Ko-Jin bent down on hands and knees to peer beneath the door, but he could detect no evidence of light within. It had grown dark enough that they should have lit a lantern or candle. Surely they were not sitting quietly in the dark together?
“Maybe I should knock?” he said aloud. “I’m a little worried; it seems too quiet.”
His three companions, including the grave-looking bearded man, bobbed their heads. Mae sat forward in her chair, eyes newly alert.
He raised his hand and rapped softly on the door. “Your Highness? Just want to make sure everything’s going alright in there?”
Silence alone greeted his words. The beginnings of an uncertain fear took up in his chest.
“Highness?” he called, pitching his voice louder. And again, there was no answer. Mae rose to her feet, her pale face alarmed. Ko-Jin held up a hand to her, to signal that he would enter first. “I’m coming in,” he announced.
He pushed open the door, and his suspicion was confirmed—no lantern had been lit. In the blue shadowiness, he could just discern the outline of their two forms, one in each chair. They were slumped and motionless.
“Highness?” Ko-Jin asked, and his voice trembled. Dread alone was his answer, so heavy it threatened to crush him.
He stole within the room, feeling the presence of the others behind him. The office smelt of cigar smoke and blood.
“Get a light,” he called over his shoulder.
After a moment, a guard with a lantern arrived and Ko-Jin took the flame from him. The light was feeble; it seemed almost unwilling to banish the shadows, allowing him to reveal the room only in segments. Ko-Jin’s abdomen clenched as he stepped forward.
The candlelight illuminated the Pauper’s King first. His cigar had fallen to the rug, and his head was cocked at an awful angle. Ko-Jin brought the light around the chair, to the man’s front.
Linton’s neck had been rent so deeply that his head had been nearly, but not quite, severed from his body. His shirt front glinted with darkening blood.
Ko-Jin held the lantern aloft, and cast a dimmer light on Jo-Kwan’s form. The king did not appear peaceful in death.
Ko-Jin heard, distantly, a female shriek. Someone shoved past him, and his body swayed like a flag in the wind.
“Linton,” she said, sobbing. Choking. “Linton, Linton, no. Brother, no. Spirits. Someone? What are you starin’ at? Get a doctor! Go! Linton? Linton, can you hear me?”
And Arlow’s softer reply. “He’s gone, Mae. I’m so—”
“You don’t know, you don’t…”
“He’s—he’s cold. It’s too late.”
Arlow pinned the woman in what was simultaneously an embrace and a restraint. She fought against him for a time, before burying her sobs into his chest.
Ko-Jin’s mind caught hold of Arlow’s assessment—he’s cold—and fixated on it. Cold? How long ago had they died? This information became, suddenly, of the utmost importance. He needed to know. How long? For how many minutes had he, General Sung Ko-Jin, stood outside that door, guarding a dead man? Because every second between murder and discovery added weight to his failure. And he wanted to burden himself accurately.
His eyes scanned the office for clues. He knelt and felt the end of Jo-Kwan’s cigar, where it had landed on the floor. It, too, was cold. He looked at his king’s dangling, lifeless hand. He reached up and held it briefly, giving the fingers a squeeze. They felt cool and stiff in his unsteady grip.
Ko-Jin closed his eyes and imagined a different outcome: himself opening the door in time to see the assailant at the window, and shouting, “Down, Highness!” The king would scramble under the desk and Ko-Jin would make chase. Later, he and Jo-Kwan would share a drink. “Thank the Spirits you were there…”
Ko-Jin opened his eyes. Jo-Kwan’s handsome features betrayed no pain or surprise. His dark eyes were half-lidded, as if sleepy. Above the killing wound, a feathered dart stuck from beneath his ear.
Ko-Jin’s gaze drifted from that odd detail to the window that had been left agape. A chilling gust carried a swirl of snowflakes into the room and set the curtains wailing.
That icy wind upon their bodies would certainly escalate the cooling process. Perhaps the assassination had not happened so very long ago, Ko-Jin thought—hoped. But he would need to seek an expert opinion to know for certain…
When Ko-Jin finally stood upright again, it was without consciously deciding to do so. He approached each of the two dead men with his head bowed, and he unpinned the spotless vellum cards from their shirtsleeves. He stared down at the elegant numerals twenty-five and twenty-six. They were identical to the previous two dozen attached to Quade’s victims killed across Accord, save for the hand-scrawled crowns above the numbers. He flipped the cards over mechanically, certain there would be more written on the undersides. He stared at the words with a numb sense of recognition:
feel the sting,
feel the sting,
you merchant, peasant, beggar, KING.
“Ko-Jin?” Arlow asked.
“How did he do it?” Ko-Jin murmured. “How did he know—where, when…?”
“He must have gotten to someone.”
Ko-Jin’s eyes, at last adjusted to the darkness of the room, were now able to take in the horror of the office in its entirety. He was not a man unfamiliar with bloodshed, but he had never witnessed a grisly scene only after the violence had ended. It was all so much more horrible for its stillness.
Nearby, Mae continued to burrow into Arlow’s embrace. The bearded man had retreated to the doorway, his head turned, but the soft sound of his weeping reached them nonetheless.
Chae-Na…
How in the name of the Spirits was he going to tell her of this? With what words—how?
Ko-Jin turned to the guard, who was staring, transfixed, at the fallen king. “Go for the coroner. Have one of the others run to tell the commander on duty to lock down the palace, to double security. And find Britt; we need the Chisanta searching the grounds.”
There came, then, the sound of someone running up the hallway and wrenching open the outer door. Ko-Jin swiveled his head to find a crimson-faced Fernie skidding to a standstill. “I think he was here. Quade, I…”
The lad trailed off as he took in Quade’s handiwork. He paled.
Ko-Jin crossed the space and pushed him back out of the room, a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to see this. Come talk to me later.”
It would all be infinitely worse if Fernie saw it too. Ko-Jin was protecting himself as much as the lad, as he shoved him into the outer chamber.
Fernie continued to stumble backwards after he had been released. “I was too late…” the boy said, wide-eyed.
Too late.
“We all were.” And with that, Ko-Jin shut the door, blocking the gruesome sight from the young man’s view.
He released the doorknob and returned to the side of his fallen king.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, as he closed his friend’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
Bray lowered the thin fabric wrapped round her face and let the wind whip her hair. Alone and unseen, she extended her arms as if she meant to take flight, and let the hot desert gale encompass her. Being so high above the world felt like soaring. She grinned, and opened her eyes to soak in the expanse of sand below her. The deep blues of nighttime purpled with the rising sun.
The city of Nerra, a mere ruin around her, stretched vacant and silent. Bray had never had an interest in history, but seeing this city gave her a new appreciation for the subject. She was curious—these people, so long ago, why had they left? Why abandon such a monument?
There came a sudden pop, and Bray wrenched her arms back down to her sides. She spun and found Yarrow; he had reappeared a few steps down the pyramid. He gazed up at her with his mouth partially agape, his gray eyes intent. Then he shook himself and lofted a canteen. She heard the tempting slosh of water and hopped down to meet him. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to her with a smile.
&nb
sp; After a long draught, she pointed to the south. “I do think I see something out there—like a shadow. Perhaps that’s what you were looking for?”
He nodded. “Yes. Would you like me to go ahead and see what it is?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve crossed half the blighted kingdoms to get here. I rode a camel across a desert. You race ahead of me now, and I might just kill you.”
He laughed. “Very well. Together, then.”
She nodded with sharp emphasis, slung the canteen across her shoulder, and gestured for him to lead the way. As they began their descent, she rewrapped her pelisse, careful to cover her neck and head. The Adourran sun had not been kind to her north Dalish skin.
Fortunately, descending the pyramid was far less exhausting than mounting it had been. Unfortunately, it was also far more precarious. She picked her way after Yarrow with focus, mindful of crumbling stones.
As they climbed downwards, the wind continued to mount, pelting Bray with grit.
“Yarrow?” she called over the howl. He turned back, his hand held up to shield his face. “Sandstorm.”
He winced against the onslaught. “Let’s try and get to the bottom.”
“You go ahead,” she shouted. “Get the cover ready.”
He paused, clearly reluctant to leave her in such conditions.
“Go!” she shouted again.
He disappeared, seemingly stolen by the swirling sand. Bray bent her head and quickened her pace. She felt abraded to the point of rawness, even through her covering. The wind was so strong it seemed capable of lifting her straight off her feet. She had borne the discomfort up until then out of companionship for Yarrow, but now that he had gone ahead she gratefully phased.
Once her solidity winked out, the wind no longer held any power over her. Looking out, she saw the sand circling in the wind, like a monstrous warm-hued tornado. Yarrow. She glided down the remaining pyramid steps without mindfulness for her footing, as her shoes were not truly contacting the stone.
Yarrow, fighting against the pull of the storm, pounded the last stake into the ground as Bray joined him.
She flew straight through the side of the tent, only rematerializing when Yarrow climbed underneath to join her.
They clung to each other in the darkness, listening to the torrent outside and hoping that their sanctuary would hold. The night of hiking, the weeks of travel, stole over her.
Bray’s cheek pressed to the warm fabric of Yarrow’s shirt, and she listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
“Think it’s slowing down,” he murmured eventually. He sounded groggy.
Bray herself was fighting against a thick drowsiness, which kept tugging down on her eyelids. She yawned so widely that her jaw popped.
“We might as well sleep,” he said, but she was already halfway there.
When she woke, seemingly moments later, she found her mouth had turned to parchment. Blinking against the darkness, she felt along her hip for the canteen and drank long and deep.
Yarrow stirred. “Time is it?” he croaked out.
She handed him the water, and listened to the steady pumping of his throat as he drank.
“We might be buried,” she said. The sides of the tent were heavy with sand. She felt, suddenly, suffocated. Trapped. “I’ll go up first.”
She phased and let herself drift upwards. They were not under much sand, as it turned out. She rematerialized and squinted at the setting sun. The sky was pale and rosy. After the brutal winds of that morning, this new tranquility seemed downright eerie.
A snake, curled up on the pyramid’s second step, lifted its head to look at her, then settled back into a restful position. Bray eyed it warily.
Yarrow emerged in an explosion of sand. He climbed up from their hovel, grit cascading all around him.
She laughed at the sight. “Why didn’t you teleport?”
“And abandon our tent?” he asked, plunking down on the pyramid step to empty out a boot.
She smiled, tugged on her gloves, and came to help him brush off. She ran her fingers into his hair and shook, sending waves of sand raining down onto the stone. He blinked up at her in irritation, and she laughed again.
“Hope you’re up for a trek,” she said.
He stood, still streaming. “Shouldn’t be more than five hours’ walk.”
“Pity we left the camels with the caravan.”
He cocked a brow at her.
“What? I told you, they grew on me.”
“The ‘horrible, smelly beasts?’”
She shrugged at him as she rewrapped her green silk scarf. “I’m not much of an animal person, what can I say?”
They packed up their things in companionable silence and set off on the last leg of their journey. Bray wondered how Yarrow would react when there was nothing out there—no clue, no breadcrumbs to follow. Bray herself had known at the start that this would be the case, so she would feel no frustration. The journey had brought them close again, and that was enough for her. More than enough.
They hiked between dunes where they could, and over them where they could not. The shifting sand beneath her boots made for difficult footing. As the evening gave way to full dark, the desert turned cold. Bray wrapped herself more firmly in her cloak and gazed up at the Adourran stars. She had never seen anything so otherworldly as these desert night skies. They blazed with color and pricks of light, which coalesced to form a great celestial arc. She thought this sight looked like a spiritly gate, a door to the afterlife. Though they had been traveling towards it for days, it never seemed any nearer.
Yarrow, marching at her side, appeared too driven by the shadow of the dunes ahead to mind the sky above. The expression on his face was one she had observed often during this trip, but which she had never seen him wear before his most recent sacrifice. He looked hungry, desperate for information rather than merely curious. Hounded by a need which she would never fully understand.
They stopped briefly to chew on jerky and dried fruit, and to take long drinks of water. Yarrow left for a few minutes to once again refill their canteens, and his absence pressed on her like a physical thing. To be wholly alone in such a wide and alien place was unnerving, even for only short minutes. She couldn’t help but imagine that something might prevent him from returning. That she might die out here, shrivel from thirst and leave behind nothing but bleached bones in the sand.
It was a needless speculation, however. Yarrow returned with a relieving pop, and she savored the cool feeling of the water through the skin of her canteen.
“When we’ve seen this through,” she began, leaning back onto her elbows. “Where should we go next?”
“You want to go to Accord, still?”
“Yes,” she said. “Our friends are all there. Or they were, at least.”
“You worry for your friend Peer.”
She couldn’t tell if he said this as a statement or a question. He had made no reference to using his first gift since he’d rediscovered it. There were not many differences between this man and the Yarrow she’d known, but that seemed to be the greatest. He had looked downright horrified at having her emotions in his mind—an experience that had never once bothered him before.
“Yes, well…” she began. “Peer’s had a rough go of it lately. I hate to think of him hurting, and on his own. He’s not the type to share his pain.”
“And you are?”
Bray laughed. “No. We’ve that in common.” She screwed on the cap to her canteen. “Shall we?”
Yarrow hopped to his feet with a degree of energy Bray could not replicate.
They trekked south, and the dunes flattened. In the distance, she could see the shadow of something protruding from the sand. Yarrow hastened his step, and Bray wearily matched his pace.
The slight warmth of predawn had bloomed by the time they arrived at their goal. It was a stone archway—an ancient-looking thing. The symbols carved into the stone had been eroded by the years, so that only the
barest of impressions remained. It looked vaguely familiar, giving Bray a nagging sense of déjà vu. She lowered her shawl and gazed up at the stone. There came a mounting realization that she stood before something momentous. Something which perhaps should not be disturbed.
Yarrow ambled close to the stone and ran a finger along the archway, studying it with intent eyes.
“Do you know these symbols?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “But they look…” Familiar.
Yarrow crossed through the archway and Bray hesitated, but only for a moment. Strong sense of foreboding or no, she would remain by his side.
They walked into the center of a ring of ancient stone slabs protruding from the sand. At the midpoint, a timeworn stairway led up to nothing at all, to empty air. The entire circle warmed with the rosy glow of new daybreak.
“Yarrow,” Bray said. “I’ve got the strangest feeling…”
“Me as well.” His eyes gleamed. “It’s almost like a memory.”
“Well,” she said, and she stepped up onto the first step of that peculiar, pointless stair. Though reason told her there was no cause to climb a stairway that led nowhere, a deeper urging suggested otherwise. Yarrow’s gloved hand slipped into her own and they ascended together, one step at a time. Each felt difficult, somehow. As if gravity were mounting, as if something did not want them to go on. By the time they reached the topmost perch, she was streaming sweat and her lungs strained to pull in air. The sun had appeared brightly on the horizon.
“I think…” she began, wondering if she would sound as insane aloud as she did within her own mind. “I think we’re meant to go on.”
There would be nothing but a drop, a long plunge into sand—not fatal, perhaps, but certainly injurious. And yet she believed they would not fall.
“Count of three?” Yarrow suggested.
Bray squeezed his gloved hand, acquiescent but still uneasy.
“One,” he said.
“Two,” they said together.
“Three—”
Peer reclined in his office chair and rolled his shoulders until he heard a satisfying crack. He looked to the window. The bell was ringing again, a distant mournful tolling that drifted to him from the nearby palace. It still seemed impossible that the king was truly dead. Peer might forget entirely, if it were not for that blighted bell punctuating his day every hour with its melancholy reminder.
Lamentation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 3) Page 18