“Yes, it is a bit drafty in here. Doctor’s coming though, just hold on a little while.”
Arlow clenched his eyes shut and begged the Spirits not to take this lad. The fingers grew still and stiff beneath his grip. The coughing ceased.
Another roaring silence.
Arlow kept his eyes screwed closed for a long while, no longer prayerful, merely wanting to delay the moment of knowing. When at last he did look, he found what he had expected—empty eyes.
For several minutes, Arlow merely kneeled there, clinging to the unfortunate boy’s hand, his mind numb. And then that numbness cracked, like a riding crop snapped against a knee.
He wept, then. Wept as he never had in all his life; wept the bitter tears of a man not in the habit of feeling regret. He sobbed for this poor lad, for the lad’s mother, wherever she was, and for himself, him and his bloodlessly bloody hands.
The great doors crashed open and a flurry of people entered, torches banishing the shadows. Doctors with medical bags came first, moving with purpose towards the injured. They were followed by a number of Elevated, and—finally—Vendra and Quade.
Arlow rubbed his cheeks on his sleeve and sniffed. His breakdown was likely evident on his face, but there was nothing to be done. He squared his shoulders.
Quade’s arrival warmed the room better than a hearthfire. Arlow instinctively leaned towards him, despite the look on the man’s face suggesting he was less than pleased. He strode, arms clasped behind his back, in the direction of the throne.
Quade examined the body of the king with an unreadable expression, crouched down and felt for a pulse. He smiled when he found none. “Not a complete fiasco, then.”
Vendra flinched and bowed her head. Blood gleamed along her hairline, running down the side of her face and obscuring one eye, but Arlow found her timorous posture far more alarming than her injury.
“Arlow,” Quade said, at last looking at him. “You are to be congratulated.” Some of the darkness in Arlow’s mind lightened at these words. “Had your wisdom been better heeded, perhaps this could have been done less,” he glanced around at the bodies on the floor, “sloppily.” Again, Vendra winced. “However, the king is dead and his ilk will be dealt with readily enough. I am not so ungrateful a man as to dismiss a qualified victory.”
Quade took a seat on the throne itself. He made this seem incidental, as if he merely wished to sit and the throne were the nearest chair. However, something in his countenance exalted as he settled into that seat of power. His long fingers caressed the armrest and his knees parted in a posture of dominance. He seemed born for that throne—his face illuminated in moonlight, strength radiating from every line of his form.
An Elevated girl with white-blonde hair hurried up to her master’s side. “The press are gathering.”
The press? Already?
“Thank you, I will come shortly,” Quade answered.
He leaned forward, looking more critically at Arlow, who grew increasingly embarrassed of his swollen eyes and enflamed cheeks.
“You’ve had a difficult day, I think,” Quade said kindly. He extended a hand. Arlow mounted the stair and placed his own still-shaking fingers atop Quade’s steady palm. A wave of comfort rushed through him, the kind of warmth that only a true friend can offer. He took a breath, the first that came easily to him since he’d revived.
“I have a task for you, Arlow. Something I think you will enjoy.”
Arlow raised his head and met the man’s dark gaze. “More assassinations?”
“No.” Quade smiled. “You have proven an invaluable, loyal asset. You have my gratitude, and what’s more, my trust. Which is why I would like you to go to Dalyson on my behalf.”
“Dalyson?” Arlow asked, wondering what he could possibly have to do in such a backwater city.
“The Pauper’s King has agreed to meet with an emissary of my choosing. I need you, Arlow, to sway this man to our cause, and to be my eyes and ears if he permits you to remain with him.” Arlow realized his mouth had parted and quickly shut it. The Pauper’s King himself? “You can appreciate, I think, what it would mean to have the man as an ally. He has a network across Trinitas that even I am in awe of.” Quade’s eyes shone, hungry.
“Yes, certainly.” The Pauper’s King had long since been a source of fascination for Arlow, and part of him heartened at being given such a task. The rest of him doubted. “But why, may I ask, have you selected me as emissary?” As the son of an aristocrat, he would win little love amongst such people. It seemed a poor choice on Quade’s part.
“Because I fear that one of my Elevated might be swayed by him. You, however, know yourself. You will not be charmed by a highwayman. Besides, I am in need of a little luck in this case.” He winked.
Arlow’s mouth quirked into a slow grin. “Luck, at the very least, I can offer you.”
Quade patted the back of Arlow’s hand and stood. “I must address the press now. You will set out in the morning?”
Arlow bowed his head, already planning the trip in his mind.
Quade squeezed his shoulder as he walked past. “Be safe, then, brother.”
The incessant thundering of the train resounded in Peer’s head as they blazed through the Dalish flatlands. He watched the landscape flit by beyond the window, his forehead pressed flush against the cool pane. The vibrations seemed to make his teeth shake in their gums, but he didn’t pull away.
“Aches the head, don’t it?” he mumbled.
“Yes, love. I imagine it does.”
Peer focused a bleary gaze on his friend, whose form flickered, indistinct. His golden eyes were sharp, as was the bright white of his smile, but the rest of his figure could not hold its shape. The steadily growing light of dawn threatened to dispel him like a shadow.
“Carriage travel’s much the better, even if it’s slower.”
“You prefer the company of horses, I think.” Adearre’s voice had taken on the tinny note it often did before he faded.
“To most folk, not all,” Peer said. When he was a boy, living with the last foster family before his marking, the horses had been the only living things on that farm he could tolerate. There had been one in particular, a chestnut mare called Brown Sugar; she had taken an immediate liking to Peer, an unusual occurrence in his childhood. He’d slip away whenever he could, spending long hours in the barn brushing her coat over and over again. All these years later, he still found comfort in that familiar task, grooming a horse—in the muscle memory of those motions, in that equine musk that he couldn’t quite describe, except to say it smelt like sanctuary. “Never thought I could miss anything more ’an I missed that mare.”
Adearre didn’t answer. Peer blinked several times, trying to make his eyes focus. When the train compartment at last resolved before him, his friend had gone. Peer’s lungs burned, and he forced himself to inhale.
He peeled his face from the window and caught his reflection in the glass, was struck by how unrecognizable he’d become. The hair atop his head had grown out in prickly tufts and his haggard face sported an untidy beard.
He turned away from the stranger in the glass, towards the others in the compartment. Su-Hwan, the slight Chaskuan girl who was his frequent companion, sat across from him with her feet tucked up under her, a book in hand.
Next to her, slumped like a corpse, sat the Fifth—her green eyes and pale face vacant, her lips moving their constant stream of truths. A scribe sat at her feet, writing down every word.
Peer had long since tuned her out. Quade had likely kept them together in the hopes that he’d translate her Deltish out of sheer boredom. Not bloody likely.
“It’s after noon,” Peer said, his voice rough with disuse.
“That is correct,” Su-Hwan said, not looking up from her volume. He thought her an odd girl, her youthful face as emotionless and smooth as a porcelain doll.
“Well, ain’t it time for my drugging?” Peer asked. He heard the longing in his voice and cursed himself. He couldn’t let on
that he needed the stuff, that the thought of sobriety scared him more than any other torture they might devise—infinitely more terrifying than the restful embrace of death.
She surveyed him, her expression its usual placid indifference. “Quade has determined to cease your dosage.” She turned a page in her text. “Until you agree to cooperate.”
Peer’s fingers moved to his inner elbow. “He ain’t worried I’ll be getting a new gift?”
Another careful turn of a page. “He is not.”
Peer licked his lips and tried to force the panic from his voice. “And why’s that, then?”
Su-Hwan pierced him with her dark, cold eyes. “I informed him that your grief alone would be more than sufficient to impede you.”
Peer looked to his feet, hoping to mask his desperation. In the steadily approaching distance, the city of Accord stood grim as tombstones beyond the marshes.
The compartment door slid open, admitting an Elevated Peer didn’t know. He appeared to be a good five years Peer’s junior, a dark-complected Adourran with shrewd eyes.
“Quade sent me. He wants you and Whythe to stay with this one,” he jerked his head towards Peer, “on the train.”
“Very well,” Su-Hwan said in her even tone. “Thank you, Kelarre.”
The Adourran smirked. “Not disappointed to miss the victor’s procession? Of course not—disappointment’s an emotion. You don’t feel those, do you?”
Peer sat straighter, his brow creased. Victor’s procession?
Su-Hwan lifted her chin. “I am pleased to do as Quade bids.”
“Hold on,” Peer said. “What’s it Quade thinks he’s accomplished? I never heard of no parade for kidnappers and murderers.”
Kelarre wheeled his keen gaze and smug look on Peer. “What? Conquering Trinitas without killing a single—”
“‘Cept all your mums and dads.”
“—citizen is not worthy of a procession?” He seemed to process Peer’s words slowly, as if they required translation. Then the smugness melted from his face, his features taking on an unnatural vacancy. “Nothing great can be achieved without sacrifice,” he recited in a detached tone. “Upon the restoration of balance and justice, the blood on our hands shall be washed free. History forgives.”
Then, as suddenly as it came, the blank countenance fled, leaving the young man once again cocky and mischievous-eyed. A tremor swept down Peer’s spine.
Kelarre leaned out of the compartment and returned with a newspaper. He tossed it to Peer and exited with a mock bow in the direction of Su-Hwan.
“Not too popular, are you?” Peer said, as he unfurled the news.
Su-Hwan reclaimed her volume and said with something of a sniff. “I have been told my interpersonal skills are lacking.”
Peer snorted. Understatement. His expression froze, however, at the headline of the Accord Herald.
“The king’s dead?” His hands shook as he jerked the paper straight.
The Chisanta leader, Mr. Quade Asher, has been unanimously nominated to assume the role of pro tem head of state. Mr. Asher, who arrived shortly after the tragic event, has promised to address the food shortages as well as investigate the unlawful assassination of the royal family.
Peer crumpled the paper in disgust. “Nominated? By who?”
Su-Hwan went so far as to raise her eyebrows. “Does it matter?”
Peer sighed, gaze flicking to the window again, lingering on the smear of smog that marked the capital. “No. ‘Spose not.”
The compartment door glided open once more.
“Sorry I’m late,” Whythe said as he bumbled in, chest heaving. “Lost track of time.”
Su-Hwan, who appeared neither annoyed by his lateness nor relieved at his arrival, stood. “Quade has ceased his dosage.” She crossed the compartment, her long glossy hair swaying. “You may want to have a vomit receptacle ready.”
Whythe chuckled and plunked down on the cushioned bench. “Everyone else gets to go celebrate while we’re on puke-bucket duty. Some luck we’ve got, hey?”
“I am happy to do as Quade bids. You should be too.” And with that, she left.
Whythe rubbed at the sandy stubble on his chin, his maple-brown eyes twinkling. “If there’s one girl in the world who needs to lighten up, it’s her.”
Peer offered a noncommittal grunt. He watched Whythe extract a pad of paper and unwrap a roll of drawing pencils. He was an excellent artist—Peer, for lack of any better occupation, had watched him draw many dozens of sketches over the past weeks.
He and Su-Hwan shared the same ability to deprive a Chisanta of their gift. Peer had to respect Quade’s preparedness. He’d not only had a backup for the Sphere, but he had a backup for his backup as well. The two of them took it in shifts to guard him. In personality, they could not be more different. He preferred Su-Hwan—she was easier to dislike.
Whythe sharpened his pencil point with a knife. “Shall I draw another one of you, then?” Peer didn’t answer. He didn’t care. “I’ve probably got your face memorized by now. Though it keeps getting thinner. You really should eat more.”
Peer grunted.
“You know, if you cooperated a bit, I’m sure Quade would accept you. He’s a hard man, but he can be generous.” The sound of pencil scratching paper greeted Peer’s ear. “In the end, it would be better for you. We could be friends, you and I. I’m only two and a half years younger, you know. And I used to be a farmer too. Grew corn. Didn’t much like it though; I always preferred drawing. ” His tone was bright and expected no reply, which was for the best as Peer intended to give none.
Peer’s head thunked to the window pane. He let the rumble of the train and the incessant mumbling of the Fifth lull him into a stupor. His fingers probed at the cluster of injection marks on his arm, and a yearning filled him: a desire for the pinch of a needle, for the cool rush beneath his skin, for oblivion.
4
Unbidden, Bray’s gaze tugged to the shrouded figure on the doctor’s operating table. Cream fabric concealed the still form, but the points of two slippered feet, the tiny summit of a nose, and the valleys of eyes left no doubt what lay beneath.
“Thank you again, Doctor,” Yarrow said, shaking the old, bearded man’s hand. “For everything.”
“Not a bit, young man,” he faltered. “Or, ah, Master Chisanta. I only wish I could have done more.”
Morning light streamed through the yellow paisley curtains, brightening the old-fashioned rooms that served both as doctor’s quarters and personal sitting room. Footsteps creaked from above, indicating that at least one of their party, aside from Yarrow and herself, had roused.
Yarrow slumped down beside her; she noticed that his hair was damp, that he smelt of lye soap. His coloring was much improved from the evening before, though his gauntness seemed to have increased overnight.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
He affected a smile. “Better.” His eyes darted to the queen’s corpse. “In some respects.”
Slow footfalls sounded on the stairwell and Jo-Kwan materialized on the landing. Bray regarded him with a sympathetic brow. Losing both parents in one night—she couldn’t imagine it. Her father’s death had been nearly unbearable, and that had been only one loss.
Dark circles marred the new king’s under-eyes. His right arm was strapped to his chest to keep his shoulder immobilized.
Doctor Padderton jumped from his stool. “You shouldn’t be out of bed, Your Highness. Your injury—”
“I thank you for your concern and your hospitality, but I have…” He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Responsibilities.”
“We have responsibilities,” Chae-Na corrected as she entered the room, her chin raised, though her eyes were puffy and pink. Jo-Kwan drew her into a tight embrace; he blinked several times, gripped her by the shoulders, and pulled away.
“You don’t mean you’re going back to Accord?” Bray asked. “It isn’t safe.”
“No,”
Jo-Kwan said. “I thought I should speak with the local constable. He’ll doubtless have more information.”
Bray frowned. “I’m not sure that’s advisable. It seems that at least some of the constables have been cooperating with Quade.” She thought of Constable Abbort’s lies at the ball in Accord and her mouth puckered in distaste. “I don’t know that you can trust them.”
“I appreciate your opinion, Miss Marron, but I think it would be most unfair to condemn all of my country’s officials merely because a few have erred. This is a small town; what are the chances Quade’s influence has reached so far?”
Bray hoped he was right. She didn’t really fear some small-town law enforcement, anyway. Perhaps it would be better to know for certain, one way or the other, how wide-reaching this problem had grown.
Heavy thuds echoed down the stair and Ko-Jin joined them, his hair rumpled and braid half undone. He surveyed the office with still-sleepy eyes, his hand gingerly assessing his wound. “What’s for breakfast?”
“If you head up to the Lamhart house, I’m sure there would be food aplenty,” the doctor said, shooting a stern look in Yarrow’s direction. “I know Mrs. Lamhart would want to see her son.”
Yarrow’s expression turned sheepish. “I had every intention…”
“Why don’t you and Ko-Jin go ahead to your house,” Bray said to Yarrow. “And I’ll go and see the constable with,” she gestured towards the royal siblings, unsure what to call them—was he prince or king? “And then we can meet in town and decide where to go from there.”
Yarrow rubbed the back of his neck, color blooming in his cheeks. “I thought, maybe, you’d like to meet my—”
Ko-Jin sighed dramatically. “Fine, I’ll keep an eye on this lot and you two go on.”
Chae-Na turned to her mother. “But, what about…”
“We’ll return for her,” Jo-Kwan said as he squeezed his sister’s shoulder.
They strode out into the cool morning and the party split, Bray and Yarrow veering away from town.
Elevation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 2) Page 4
