The Complete Marked Series Box Set

by March McCarron

  “If you serve me well, I don’t see why the three of us cannot come to an arrangement. You see, I will need some other man to father my sons. Sacrifices, you understand. Perhaps you would like that role?” Quade moved in front of Ko-Jin. He locked him in an earnest, loving gaze. The man’s fingertips trailed across Ko-Jin’s cheek.

  “Would you like that?”

  “Yes.”

  Quade angled his head to the side, and for a moment it seemed he meant to lean forward in a kiss. But he stopped, close enough that his breath danced across Ko-Jin’s lips. “You could be of such use to me, Sung Ko-Jin.” He smiled sadly. “However…” The knife that plunged into Ko-Jin’s abdomen felt hot, searing. The pain was confusingly intense. “You pose too much of a threat, I’m afraid.”

  Quade pulled the short blade from Ko-Jin’s stomach, and hot wetness rushed from his core. A second pain followed, and then a third—each wound seemed to erupt like a distant explosion before his eyes, as Quade’s arm plunged and pulled, plunged and pulled.

  “Ko-Jin,” Chae-Na cried.

  He was still on his feet, but not due to any strength on his part. He was merely in a momentary suspension, paused before gravity set to work on him.

  He saw through shimmering eyes that Chae-Na had leapt onto Quade’s back. He shucked her to the ground, then struck her across the face with the back of his hand, stamping her with Ko-Jin’s blood. She scuttled back and pulled Treeblade from the sand. She slashed with a practiced grace, and Quade danced back.

  Ko-Jin hit his knees.

  “Drop it, my love. You don’t want to hurt me.”

  Blackness was stealing in around the edges of his vision. Something solid thumped to the ground.

  Ko-Jin’s breath whistled. All that he was, everything that made up himself, was pooling darkly around his knees. But the pain had lessened.

  His face slammed into the ground. He knew he was trying to breathe in his own blood, but he could not turn his head.

  I’m dying, he realized, in a choking flash of clarity. I don’t want…

  But his thoughts were flowing away as quickly as his life’s blood. His body was too heavy to move, and he felt himself increasingly unattached to it. Like he might shed himself and rise.

  He thought he heard a man laughing, somewhere nearby.

  Spirits… Ko-Jin prayed, as the blackness took him.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Yarrow sat cross-legged atop their perch. He slipped the glove from his left hand and combed his fingers through the sand, enjoying the rough sensation of the countless individual grains against his skin. He angled his head up to the sky, which had begun to shift from starry black to a deep and depthless blue.

  “Su-Hwan and Elda have taken positions on the beach; Ko-Jin is moving towards the camp,” Trevva said. She sat beside Yarrow with her eyes closed and her head bent forward. He wondered how she experienced her gift. Did she see a map within her mind?

  “And Bray?”

  He had experienced her terror, before—it had been a frenetic thing, like a trapped wild animal, willing to chew at its own flesh for a chance at freedom. He had nearly gone to her, despite Ko-Jin’s assurance that she could handle herself, and his more dire warning that the sound of Yarrow’s arrival could ruin everything. But it seemed that whatever danger she had faced had been overcome. She was now calmer, though still frayed around the edges. He would have to apologize for attempting to strike Ko-Jin during their argument.

  “Bray’s group has taken Whythe back through the ridge. It seems they accomplished their goal.”

  Yarrow heard the two teleporters return, one right after the other, and spun to face them. He hastily pulled his glove back on. “Well?” he asked.

  Tae-Young flashed a nervous smile. “All went to plan. We weren’t seen. Any second now, Quade should be stripped of his gift and frozen, and Ko-Jin will take care of him.”

  Mearra gazed down at the camp below with the eyes of a frightened child. From this vantage, they could make out little more than the shapes of the tents. “It cannot be this easy,” she said in a voice so soft it nearly disappeared in the wind, “to kill the Spiritblighter himself.”

  These ominous words were punctuated by the blast of gunfire—distant, yet distinct. She flinched, and Yarrow searched for Bray in his mind. The firing continued, one shot after another in such quick succession that he wondered how many shooters could be down there. When the gunshots ceased, the silence that followed took on new gravity.

  Yarrow squinted into the dim distance, as if hoping to make out the source of this assault. It was none of his own party, he knew. They hadn’t carried any firearms.

  “Trevva?” he asked.

  She was already bowed in concentration. When she raised her eyes to meet his gaze, uncharacteristic concern stamped her features. “Su-Hwan and Elda…” She shook her head. “They’re gone. Ko-Jin, though, is within the tent.”

  “What, they left?” Tae-Young asked. He sounded truly young in that moment.

  Trevva looked to him pityingly. “No, they’re gone entirely. I cannot sense them.”

  It seemed he still didn’t understand, or was perhaps unwilling to come to the logical conclusion, so Mearra said, “They’re dead, then.” She hung her head. “May their spirits find joy.”

  “May their spirits find joy,” they all echoed.

  “Dead?” Tae-Young repeated. His chin dimpled as he tried to suppress tears.

  Yarrow frowned down upon the camp, trying to piece together this sudden calamity. “Then Quade…”

  Trevva completed his assessment, “Will be free and at full power again.”

  Ko-Jin, Yarrow thought, fear drumming in his veins.

  He had not known Ko-Jin long; or, rather, he could not recall knowing him long. He thought of the photograph in Arlow’s pocket watch, of the three of them as lads, grinning arm-in-arm on a sunny day. The notion that his oldest friend might die—die before the two of them had even the chance to converse—seemed too cruel. His whole body rejected the notion.

  It hurt, because Yarrow had liked him; there was an ease and an effortlessness to Ko-Jin’s company. He felt familiar and good. And he was well-loved by all who knew him, that was obvious enough. His people treated him as the one glimmer of hope in the blackness. What a blow it would be to so many if Ko-Jin were to die here and now.

  These thoughts coalesced like storm clouds in Yarrow’s mind. And then, deep within his consciousness, he experienced a sudden surge—a pulse and then an explosion. Ko-Jin’s feelings popped into Yarrow’s awareness, unlooked for and intrusively intense.

  Ko-Jin was alive, but he was afraid; nearly paralyzed with fear. It clangored in Yarrow’s mind, and his heart began to race with the general’s terror.

  “We need to go and help,” Yarrow said. He turned to his companions. Trevva nodded her head, her expression calm and resolved. The two young teleporters, however, were not so composed.

  “But,” Tae-Young said, “But—Ko-Jin, he said if things went south, then we should get away.”

  “We cannot abandon our companions. I don’t care what Ko-Jin said,” Yarrow answered. “But it is your choice, of course.”

  Though it might be illogical, Yarrow believed that there was a direct link between this mission and his future as a Fifth. If he could somehow salvage this failure, then perhaps he might save himself. And so he would go, even if the idea terrified him.

  “If we teleport there and it is clear that we cannot win,” Trevva said, “then take us back to Accord. But to do any less would be cowardice.”

  The young Chaskuan lad looked close to tears again. “Two of my friends have died already tonight…”

  “And we cannot leave their bodies,” Mearra said. She appeared as fearful as ever, but there was resolution in her posture. “I will take Trevva to the fight.”

  Tae-Young goggled at her for a moment. “Well,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “I’m not staying here by myself!”

  “Good. Tae-
Young, you take Trevva to Quade’s tent. I will come as well. Mearra, I would have you go and find Bray and the others first. They should be on this side of the ridge. We will no doubt need—”

  Yarrow cried out. He hunched over with a sharp and blinding pain. He placed a hand to his abdomen, but it was not his agony he was experiencing.

  “Yarrow?” Trevva asked.

  “Ko-Jin has been injured. Badly,” he said through his teeth. “I need to get to him now, if there’s any chance to save him. You and Tae-Young will have to keep Quade distracted.”

  Yarrow closed the door to Ko-Jin’s pain and breathed more easily. “We have to go now.”

  “But—” Tae-Young said.

  “There’s no time.” Yarrow held up three fingers. “One, two—”

  He spun into the blackness, trusting that they would follow. The dune disappeared beneath his feet, and he exploded into existence just outside a large canvas tent.

  “Yarrow,” an Adourran woman said in surprise.

  At her side, a young, cocksure teen sneered. “Better kill this one. The more of us can teleport, the less special I feel.”

  There was a second pop, and Trevva and Tae-Young joined him. Trevva nodded in his direction. “Go.”

  She charged straight at the woman guarding the entrance, and they both went crashing into the sand. Yarrow darted around their struggling forms and tore into the tent.

  Within, he felt the presence of Quade Asher like the warmth of a hearth. But his eyes locked at once on the form of his fallen friend. Ko-Jin lay facedown in a pool of his own blood, his hands bound behind his back. Yarrow slid to his side and felt the warm blood soak into the fabric of his robes.

  “Yarrow Lamhart,” a honeyed voice said. “Quite the reunion we’re having ourselves this evening.”

  Yarrow did not look up at the speaker. There was too little time. He rolled Ko-Jin over, and saw that, beneath the smears of blood, the general’s face was deathly pale. The life within him was like the wick of a candle that had been put out, but still glowed with the ghost of an ember.

  Please, Yarrow thought, extending his hands. He felt the rush of heat and pleasure as light surged, bright and beautiful, from his palms. The wounds began to shrink.

  A hard blow connected with Yarrow’s head, and he found himself knocked to the side. He blinked up at the canvas ceiling. Somewhere behind him a woman shouted, “No!”

  “I would appreciate it if you would not revive those I have deliberately felled.”

  The contents of Yarrow’s skull swirled painfully, and he struggled to orient himself. He rolled to his knees. Quade stood above him, but his feet were not aligned. Yarrow snagged the back of his forward boot and swung it up, sending Quade stumbling to prevent a fall.

  Yarrow skittered back to Ko-Jin, whose face was less pallid but whose eyes were still closed. Once again he extended his hands. He could sense the light that was Ko-Jin’s life warming, brightening. Ko-Jin’s eyelids flickered, and he groaned.

  Again, Yarrow experienced an explosion of pain. The kick this time connected squarely with the back of his head, and his forehead slammed into Ko-Jin’s chest.

  He blinked tears from his eyes and looked up. The tent flap stirred and Trevva, with a bleeding lip, entered. Tae-Young slipped in behind her, terror in his young eyes. “Get the queen out of here,” Ko-Jin’s raspy voice called out, unexpectedly. Yarrow looked to see his friend beginning to stir, and was relieved. His mind was so confused, his vision so swimming, he doubted he could heal again.

  “I think not,” Quade said.

  But his words were to no effect. Tae-Young sprinted at Chae-Na, half-tackling her, and in an instant the two of them were gone. Quade roared, his hands fisting at his sides.

  Ko-Jin tried to push to his feet, but he slipped in his own blood and fell again.

  “Lamhart,” Quade bellowed. He kicked once more, and this time his boot connected smartly with Yarrow’s ribs. He heard a crack and screwed his eyes shut against the pain.

  Yarrow rolled over, slipping in a warm puddle. He wheezed and tried to kneel. Sharp pain ran up his side.

  “You will die first, I think. Pity though it is to part with such a tool.”

  A gloved hand tangled into his hair. He screwed his eyes shut, willing himself to teleport, but his mind was so befuddled that it was like reaching for a falling object with closed eyes. He could go nowhere.

  “Yarrow,” a new voice called—shouted.

  “Blight it all,” Quade said, wrenching at Yarrow’s hair. “Bray Marron. How many of you are there, for Spirits’ sake?”

  Bray, Yarrow thought faintly. And he knew he would not die. She would not allow it.

  Gunshots rang out in the night in such quick succession that Bray’s brow puckered in confusion.

  “Fabulous,” Arlow said, turning to look in the direction of the camp. “That sounds like a fine bit of luck.”

  They kept moving. Whythe, who was slung over Peer’s shoulder, swayed like a rag doll. However, the sentry borne between herself and Arlow had begun to stir. Bray counted the shots as they jogged: three, four, five, six.

  The silence that followed hung ominously in the darkness. She looked over her shoulder, but they’d already passed through the dune that blocked the camp from view.

  “We have to go back,” Bray said.

  Peer gently deposited Whythe on the sand. Bray and Arlow let their burden fall with less consideration. Her mouth twisted in distaste as she glanced at the large man. He had done no worse than bruise her neck and rip her shirt, but still she felt the crush of his body against her own. And, somehow worse, the flash of violent rage that had consumed her afterwards, and tasted so familiar in her mouth.

  But there was no time now to linger on the incident. She needed to remain calm and in control if she was to help her companions. She turned to Peer.

  “You should stay with these two,” Bray said, nodding to their captives. “Arlow and I will check it out.”

  “I can’t be letting you—” Peer began.

  “We don’t even know if anything’s wrong yet,” Bray said.

  “Yes, let’s just assume that our friend Ko-Jin abandoned his careful plan, and instead emptied six bullets into Quade Asher’s head,” Arlow said with dry sarcasm.

  Bray frowned at him, though he was certainly correct. She sighed. “Let’s go, then.” Peer was clearly prepared to argue, so she added, “You came here to save him, so make sure he stays safe. No time to discuss it.”

  She nodded to Arlow, whose pale face shone, fearful but determined, in the moonlight. Bray had not jogged two steps, however, when the sound of teleportation pulled her up short. She wheeled around, heart in her throat, but it was only the young Elevated Mearra who stepped out of the shadows. Her eyes could not look larger or whiter within her face.

  “What’s happened?” Bray asked.

  “Ko-Jin is in trouble. The others went to help; Yarrow told me to get you.” She held out her hand. “We have to hurry.”

  Arlow reached the girl first, taking the offered palm. Bray grasped her other hand and squeezed.

  The world went black and silent, save for the thundering pulse in Bray’s ears. With the lurching sensation of a step missed on a stairway, they reappeared just outside tent 001. There were two forms slumped on the ground before the entry. One of them groaned in pain. Bray released the girl and phased. She did not wait for her companions, but charged straight through the canvas.

  “Yarrow,” Bray shouted, coming to a choking halt.

  The scene before her seemed too horrible to be real. Quade held Yarrow by the hair, his fist entwined in those dark locks. The blade in his other hand was poised to slit Yarrow’s throat.

  “Blight it all,” Quade said, wrenching at Yarrow’s hair. “Bray Marron. How many of you are there, for Spirit’s sake?”

  Yarrow blinked, plainly disoriented, though Bray could detect no visible sign of injury. Ko-Jin, on the other hand, was soaked in blood. He tried to push hi
mself up to his knees, but slipped.

  Behind her, the tent flap rustled and she sensed the entrance of Arlow and Mearra.

  Bray held up a hand to Quade. “If you kill him—”

  “What, dear?” Quade asked in his honeyed voice. “What could you possibly do?”

  Bray swallowed, but her mouth was like sandpaper. “If you kill him, you will have no bargaining chip.” She was not certain what she meant by this—she was scrambling, desperate.

  Quade gripped Yarrow’s hair more tightly, causing him to hiss in pain. “Interesting. A bargaining chip. As it so happens, Bray Marron, you do have something that I very much want.”

  “Oh?” Bray’s eyes swept the tent and all of its occupants, in search of inspiration. Her sister Chiona, Trevva, stood rooted to the spot, staring at Quade with unfocused eyes. The tent contained a cot, a traveling desk and chair, and a single trunk. A sword and pistol lay on the ground, but behind Quade.

  “Yes, in fact. Give me what I want and not only will I let this one live, but I will show you just how intoxicating it can feel to be in my good graces.”

  “Intoxicating, yes, but what of the hangover?” Arlow said in his usual dry tone. His black gaze locked on Yarrow.

  “Ah, Arlow Bowlerham. Always a pleasure. I’ve so missed your wit. But do keep quiet, or I might kill you for the simple pleasure of it.”

  Arlow paled.

  “What do you want from me?” Bray asked. It was a calculated risk—to keep him talking was to keep Yarrow alive, but the longer she heard his words the less control she would have over her own mind.

  “Very little. It will cost you nothing at all, in fact. Merely a small piece of information.”

  Yarrow screwed his eyes closed and jerked. Bray wondered if he was endeavoring to teleport. If so, he failed. Quade pressed his blade to Yarrow’s neck and yanked at his hair once more.

  Ko-Jin, meanwhile, made a second effort to rise, his face contorted in pain. Quade casually kicked the man back to the ground. “Stay still.”