The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  Bray repeated the process for Ko-Jin, whose body was whole and strong once again. As soon as he was free, he jumped to his feet to help Yarrow. The boy was knocked unconscious in a moment.

  “Thanks,” Yarrow wheezed, his fingers feeling at his throat.

  Peer practically carried Bray over to Adearre. She did her job again.

  “Thank you, my love,” he said.

  “They’re coming.” Yarrow glanced up. She wasn’t sure who they were, but she could hear thundering footsteps from above. “Ko-Jin—”

  “I know, Yarrow.”

  And then Ko-Jin was there. He picked her up and she found herself cradled against his chest like a child. She wanted to protest this, say that she was not weak. But, at that moment, she was weak. There was no point in lying.

  “Phase us, Bray,” he said.

  She yawned, but did as he asked. It wasn’t difficult, after all—as natural as breathing.

  She felt herself pass through the wall. It was colder outside, but the air was wonderfully stench-free and the breeze like new life. She bounced against Ko-Jin’s chest. He was running, carrying her. But where are the others?

  Ko-Jin crossed the empty courtyard with impressive speed. They were, in minutes, out of the compound altogether and thundering down the grassy slope, towards the city of Easterly Point.

  “You may as well sleep,” Ko-Jin said.

  Yes, she thought, sleep would be nice.

  It was full dark when Bray opened her eyes again. She awoke with a mind blissfully clear and alert. The drugs must be leaving her system. She was lying on a cushioned bench, a familiar black satin ceiling above. It was their carriage—the one they had abandoned outside Easterly Point an age ago.

  “Ko-Jin?” she asked.

  The carriage door opened and he appeared. “Good, you’re awake.”

  “Where are the others?” Bray asked, climbing out of the carriage and joining him in the cool night air. Her entire body ached in protest.

  “Not back yet.” He frowned. “But I see firelight moving towards us.”

  Bray saw it too—three torches, not far off and moving in their direction.

  “Is it them, do you think?”

  “No,” he said. “They would not use a light. Quade’s men are looking for us.”

  “What should we do?” Bray asked.

  Ko-Jin sighed, his wide shoulders sagging. “I don’t know. Yarrow made me promise I would wait until dawn and, if they didn’t show, we would ride for the Temple to send out the alarm.”

  “We can’t just leave them.”

  “I made a promise.”

  Bray looked at the far horizon. “It’s not dawn yet.”

  “No,” Ko-Jin agreed, “but my fear is that, if Yarrow and the others have failed, this group approaching us may have the sphere.”

  A spasm of fear shot through her body. She could not bear the idea of being trapped again. And it made sense that Quade would send the sphere—she and Ko-Jin were the most handicapped by the blighted thing. That must be why Yarrow had sent them ahead.

  “If they don’t have it, there’s no problem. Even if I couldn’t overcome them, you could keep us untouchable,” Ko-Jin said. Bray watched the orbs of light disappear momentarily, then appear again as their bearers crested a nearby hill.

  “So,” Ko-Jin asked. “Shall we run or stand our ground?”

  Bray took a steadying breath. “I doubt we could outrun them in our current state. Let’s hide.”

  Ko-Jin nodded. Bray realized he must be as afraid as she was, perhaps more so. If these searchers did have the sphere, Ko-Jin would be helpless and unable to run. But he raised no complaint.

  Bray climbed deeper into the thicket behind which the carriage had been concealed. It was dark and she couldn’t see very well. Thorns scraped her shins and the bushes rustled loudly around her. She could hear Ko-Jin picking his way behind her.

  When she deemed herself sufficiently concealed, she sat down, resting her back against the trunk of a tree. Ko-Jin sat close beside her in the small gap, his leg pressed against her own. She could feel the muscle of his thigh twitching.

  “Couldn’t you phase us down into the ground, or something?” Ko-Jin asked.

  “I could,” she said, “but if they have the sphere we would rematerialize down there. I don’t fancy being buried alive.” Of course, she could go so deep into the earth that she would be beyond range of the thing, but she never did this, out of fear. What if she got stuck down there, with the darkness pressing in, trapping her? No, she would not do that.

  “How do you stay on the ground at all when you’re phased?” he whispered.

  This seemed a rather inconsequential matter given the circumstances, but she answered nonetheless. “I don’t really. It’s more like levitating. I have to think about it.”

  Ko-Jin nodded and Bray motioned for him to be quiet, thinking she heard something move nearby.

  They waited, with steeled breath, for the sound of feet. But the night continued on in silence for what felt like a very long time. She could hear Ko-Jin breathing beside her, and she could smell him. His odor assaulted her. She imagined her own stench could hardly be better. How glorious it would be to take a bath and put on fresh clothes, she thought longingly.

  Ko-Jin tensed beside her and she heard voices nearby.

  “Quade reckons they have to have come this way,” a high male voice said.

  “Well, they’re probably miles away by now. Don’t see how we could catch ‘em,” a girl said.

  “I don’t know. They were real weak. I brought them dinner two days ago—that lady looked half dead. And one of them is a cripple,” a third male voice said.

  Bray listened intently, but her fear was gone. They were close—close enough that, if they had the sphere, she would have felt it. Ko-Jin, beside her, looked thunderous. She remembered, well enough, his opinion on the word ‘cripple.’

  “How many are there?” the first boy asked. He sounded as if he was more afraid of finding them than not.

  “Five,” the second boy said.

  “Four,” the girl corrected. “One of them is dead already.”

  Bray’s heart stopped dead in her chest. Her lips formed a silent “no.”

  Before she could think, she was on her feet and running through the bushes towards the voices. She wanted to hurt them, hurt them until they told her it wasn’t true. It can’t be true.

  Ko-Jin was just behind her as she burst through the final branches and out onto the hilltop. By the light of their torches, Bray could see the shock on the three youths’ faces. She and Ko-Jin must have looked mad—smeared in grime and dirt, wide-eyed with rage and grief.

  Ko-Jin met the first boy, who unsheathed a sword at his side. Ko-Jin had the weapon out of his hand in an instant. He did not stab the boy, however, but thumped him over the head with the hilt. The second lad, clearly the better fighter of the two, met Ko-Jin next, but Bray did not watch.

  Her attention was only for the girl, the one who had made the horrible claim, had said a friend of hers was dead.

  The youth punched and Bray let the fist fly ineffectively through her torso. The girl’s blue eyes widened and she stumbled forward. Bray solidified behind her and dealt two sharp blows to her kidney. The girl crumpled to the ground. Bray hopped down on top of her, flipped her over so she was face up, and pinned her to the ground.

  “You will tell me everything you know about what has happened to our companions,” Bray said.

  “I’m not telling you nothing,” the girl said.

  “Ko-Jin?” Bray called. He appeared at her side, the other boy clearly dealt with.

  “The sword, if you please,” Bray said, holding her hand out. She did not take her eyes off the girl, and was glad to see her complexion whiten in fear. If Ko-Jin had any compunction in handing her the weapon, he did not say so. She felt the cold hilt meet her palm.

  She gripped the sword in a white-knuckled fist. “Could you hold her down?”

&nb
sp; Ko-Jin knelt by the girl’s head and pressed strong hands on her shoulders, pinning her to the ground.

  Bray phased, making the weapon in her hand immaterial as well, then she placed the tip of the sword straight through the girl’s throat. She shut her eyes tight, expecting to die, then looked up in confusion when she could not feel the blade.

  “If I resolidify,” Bray said softly, “this blade will kill you. And, for me, it would be as easy as breathing. I suggest you tell me what you know.”

  The defiance melted from the girl’s face, and Bray realized for the first time just how young she looked. Perhaps no older than fifteen.

  “Please, I don’t know,” the girl said, a note of pleading in her voice.

  “You said that someone had died. I heard you,” Bray hissed.

  “I wasn’t there or nothing. I just heard it secondhand is all—that Vendra killed one of them grown-ups in the basement and we had to go looking for the rest. I don’t know which one.”

  Bray breathed. There was still a chance. She had to believe it was not true, that her companions were alive and on their way.

  “Why did he send you lot?” Ko-Jin asked. This was a good question—these three could not be the best. Far from it.

  “He sent everyone—all of us. We’re supposed to track down all the escapees and—” the girl cut off.

  “And?” Bray pressed.

  “The sphere,” she whispered.

  Bray looked up at Ko-Jin, and saw the same relief etched in his features. The others were out there, and they had the sphere.

  Though so were Quade’s children. They would not all be so easily dispatched as these three, nor as careless as to carry a light.

  Bray pulled the sword from the girl’s throat and hit her in the head with the hilt, knocking her unconscious.

  There was nothing for it but to wait and see. And pray to the Spirits above that this girl was wrong—that they were, all of them, still unharmed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Yarrow watched Ko-Jin and Bray disappear through the solid wall. They’ll be safe, he hoped.

  Adearre and Peer looked to him with tired eyes.

  “Come,” Yarrow said. He darted down the hallway towards the stairs, his stiff legs half in anguish, half in ecstasy.

  The sphere lay at the end of the hall, casting the cobwebbed corners in its watery light. As Yarrow jogged up to it, he felt that same sense of loss. Every feeling save his own winked out of his mind.

  He scooped the ball from the ground without halting and pounded his way up the stairs, praying that he would reach the top before encountering resistance.

  No such luck. Two large figures appeared in the doorway. Yarrow tucked the sphere protectively against his chest. Peer and Adearre shoved past him. Yarrow watched, in the limited light, as Adearre and Peer each met a foe. He held his breath, knowing how exhausted his companions must be, and smiled widely as the two shadows crumpled to the ground.

  Peer gestured for Yarrow to follow and they ascended to the top of the stairs. Mercifully, the long hallway remained vacant. As they had planned, Peer hopped through the window rather than running towards the exit. Adearre did likewise. Yarrow tossed the sphere to Adearre, who caught it like a ball in a game, and Yarrow hoisted himself through the opening and landed with a soft thump on the grass. Moments later he heard footsteps in the hall and they pressed themselves flat against the wall to avoid detection.

  The breeze stirred Yarrow’s hair; he smelt the fresh air, and felt wonderfully, joyously free. The sun sat poised over the Eastern Sea. The air stirred, charged and thick.

  Yarrow set his jaw as Adearre handed the sphere back to him. Even drugged and weary, they estimated Peer and Adearre the better fighters. Yarrow would protect the sphere, and, if need be, flee. He hoped it would not come to that. What would Bray think of him if he abandoned her closest friends? What would he think of himself?

  Yarrow breathed in deeply through his nose, summoning a sense of resolve. He tucked the sphere into his shirt in an effort to dull the light it produced. It gave his form a strange, glowing protuberance.

  The three of them crept through the largely deserted compound. Yarrow held his breath as they passed the dining hall. Through the holes in the exterior, they could hear the sounds of many dozens of people conversing and eating. He hoped their meal would last.

  He followed the example of the others and pressed himself against the walls of the buildings, keeping low and out of sight. They progressed as slowly as they dared.

  Abruptly, a voice broke the silence, sounding as though it had spoken directly into Yarrow’s ear. He froze, a jolt of shock running through his body. Adearre nodded his head towards the open window just above them and Yarrow understood—the person speaking was within.

  Peer motioned them to move past quietly and Yarrow trailed behind him.

  “After tonight, the sphere shall slumber in the Eastern depths for five hundred years,” the voice through the window said. Yarrow stopped, this time to listen. The voice was certainly female, but it sounded strange, wrong. It was flat and lacking emotion, like a child reading from a book he or she did not understand or care for.

  “If its heat is less than eighty-six, its pretty wings cannot fly. Bendrada en talemer anara san. The Scimitar of Amarra rests in an unmarked grave west of Porramore. Inirra sosa mesra empericam. The key to a circle’s diameter is irrational...”

  Yarrow felt his jaw go slack, his mouth open. This is Fifth prophecy. It had the sound of it, but was utterly unfamiliar.

  Against all reason and the urgent gesturing of his friends, Yarrow raised his head so that he could peek into the room. He spied two figures, one sitting on a wooden rocking chair facing him and the other hunched on a stool scratching notes in a book. The girl in the chair was perhaps Yarrow’s own age, though it was hard to tell. Her face was like those porcelain dolls sold by street vendors in Chasku—perfectly smooth and serene, as if never once smiling or frowning. She was Dalish, with milk-white skin and dark brown hair. Her eyes shone an alarming shade of green, but vacant and glassy. Her lips, a deep red against her pale face, moved and words came out, but no expression crossed her features, not even a flicker. It was eerie, unnerving.

  A chill raced down Yarrow’s spine. This woman is a living Fifth.

  There had not been a Fifth in hundreds of years. Yet here she sat—no doubt due to the ministrations of the sphere and the unnatural persuasion of Quade Asher. Yarrow could have smacked himself in the head for his own stupidity—of course! The Fifth of the past had always chanted the names and cities of the children who would be marked on the eve of Da Un Marcu. Hadn’t he been reading a passage of such names just before he left the Cape? Arlow had taken the book and read them, proclaiming, “and then it’s just names—utter nonsense!”

  “Yarrow,” Peer whispered urgently. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

  Yarrow remained fixed. This woman was a weapon.

  “We should take her with us,” Yarrow said. “He can use this information against us.”

  Adearre shook his head. “Yarrow, there is no way!”

  “You don’t understand. The Fifth are the reason gunpowder was invented. They predict the movements of those living—she can undo us.”

  Peer glanced up at the window. “Might be we should take care of—”

  Adearre shook his head again, this time with authority. “I will not kill an innocent.”

  “If we could sneak her away with us…” Yarrow said.

  “No,” Adearre said. “We keep to the plan. When we have reinforcements, we will try to get her out.”

  Yarrow’s shoulders slumped but he nodded. Peer moved off and, reluctantly, Yarrow followed, leaving the human trove of knowledge behind.

  A bell rang not far off. It clanged persistently, furiously. The sound of alarm.

  They began to run, though still hunched. Yarrow had hoped they’d be gone before the majority of their enemy could begin searching. Of course, the whole plan
was a gamble—it rested entirely on a single uncertain hope.

  Lights began to spring up on the left side of the compound and the noises of people moving, scuffling feet, and voices, grew louder.

  They crept on, and Yarrow’s heart leapt when he saw the outer wall. Peer thrust Yarrow up over the stony barrier as if he weighed no more than a bale of hay. Yarrow scrambled, one hand on the wall, the other clutching the sphere tucked into his shirt, over the side. His companions joined him in moments.

  His breath caught as he saw the orange orb of the sun casting ripples of light on the ever-stretching sea. After a month of darkness, it was the most beautiful thing Yarrow had ever seen. Well, almost the most beautiful. Above, however, the clouds had grown dark. The wind smelt of rain.

  “It is over here.” Adearre strode confidently along the jagged cliff. They stood on a perch above a high, sheer descent. Below lay the beach not far from their cave.

  Yarrow’s hands shook and sweat snaked down his neck. He chanted a kind of mental prayer: Please let it still be there, please let it still be there.

  “Here,” Adearre said.

  Yarrow breathed a sigh of relief. The rope that Adearre had secured as an escape for Bray so long ago remained, hidden behind a tall clump of dune grass.

  “Yarrow first,” Peer said.

  Yarrow grabbed hold of the thick, rough rope with unsteady hands and eased himself over the edge, his feet finding purchase on the rocky ledge. As quickly as he could manage, Yarrow walked himself down towards the beach and endeavored not to think of the long fall should he lose his grip. The rope burned his palms, but he ignored the pain. When he was halfway down, light drops of rain began to pepper his face and arms.

  He felt the sphere start to sink lower, its cool smooth surface rolling against his chest. It’s going to fall. Sure enough, the sphere pulled his filthy civilian shirt free from his loose pants and it dropped, landing with a soft thump on the sand below. The feelings of others popped back into Yarrow’s mind as the sphere rolled down the sloping beach towards the sea, still glowing all the while. Yarrow imagined that if such a thing were breakable, it would have been shattered long ago. He continued his descent.