by Stacey Filak
A similar sound escaped from Wince, and Tollan couldn’t be sure if he was playacting or not.
Gemma wrote for several long minutes, pausing only to bounce, groan or moan. Her face had gone pink with exertion. The gold shimmer had begun to disappear in spots where sweat trickled down her face. Melnora is still hanging on but just barely. We’ve had no official word from Above, which means your brother is playing things close to his vest. He should have summoned the queen by now. But there have been reports of royal guards in Shadowtown, Merchant Row and Whitebeach going door to door, hunting traitors. It won’t be long before they get to Dockside. Until they get here.
Tollan took the book and wrote: Iven doesn’t know how to summon the Queen of Under. That information is guarded from all save the heir.
Gemma scoffed, meeting Tollan’s gaze for a long moment before writing: Seriously? You have no third in case of a situation like this? How the Void do you people even function up there, let alone keep control for a hundred fifty years? Whatever he knows or doesn’t know, the soldiers are searching ‘in the name of King Iven.’ It sure looks like your brother is making a grab for your throne.
She stretched out and nudged Tollan gently in the ribs with her foot, making it impossible for him to dwell on her revelation. He grunted, and she nodded encouragingly. She moaned, feigning sexual delight, and he felt his mouth fall open as understanding dawned on him. She wanted him to play along, to contribute to the charade she was already playing in. He groaned loudly and awkwardly, elbowing Wince to join in. Red-faced, Wince panted loudly, averting his gaze. Gemma bounced harder on the bed until her ass left the mattress. “Oh, oh!”
Gemma’s face was lit with what he thought was a genuine smile. It appeared to Tollan that she was having a grand time playing Tease the Nobleman.
Dampness ran down Tollan’s neck, and his plait had come undone during the bouncing. His hair hung tangled and wild around his face. Wince was panting and ruddy—and as near to exuberant laughter as Tollan was willing to let him get—when a loud knock sounded on the door.
Gemma flicked the page over and scrawled hurriedly: It could be the soldiers. Take off your clothes and make it look real. Now!
In an instant, she had shimmied out of her gown and stood bare save her stockings. With a flick of her wrists, she unhooked the knife sheaths and tossed them on the bed alongside the book and pencils, which she covered with her discarded gown.
Tollan unbuttoned his shirt and tried not to look at her as she pinched her breasts, leaving red marks on her skin. But he couldn’t ignore her when she grabbed his right hand and slapped her ass cheek with it. A raised, red handprint rose before his eyes, and his hand stung from the impact.
She was gesturing wildly at Wince when the pounding came again. Her dexterous fingers unlaced Tollan’s breeches in an instant. She glared at Wince, then gestured at Tollan’s boots. As if in a dream, Tollan cast off his boots and shimmied out of his pants, while Gemma tugged at his shirt buttons.
She grinned, glancing down at Tollan’s arousal, then winked at him, though he suspected that she misinterpreted its source. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “It needs to be wet.”
Confused and dazed, Tollan stared as she spit on his cock—once, then twice, and then a third time. “Sorry, Your Grace,” she whispered daintily before she settled her wig perfectly straight atop her head.
He turned and saw Wince rubbing spit onto his own cock, his face red, and his back shaking with laughter. Perhaps if Tollan weren’t a virgin, he’d have seen the humor in the situation, but all he felt was an agonizing combination of dishonor and disgust. Especially because he’d grown hard at the sight of his naked best friend.
He heard Gemma flop onto the bed, behind him and then squeal as if she’d been poked by a needle. Just as Wince threw open the door, naked to the world, she pressed her mouth to Tollan’s ear, and he felt the warmth of her body slide against his skin. “Whatever you do, don’t let anyone see your back. The mark will give you away,” she hissed, as the opening door revealed a large bald man with pointed teeth who searched the room with a hard gaze.
Tollan realized he had completely forgotten about the mage mark on his back. And just as suddenly, it began to tingle and burn.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” the man raised an eyebrow in Tollan’s direction. “We’ve had word of a young street boy breaking into rooms and stealing purses while our guests were otherwise … occupied. Would you mind if we check your room? You’ll be well compensated for the interruption.” The man was watching Gemma even as he was speaking to Tollan.
“Let them in,” she whispered, relaxing against him.
“Of course, of course,” Tollan croaked, realizing too late that he’d forgotten to affect his accent. “My lady doesn’t mind the interruption.” The burning and pulsing on his back was growing worse, and his mind felt clouded, heavy and unresponsive.
The giant of a man brushed past Wince without a glance and was followed by a smaller man with cold, assessing eyes and messy brown hair. The large man made a pretense of searching behind curtains and in the wardrobe, but the smaller man moved straight toward Tollan, nearly knocking him over.
“What is it?” Gemma asked, her voice dripping with worry. “What’s happened?”
“Gem,” the man whispered, pushing Tollan aside. “Don’t go home. You know where to go. And don’t let this walking erection go to Above, either. Things are bad. Get out of here now. The back way.” He dropped a pack on the floor in front of her, then pulled her to him. “I’ll be there when I can,” he said, eyes bright. “Please be careful.”
Before Tollan knew it, the men had left the room and Gemma was unloading clothes from the pack they’d dropped. As she slid into a pair of nondescript breeches, he noticed Wince pulling on clothes, too. She threw a bundle of clothes at Tollan, and though he tried, he couldn’t catch any of them. His heart thudded in his chest.
Gemma ripped off her wig and shoved it and her gown into the pack along with the book, the pencils and her leg sheaths. Then she wiggled into an oversize shirt and deftly buttoned it up before reaching into the pack and drawing out a knife belt, which she wrapped low on her hips and fastened snugly. He watched in awe as she did something similar on each of her wrists. She glanced up at him then and nodded at his wilted manhood. “Get dressed, Your Grace,” she whispered.
He shook his head, then turned to see Wince pulling on a second boot. His friend nodded at the clothes in Tollan’s hands. “Hurry,” he mouthed.
His back burned as if someone had spilled acid on it, and he couldn’t make sense of what was happening around him. Sound came and went like the tide.
“Prick,” Gemma said, shoving Tollan’s discarded eye patch into the pack as she glared at him. “We’ve got to go. You’ll have to dress on the way.” In two graceful strides, she crossed the room to the wardrobe. Standing on tiptoe, she ran her fingers along the top, and Tollan heard a click. He saw her lips moving, but all he heard was the pounding of his blood in his veins.
Wince shoved a pair of breeches into Tollan’s hands, “Hurry, Toll. Goddess, what’s wrong with you?” Stars flared in his field of vision and the thumping of his heart changed its pace.
Somehow, he found himself shoved into the strange pair of pants. A shirt was thrown over his shoulders as he pulled on one boot, then the other. The edges of his vision grew dark as he slumped onto the bed. His back burned like the fires of the Void.
Gemma eyed him warily and then ran her fingers behind the wardrobe, pushing it open with a grunt. “Pick him up and carry him, Wince. I don’t know what the prick is wrong with him, but we’ve got to run. Now.”
Tollan was tossed over Wince’s shoulder and carried, head down, into a dark hallway. Gemma pulled the wardrobe shut behind her, then whispered, “Sixty-seven paces, then turn left.”
Tollan tried to keep count, but he lost his numbers somewhere after the twenty-eighth pace. “Wince?” he said groggily.
Wince
stopped walking, and Tollan felt his head rest against his friend’s ass cheek. “Forty-four. What?” Wince asked, his voice ragged.
“Who were those guys back there?” Tollan’s tongue was thick in his mouth.
“Weren’t you paying attention when Gemma told us? They’re nobodies, really. Just Fin the Fish and Devery Nightsbane. You know … the prickling master of assassins,” Wince spit out.
“Oh,” Tollan said, as brightly colored spots appeared before his eyes. “They seemed … nice.”
Suddenly Gemma’s breath was on his face. “That’s because Fin is my friend and Devery is my lover. Now can you shut up? Come on, Tollan. We’ve got to get out of here, or we die.”
“Why will we die? What’s happening?” Tollan asked, weakly beating his hands against Wince’s back. He blinked away tears and saw, in his mind’s eye, an image of his brother holding a bloodstained sword. His sword. “Help me, Aegos,” he moaned. “Have mercy on me.” Darkness and stars and the tide overtook him and he slipped beneath the waves.
Gemma fumbled in the pack Devery had given her until she found a bundle of candles in the bottom. With practiced fingers, she pulled her flint from her pouch and snapped a spark into life. Darkness gave way to dancing shadows.
They walked in silence for several minutes before Wince said, “Devery Nightsbane is really your … lover?”
“Why do you say it like that? Lover. You have a lover! Why shouldn’t I?”
“How do you know about her?”
“I’m just observant. That’s why Melnora chose me.” She choked back tears and kicked at a loose stone. “But you didn’t answer my question. What makes it so goddess-damned shocking that I take a man to my bed?”
He grimaced. “Because if a man marries a woman and then discovers she isn’t a virgin, she can be thrown into jail or kept in the stocks. Only whores would risk it. But you’re not a whore. You’re the most respected woman in Under.”
“Your laws are barbaric,” she said. “You goddessless bastards don’t even know that being a whore is a prickling privilege. Aegos kisses those who share themselves, and blesses them even before the queen and king. The whores I know are some of the most generous and compassionate …” she growled in frustration as he shook his head in disbelief. “Pretty much everyone I know has a lover. If you love each other, you stay together. Only folks in Above get married. Wedlock is just another way to claim ownership over someone. In Under, we own ourselves.” She exhaled. “Look, your lot have balls to meet girls and get married, and we …”
Wince chuckled softly.
“What? What could possibly be funny about that?”
“Did you just say that we have balls?” His chuckle turned into outright laughter.
“You’re a twelve-year-old, Wincel Quintella.”
He nodded, almost proudly.
“That makes it easier, though. Doesn’t it?” Gemma looked at him with distaste. “Laughing over your cocks and balls instead of trying to really understand.” She spat at the ground as her temper threatened to get the best of her. “That’s what I mean, Wince. That’s exactly what you do in Above. Make every prickling thing about what’s hiding in your breeches, instead of what is happening right in front of your face.”
His grin faltered. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“Look … in Above, you can bury your head in the sand. You judge us because we’re whores and thieves and murderers, and you get to keep your hands clean. We scratch your belly and you scratch ours. But your goddess-chosen king is just as much of a twisted prick as the rest of us. And that’s worked out just fine, except …”
Wince was looking at her now as if he were meeting her for the first time. “Except what?”
“Except,” she went on, “maybe we were too busy scratching each other’s bellies to notice that a snake had slithered into the cottage.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE TUNNELS
They had stumbled through eleven different tunnels and were approximately 1,839 paces from the Six-Mast, near Canticle Center, when it struck her like an iron pipe to the gut.
“Stop,” Gemma said, dropping her pack. “I know what’s wrong with him.” Wince gingerly put Tollan down, and the king murmured something as if in slumber.
“What is it?” Wince said breathlessly.
“Hold this.” She pressed the flickering candle into Wince’s hand. His face was a study in angles, his eyes sunken and haunted.
“All right,” she said. “I remembered something.” She thrust her chin in the direction of the sleeping king. “But I need to get his shirt off of him to be sure.”
Wince nodded and undid the misaligned buttons on Tollan’s shirt. The King of Above’s skin burned with fever. His pulse fluttered and his breath was coming in painful gasps. His arm and leg muscles twitched uncontrollably. Gemma slid one quaking arm and then the other out of their sleeves, and rolled the dead weight of the king over onto his stomach.
Holding the candle near the raw, freshly drawn mage mark, she looked at the strange symbol—part brand, part tattoo—and knew immediately she was right. She drew a sharp breath. “Did you ever see King Abram’s mage mark?”
Wince’s mouth turned downward in consternation when he saw the mark on Tollan’s back. “My father is the weapons master. The king would come and spar on occasion, and he usually removed his shirt. I never saw his so inflamed, though. Is that what’s wrong with him?”
“I think so,” she said, fumbling in her pack once more. She pulled out the blank book and pencil they had used to pass notes earlier and drew a mark on a blank page. “This is what I was taught to look for on the back of the King of Above.”
“Yes,” Wince nodded. “That’s the mark.”
She shook her head, brushing her finger along Tollan’s red, irritated skin. “Not exactly. Look,” she said, pointing to one of the curves. There was a difference to one of the flourishes and a slightly different curve to the bisecting line.
Wince groaned low in his throat and pushed himself backward, as if distancing himself would somehow help. “But this has to be the true mark. Doesn’t it? I mean how …”
She looked up, meeting his gaze. “I was forced to draw this mark a hundred times a day for four straight months when I was fifteen. It has always been one of the Daghan family’s greatest concerns, that someone would try to impersonate the king, and this was their way of ensuring that it didn’t happen. You can always identify the true king by his mage mark. If I’d have made this mistake in my drawing, Melnora would have had me scrubbing chamber pots for a month. Which means …”
“No mage woman could have drawn that mark by accident. Prick me! They did this to him? Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything, but it makes a lot of sense. Who in all of Yigris is powerful enough to take out both the King of Above and the Queen of Under simultaneously? Yesterday, I’d have said no one. But seeing this … the King of Above keeps four mage women as servants to the crown—insurance that the Vagans would never start another war. They are the only people who have done mage work in Yigris since the end of the Mage War.” She met Wince’s gaze. “Do you know how the king’s mage mark is supposed to work? Do you know what it does?”
“It marks him as Aegos’s chosen ruler.”
“Well, sure, but Melnora taught me that the mage mark is triggered when it’s looked upon. It’s supposed to infuse its bearer with confidence in himself, in his divine right to lead the people of Yigris. As if their view of and belief in the mark actually makes a stronger, better-equipped king. That’s why Abram would take his shirt off to spar—it made him more self-assured.”
“What does this have to do with Toll?”
“He was fine until I looked at the mark.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I think a mage woman took the opportunity of Abram’s death to try to kill Tollan, too.” She rolled her neck, staring upward at the tunnel’s ceiling for a moment. “Is it a crime of opp
ortunity or something else? Why would they want to attack Tollan?” She remembered the strange, emotionless mage woman who had hovered behind Tollan when they’d first met. A sliver of fear stabbed at her spine.
“Really, Aegos? It’s my first prickling day as queen.”
They were silent for a long moment as she pondered what to do.
“If what you say is true about the mage mark, can we just—I don’t know—can we break it?” Wince said.
“The mark?”
“Yeah. Can we just make it so that it won’t work?” His gaze was on the raw brand on the king’s back.
Gemma stared at it, too, looking at the way the blackened skin almost seemed to pulse. She could feel the mage work. “It’s carved and burned into his skin, Wince. I don’t know. Maybe cutting a piece of it out might do it, but it’s going to hurt a lot, and might not work.”
Wince stared at Tollan for a few moments as Gemma grew antsy. They shouldn’t be standing still, and she was nearing the point when she would have to get them moving again when he said, “Look, Gemma. I’m a little out of my depth, at the moment, but I can’t just sit here and let those scorpions dig their claws into my king any deeper.” He looked away from her, then mumbled below his breath, “Twisted prick or not.”
She nodded. “All right.” She reached for her dagger, but he stopped her.
“Does it have to be a blade?” he asked. “Do you have a needle? Maybe we could just drag a needle through the outline, mar the edges a bit …”
It was Gemma’s turn to burst into laughter. “Oh, sure … let me just dig through my sewing basket, here …” She withdrew a stiletto blade, a garrote and a vial of near-toxic sleeping powder from her waist pouch. “Hmm.” She grinned broadly. “I’m afraid I left all my good embroidery at home.” She shoved the tools of her trade back into her pouch. “There’s not much I know how to do that isn’t at the back end of a weapon. But I’d be happy to do the cutting, if you’d rather not.”
