick, said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Peer pulled himself up into a sitting position, though his stiff limbs protested every movement. He’d spent the last few weeks, since his failed escape attempt, thumping around in the back of a covered, horse-drawn cart. Those weeks had seemed like several lifetimes, each unbearable moment stretching its miserable fingers for an eternity. Dusty hardwood, thirst, darkness, and the rancor he felt towards his own heart, for ticking on despite the silencing of its brother.

  Peer searched the faces, seeking one in particular. “Isn’t Vendra here?” He spit out her name like the curse that it was.

  “What’s it matter to you?” the girl asked.

  It mattered a great deal. The thought of killing her was the only thing that motivated him to live, the only goal which parted the clouds in his mind. He’d snuff the life from her, take great pleasure in that moment when her spirit left her body.

  “And will it make you feel better, love?” Adearre’s voice asked.

  “Maybe,” Peer said, knowing it would not.

  “You know that I would not approve.”

  “Don’t see how it matters what you’d approve of. You’re dead. That’s the whole point,” his voice broke and his throat clenched.

  Mick shuffled his feet nearby. “Who’s he talking to?”

  The haughty girl gazed down at Peer with disgust etched in every line of her face. “His dead boyfriend. Tomal says he’s been doing it for weeks. He’s completely cracked.”

  The words ‘dead boyfriend’ scraped through Peer’s mind like a hoe through loose soil. He shot to his feet, wanting to break the girl’s neck, but the chains that bound him caused him to fall in a heavy heap.

  The girl snickered. The sound made Peer’s blood boil.

  “What were you going to do, love? Kill the girl? For what? Asserting, quite accurately, that I am dead?”

  Peer grunted and rolled over. He wiped drool from his chin.

  “Or was it the word ‘boyfriend’ that upset you?”

  “You weren’t that.”

  “No, I was not.”

  Peer’s lungs threatened to collapse in on themselves. He struggled to draw breath. “I loved you, though,” he whispered.

  “I know you did, love.”

  “But you…”

  Adearre sighed, his golden eyes sympathetic. “Perhaps I did not notice.”

  Peer exhaled through his nose and ran fingers through his growth of tangled hair. “Noticing things was your gift.”

  “I do not have an answer for you, love.” Adearre seemed to fade a bit. The drugs must be lessening. “I am a product of your mind, I only know what you do.”

  “Aye, but—”

  The door opened and Quade swept out onto the balcony, his clothes pristine and his dark hair slicked back gracefully from his handsome face. A young Chaskuan woman strode just behind him.

  Quade knelt before Peer with sympathetic eyes. “Peer Gelson, a pleasure to see you again.” Spirits, that voice! It penetrated the fog in his mind, suffused him with warmth. “I apologize for your living conditions of late. It was necessary, you see. If I kept you here, your friend might well have glided in here like a vapor and taken you away.”

  Peer exchanged a confused glance with Adearre. “What’s making him think she won’t still do?”

  Quade made a tent of his fingertips. “Oh, I am hoping that she does come.” He gestured for the Chaskuan girl to move closer. “Peer, I would like you to meet Su-Hwan.”

  Su-Hwan, a pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, bowed her head to Peer. Her face was a smooth, serious mask and there was something decidedly unsettling in her dark eyes.

  “Su-Hwan has recently received a most helpful gift,” Quade continued. “Show him, dear.”

  Peer felt a familiar, unpleasant stripping sensation, as if he’d just lost something essential. He tensed, his eyes darting about in search of the blue glow that still haunted his dreams. “The sphere?” he croaked.

  “No,” Quade soothed with his caramel voice. “Unfortunately the sphere has been lost. No, Su-Hwan can turn gifts off at will. Handy, wouldn’t you say?”

  A bubble of laughter traveled up from gut to throat. Peer wiped an eye and said to Adearre, “What’s he fearing? That’ll get in some light reading?”

  “No indeed, Master Gelson.” Quade gestured to Su-Hwan and the sensation winked out. “It is, in fact, your unique ability I’d like to discuss.”

  The crowd below, audible but not visible from Peer’s vantage, began to chant the same four syllables over and over again. Peer could not discern the word they spoke, but the fervency of the uncountable voices made his skin crawl.

  “You see, I have a singular problem.” Quade motioned for one of the marked teens to pass him a hefty tome. He flipped open a few pages and slid the volume to Peer. “I did not know it
at the time, but my darling Fifth was fluent in Deltish. You are familiar with the tongue?” Peer set his jaw and answered with a glare. “And now,” Quade continued, “I have a great deal of information in a language that no one speaks. But you,” Quade unleashed the full power of his gaze, “can read it.”

  Peer gritted his teeth. Quade’s charm pooled into him, but it mixed poorly with the deep-rooted loathing that Peer felt for the man—like a cocktail of honey and strychnine.

  “I would be willing to negotiate better living conditions. What, Master Gelson, do you want?”

  What am I wanting? Peer glanced at his friend. How he loved those amber eyes. What he wanted was for Adearre to be alive. He wanted to hear his voice—his real voice. He wanted another chance to be the kind of man that could earn his love. He wanted to stop seeing, every time he fell asleep, Adearre’s body arched and suspended in that moment before he fell to his death.

  “What I’m wanting…” Peer said slowly, his eyes narrowed.

  “Yes,” Quade encouraged.

  The chanting below had grown louder so Peer drew close. Quade leaned in as well. Peer cleared his throat and continued, “Is for you to go fuck yourself.”

  Everyone in earshot, save for Quade himself, drew in a startled breath. Peer’s chest heaved, as if that mere statement had expended a great amount of energy. He waited for the repercussion, for a blow of some kind.

  The man merely smiled. “We shall discuss this further at another time. I must make my address now.”

  Quade stood and walked purposefully to the edge of the balcony. The chanting broke off and clamorous cheers assaulted Peer’s senses. Quade gestured for them to quiet and they did so with unnatural quickness.

  “My brothers and sisters,” Quade said. His voice boomed and the crowd remained utterly silent. What came from his lips was molasses—sweet, deep, and magical. Peer knew that it would stir listeners, rally them. It made him want to retch.

  “Many of you know that we had captives in our cells. That those captives, save for our friend here,” Quade turned briefly to Peer, who attempted to impart with only a look all of the hatred he felt, “have escaped. And that we have lost the sphere.”

  A soft hum of voices sounded below. Quade paused, letting this information sink in.

  “What you do not know,” he continued, “is this: we let them escape.”

  A stillness greeted these words, and then applause.

  “Horse-shit,” Peer mumbled. He turned to exchange a look with Adearre, but his friend had vanished.

  “We let them go. They will be our trumpet call. They will be the gong that announces our coming. Because the time has arrived for us to evolve. Because our former brother and sisters to the west, as well as all of man, should know who we are and what we intend.”

  Cheers boomed from the gathered crowd. Peer saw the sick smile on Quade’s face. So calculating. How could his followers miss it?

  “The days of standing aside and allowing the weak to rule has come to an end. The time for remaining in secret is over. The world will know of us. The world will see us and acknowledge us as the leaders of men. The time has come, my brothers and sisters, for the elevation of the marked!”

  And then the chanting began again, and this time Peer could discern the word:

  “EL-E-VA-TION!

  EL-E-VA-TION!

  EL-E-VA-TION!”

  THE END

  About the Author

  March McCarron grew up outside of Philadelphia. She earned a BA in English, and—useless degree in hand—went on to wait tables and sell used cars. More recently, she moved to South Korea with her husband, where she teaches English at a private academy. Aside from writing, she loves travel, craft beer, folk music, and all things geek.

  End Notes

  Thank you, most sincerely, for reading Division of the Marked! This book has been a real labor of love, so I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please consider leaving a review at your eBook store of choice, as I would love to hear your feedback!

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