The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  “Why shouldn’t I be?” She gestured around at the largely empty room.

  Now, every day, multiple plebes passed the test. Their numbers dwindled rapidly, and their mood had grown dark and frustrated. The dregs of the plebes no longer played games or spoke much to each other. Bray wondered if they all felt their continued failure was due to some kind of innate deficiency, as she did. She feared she would be the last of them left—that they would pronounce the mark on her neck an error and send her back to her uncle.

  She tried not to think how he would look if she turned up on his step. The savage, ravenous glint in his green eyes. How he would touch her; causing her agony and shame in equal parts. When she was a girl she used to imagine that she could turn into mere air—a thing that could not be touched. That her uncle’s hand would pass right through her.

  She wished for that again every afternoon, when Lendra would deal her new bruises. It was so much worse now in the arena. Before, the majority of the observers had been others like her, afraid fourteen-year-olds, bearing the exact same share of pain and humiliation. Now, the eyes on her were the eyes of the Chisanta—people who had once been her friends, and were now the cool surveyors of her misery.

  “I think it cannot take many days more for us,” Adearre said.

  “How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “Call it an inkling.” His honey eyes were earnest and he flashed her a bright white smile.

  “Are you always such an optimist?”

  He took a loud bite from an apple and chewed slowly. “Optimist? No. I have seen too much of the ugliness of man to be called such. I do believe in trends. And the passing increases every day, so we shall pass soon. You see?”

  Bray smiled. He had made her feel a bit better, despite her resolve to be morose. The numbers were in their favor. “Thank you, Adearre. I appreciate the pep talk.”

  “What is ‘pep talk’?”

  “It’s when you try to cheer someone up.”

  “I wasn’t trying to cheer you up,” Adearre said, his lip twitching. “I was making a distraction so I could steal your apple.”

  She looked at the half-eaten fruit in his hand and realized it was hers.

  She laughed. “I don’t think I’ve heard you make a joke before.”

  He took another great bite. “I think of many jokes, but I worry I will not say them correctly.”

  “You said it just fine. I haven’t laughed in ages.” She patted his shoulder and stood. “I’m going to get some fresh air. I’ll see you later.”

  He waved her goodbye and Bray left the dining hall and meandered around the grounds. It was cooler than it had been when they first arrived. Fall had truly set in, the leaves beginning to die. She walked all the way to the sheer cliffs that overlooked the sea and sunk down onto the rocky ground. The dark water churned, sending salty spray all the way up to her high perch.

  “Not afraid of heights, I see,” a familiar voice said behind her.

  “Yarrow?” she said in complete disbelief, because there he was—her Yarrow. She jumped to her feet and ran to him.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you; I can’t stay long,” he said.

  “Why not?” she demanded. “They are so evil!”

  “Who are?”

  “The Cosanta…the Chiona, the whole lot of them.”

  He looked hurt, and she remembered he was Cosanta.

  “Well, not you, Yarrow,” she amended.

  “I am Cosanta, Bray. It’s who I am…It’s who I always was. Know that we do nothing without a reason. There is good cause to separate the passed and the un-passed.”

  Bray’s eyes narrowed at his use of the word ‘we.’ She had managed to think of him as apart, not one of those responsible for her suffering. And there he stood, defending them, including himself in their sins. She took a step back.

  A look of confusion crossed Yarrow’s face. “Why are you angry?”

  “Why am I angry?” Bray shouted back at him. “Oh, I don’t know? What could possibly make me angry about someone I thought was my…” she searched for a word that properly described what Yarrow was to her and came up empty. “Someone I thought was my friend thinking there is good reason to—”

  “Bray, please don’t be angry. You’ll understand once you’ve passed, I promise. I’ll tell you everything, then.”

  “Why are you talking to me at all if there is such good cause for our separation?” she asked, her voice becoming increasingly shrill, tears welling in her eyes.

  Yarrow’s brows drew together. “I just know that you’ve been feeling so badly. It’s been killing me.” His voice broke slightly and his eyes pleaded with her to understand.

  A part of her felt sorry that she was causing him distress, but the other part of her mind—the part that had already worked up a strong sense of justified anger—squelched that pity ruthlessly.

  “Yes. I’m sure it’s been just dreadful for you, Yarrow. How have you ever survived?”

  “Bray…” He reached out a hand to her, but she was too upset to forgive him.

  “It’s a good thing we aren’t supposed to talk, Yarrow. I don’t even want to look at you,” she concluded without sympathy. This was true, not only because of the ire she felt, but because the look of pain on his face—pain she was inflicting—was like a shower that threatened to extinguish the fire of her rage. She wouldn’t let him make her remorseful, not when she was in the right and he the wrong.

  So she strode away and left him standing there on the cliff. She did not spare him a parting glance, for fear she would change her mind.

  Chapter Eight

  Bray still fumed as she plunked down on a bench outside the arena. She hated everything and everyone at that moment, even Yarrow, trying to catch her eye across the stands. Continue to try, she thought savagely. She could not tolerate the rest of them either: the Cosanta—Arlow, Ko-Jin, Roldon, Rinny; and the Chiona too—Peer, Magery, Mi-Na, and the rest. She despised the plebes to her left and right, timid and shaking. She loathed Lendra—detested everything from the fuzz of hair atop her head down to the soft leather soles of her boots.

  More than the rest of them together, Bray hated herself. For not passing the blasted test. For allowing herself to be a victim yet again.

  Lendra strode into the arena, rolling the snowy sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows. The hate and anger burned like white hot coals in the pit of Bray’s stomach. She was scalding from head to toe, as if with fever.

  “Who should like to be first today?” Lendra taunted. She smiled wickedly as the remaining plebes averted their gazes, as if hoping she would not see them if she could not make eye contact.

  Bray was finished with the games. Something inside her, that day, had changed. She was done being the victim. She stood.

  “A volunteer!” Lendra said.

  Bray stepped forward. At this time, usually, the fear set in. But not today. There was no room in her head for fear. There was only this fire that threatened to burn her out, leave her a charred husk.

  “Are you ready, girl?” Lendra asked.

  “I am,” Bray said.

  The flame within her shifted into something tamer. Still searingly hot, but contained, harnessed. It leaked from the furnace of her chest, down her arms and into her fingertips, down her legs and into her toes. Every inch of her burned with readiness.

  Lendra lunged towards her, but Bray was too fast. She spun and crouched, allowing Lendra’s swinging fist to whoosh ineffectively over her head. Lendra came to rest with her back to Bray. A mistake. Bray’s body seemed to move of its own accord. She delivered three sharp, hard blows to the woman’s kidney. Lendra sank to her knees, a quiet moan of pain escaping her lips.

  Riotous applause greeted Bray’s ears, sinking into her numb mind.

  The Chiona whooped and clapped thunderously. Peer beamed down at her and she returned his smile. The inferno inside her transformed from a flame of rage to a fierce, flickering happiness.

  Her eyes continued
to sweep past her friends on the left side of the stands over to the right. The Cosanta clapped politely, all save Yarrow. His hands hung limp at his sides. She had seen that expression upon his face once before—in the carriage, when he had tried to bite back tears after saying goodbye to his family.

  The meaning of it all, the exuberance of the Chiona and Yarrow’s sadness, hit Bray like a punch in the gut. She had passed the test…as a Chiona.

  It was all wrong. She was meant to be Cosanta. She had known that as an absolute, undeniable fact from the moment that Yarrow had been named such. She and he were like two halves of a whole; could it be possible that they were not, deep down, the same?

  Several Chiona strode towards her. To welcome her and name her sister, she knew. But she felt, suddenly, no pleasure in her accomplishment. When all of this was over, she and the rest of her kind would go to the Isle of the Chiona, and Yarrow and his would go north to the Cosanta Cape. They would be separated—forever separated. It was so wholly and utterly wrong.

  “What is your name?” an older Chaskuan man asked. His face was deeply lined and grave, but his voice kind.

  “Bray Marron,” she managed to reply.

  “Welcome, my sister, Bray Marron,” he said and grasped her forearm. “You are Chiona and one of us.”

  She hoped they interpreted the tear that slid silently down her cheek as one of happiness.

  Yarrow regarded Bray as she forced a smile for her new brothers and sisters. He knew that she felt wretched—knew it because he had a ball of her raw emotion tattooing at the back of his own mind. Her dejection seemed to sing in harmony with his own. He hadn’t ever thought she might be Chiona—which was foolish, in retrospect. The chance had always been fifty-fifty. He wished that he had considered the possibility more, so that he would now feel merely disappointed, and not as though something vital had been ripped from him unexpectedly.

  Bray looked up at him and jerked her head significantly towards the sea.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I need to attend to the necessary,” she said in a loud clear voice. Her brothers and sisters nodded and let her pass. There were still nine more plebes to be tested. The Chiona returned to their seats.

  “Are you quite alright, Yarrow?” Ander asked.

  Yarrow pulled himself into the present and looked at the older man and his obvious concern.

  “I’m not feeling well, to be honest. I think I need to get away from the crowd,” Yarrow replied.

  “By all means, boy, do what you must,” Ander said.

  Yarrow slipped away and trained his steps towards the cliffs, where he and Bray had spoken earlier that morning. He scanned the landscape and found her sitting on the rocky cliff, her back to him. The sky had turned a swirling, steel gray, the air static.

  She did not turn when he came to her side, nor when he lowered himself onto the cool stone beside her.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” Yarrow said.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “We aren’t supposed to talk to plebes because they can’t know the truth,” Yarrow said, speaking to the waves. “Only when you feel a very strong negative emotion like fear, anger, or despair, does the Chisanta in your mind awaken. It’s all designed to make you feel wretched—the testing.”

  “How kind of them,” Bray said, naked bitterness in her voice.

  “It is, actually. Britt told me that we are destined to be Chisanta, and if the change wasn’t triggered deliberately it would happen anyway. Historically, horrible things used to happen to the families and friends of marked children, to make them feel the necessary pain.”

  Bray nodded. “It looks like a storm is coming.”

  Silence extended between them for a time. Yarrow didn’t know what to say. Should he apologize for being what he was? No, she wouldn’t expect or want that. Nor could he criticize her for being Chiona. They were what they were—there was nothing to say, really.

  “I’m going to be leaving soon,” he said finally. “For the Cape.” She turned and looked at him, alarmed. “They are going to send a first boat with those of us who’ve already mastered the…” he was going to say Ada Chae, but she would not have known what this meant, “warrior dance.”

  More accurately, they were sending those who had already received their first gift, but Yarrow did not want to mention this. He feared she would ask about his gift, and his stomach squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of explaining it. He didn’t want to confess that he now knew her feelings, or why.

  “When?” she asked.

  “A few days, I think…” Yarrow said. “It depends on the weather.”

  As if the Spirits above had heard this statement, a flicker of lightning blinked in the distance.

  “I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to say goodbye or not,” he continued. “We don’t interact much, us and the Chiona.”

  A tear slid down Bray’s cheek. The sight made Yarrow’s own eyes burn.

  “It isn’t fair!” Bray said, her voice breaking.

  “We will see each other again…someday,” Yarrow said. “It’s bound to happen at some point.”

  Bray let out a single sob, her pale face marred by red splotches.

  Yarrow wanted to make her stop crying. He searched his mind for something humorous to say, but nothing at all seemed funny at that moment. A piece of Bray’s long, copper hair blew into his face and he grabbed it; he ran his fingers down to the tip, where it curled slightly.

  “Have you braced yourself for your shearing?” he asked.

  She emitted a noise that was half groan, half laugh. “I hadn’t even thought of that yet.” She grabbed a fistful of hair and stared down at it. “I’m going to look like a boy.”

  “Would you mind if…I mean, do you think I could…” Yarrow trailed off. He wanted to ask for a lock. His father had received a lock of hair from his mother when they were young, and it always happened in stories.

  She seemed to understand. “Yes, but I don’t have scissors…”

  Yarrow pulled out his father’s pocket knife and, with a nod of permission from Bray, cut off a small russet tendril. He then produced his mother’s handkerchief and carefully wrapped the lock in its snowy folds.

  “Yarrow—do you truly think we’ll see each other again?”

  “Of course,” he said confidently. “What would be the point of all this if we didn’t?”

  “Why should all things have a point?” Bray asked.

  “Why shouldn’t they have a point?” he countered.

  She chuckled. “That’s a weak argument, Yarrow Lamhart.”

  “I suppose so, but it feels true to me.”

  She leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder. He took a deep breath, pulling in the earthy scent of her. They watched the white flashes in the dark sky, still far across the sea, flickering like lightning bugs. They sat until the rain began to fall in large, heavy drops.

  “We’d better go back,” Bray said at last. Yarrow nodded.

  They walked together until their paths were forced to part—his towards the Cosanta sector and hers towards the Chiona.

  At the junction, Yarrow pulled Bray close for a tight embrace.

  “I’ll miss you, Bray Marron,” he whispered into her ear.

  “And I, you,” she mumbled into his robe.

  She pulled away and looked up at him. He stared down into those wide green eyes and knew that he should kiss her—that she wanted him to. His insides burned with trepidation. The raindrops ran down Bray’s cheeks like teardrops, turning her hair a deep red and plastering it wetly to her face and neck and shoulders. He leaned forward. She tilted her head. He could feel the heat of her breath—just a bit further and their lips would touch.

  A loud crack of thunder made Yarrow jump back, his hands falling away from her. He cursed himself for letting the moment pass, and for not having the courage to try again.

  “Goodbye,” he said. It was an inadequate parting.

  “Goodbye,” she agreed, the set of her mout
h betraying disappointment.

  He exhaled deeply and turned away from her, the rain landing thick and cold on his face. From the corner of his eye he watched her depart. She looked over her shoulder at him once more, then the turn in the path stole her from view. And then she was gone. Spirits, how she would haunt him.

  “The bloke was downright nutted.” Peer thumbed through a few loose, yellowing pages.

  “Everyone loved him though…” Bray said.

  She was glad for the emptiness of the Temple library. Peer seemed incapable of keeping his voice down.

  It was late; the warm, dancing illumination of lanterns were all they had to see by.

  “Still don’t understand why you’re wanting to read this…” Peer said.

  Bray ran a hand over her head, feeling the short, prickly fuzz of her hair. “We found him. I found him…I don’t know, I guess I just want to know more about the man. I want to understand who he was. Maybe then I can figure out why someone wanted to kill him…”

  Ambrone Chassel had spent his entire adult life searching for ancient artifacts from legend, most generally believed to have never existed. Bray had spent the past three evenings in the library, poring over the man’s tight script. She bent closer to the page before her and read:

  The Scimitar of Amarra, forged during the reign of Leanna in west Adourra. Legend holds that the scimitar imbued its bearer with incredible precision. Not seen since the year 417CL.

  Bray’s eyes skimmed to the small drawing that accompanied the text, of the curve-bladed sword itself. Ambrone had been a gifted artist. For some reason, that thought pained her. She flipped to the next page:

  The Seve Tapestry. The tapestry is said to depict the way in which the Spirits select the marked. The noted early Cosanta Alber Darning II was said to have acquired this item from the famed Mute Fifth, who spun truths with her hands. However, some reports mention that Darning II was a drunk and a liar. The legend of the Mute Fifth, herself, is yet unproven. Item may or may not exist.