She pulled away marginally, her breath as ragged as his own, her hair more disheveled than usual. She tipped her forehead to his, and for a long moment the thrumming of the downpour and their panting breaths were all that there was.
Ko-Jin opened his mouth to speak—not entirely sure what he meant to say—but was cut off by the door of the shed being suddenly thrust open.
Artello leapt to his feet and barked with admirable volume, and Ko-Jin sprung from the bench a moment later. But he froze when he saw the silhouetted form of a stranger in the entryway.
The man was slim, wearing a long coat. A lit cigarette dangled from his lips, and the small, warm light shone like a threat in the dark haze of the storm. Rain poured from the brim of his hat as he stepped inside, his boots squelching with each step.
Ko-Jin’s eyes remained fixated on the pistol in the man’s hand. He held it casually, his wrist slack.
“Well,” he said, drawling out the word with languid, accented tones. “What is it we’ve got ourselves here?”
Ko-Jin heard voices and movement behind the man, followed by the bray of a horse. He cursed himself for his inattention—how could he not have heard them riding up?
The newcomer flicked his cigarette to the ground and slowly pulverized it with the heel of his boot, his eyes never leaving Ko-Jin’s. He then shouted something in Adourran over his shoulder. Beside Ko-Jin, Zarra stiffened.
Artello’s ears twitched, and he let out a low, reverberating growl.
The man removed his hat, revealing a shrewd face with bulging eyes and a vicious scar running down the left side of his nose. His skin was light enough that Ko-Jin suspected him to be half Dalish.
The stranger eyed both of them and smiled, a wide white grin broken by the absence of a single tooth. He pointed with the pistol. “Take a seat, now, Chisanta pup.”
Ko-Jin clenched a fist and narrowed his eyes.
Zarra reached out to tug his sleeve but her hand met only air. “Ko-Jin,” she hissed. “Be careful. They’re sleidres.”
Two more figures entered the shack, large men carrying coils of rope. Artello growled and stood before his mistress.
One of the new arrivals said something in harsh Adourran and gave a swift kick. The soft thump of his foot meeting Art’s skull was followed by a shrill whine as his massive, dark form crumpled.
Zarra snarled and shot forward, striking the man in the throat. He let out a pained wheeze.
The other man approached Ko-Jin with altogether too much confidence. He cocked back a fist and aimed a blow at Ko-Jin’s face.
Ko-Jin darted nimbly out of the way, redirecting the man’s weight so that he tumbled to the ground in a heavy heap.
A gunshot sounded, and blinding pain pierced Ko-Jin’s right thigh. He fell to his knees. The hot wetness of blood began flowing down his leg. Before he had time to do more than groan, a boot connected with his temple. He was insensible before his face hit the mud.
The first thing Ko-Jin knew was the dank cement floor beneath his cheek; the second, acute agony. His head throbbed, his battered body ached, and his thigh seared with excruciating pain. He groaned before he could think better of announcing his consciousness, but the noise was drowned by a general din coming from somewhere above.
“Are you alright?” Zarra asked, her voice hushed.
Ko-Jin let out a second moan in response and, with no small degree of effort, rocked his body until he had rolled to face her. They were both tied hand and foot. Someone had bound his leg wound tightly, leaving his right foot prickling with lack of blood.
Artello’s large form sprawled unmoving by Zarra’s feet, though the rise and fall of his chest was a promising indicator of life.
Above them, the drone of rowdy chatter and the drum of feet reverberated.
“Where are we?” he asked. His voice, even to his own ears, was decidedly slurred.
“Leonna, I think. The roads sounded too loud to be a smaller town.”
“And how did we get here?” he asked.
“Those men tossed us in a covered wagon,” Zarra said, the anger in her voice audible. He blinked until his vision cleared and saw that her face was puffy and bruised around the eye, her lower lip split and stained with blood.
Ko-Jin meant to ask which men she meant—someone from the school?—but a sudden wave of nausea clamped his mouth shut.
Above them, a door opened and the clamor swelled. Heavy footsteps pounded down the stair. Ko-Jin’s stomach chose that moment to clench and thrust. Hot vomit burned its way up his throat and hit the floor with a lusty splatter.
Keys rattled, a door squealed open, and then two figures appeared.
“What’s this, boy?” A rough hand seized him by the base of his braid and pulled his face up. Ko-Jin found himself staring up into the long, impassive face of a Dalishman. “Chennre, you didn’t say the kid was concussed.”
“What’s it matter?” a second, higher voice asked.
“It matters,” the Dalishman said in slow, irritated tones, “because the edict stipulates an accurate report of all participants’ physical condition, and the biddings said only that he’d suffered a gunshot wound.”
A second man appeared, his scarred face vaguely familiar. He, too, peered down at Ko-Jin. “I don’t know that he is concussed, boss. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
The hand that gripped Ko-Jin released and his head lolled forward.
“With one pupil the size of a crater and vomiting? Even those as imbecilic as you could deduce as much. Or would you like me fined for fraud?”
“Of course not, boss.”
The boots thumped over to Zarra. Though she lay in an undignified bundle, her countenance was a mask of cool fury. Ko-Jin would have called it a glare, but for the fact her eyes were, as ever, clouded and unseeing.
“You’re Hervenne’s girl, are you not?” the man asked.
“Bellretha,” she swore at him.
He smiled blandly and grabbed at her fists, secured behind her. “Callused hands consistent with a swordsman. Yes, Chennre, I’m confident in your assessment.”
He stood, stepped away, and rubbed his hands in an impatient manner. At that moment, Artello stirred and gave one soft, pitiful whine. Ko-Jin could see blood matting the fur above his right eye.
“Excellent, the dog awakens as well. What a show this will be!” he said, and for the first time his tone changed from a bland monotone to something indicative of excitement.
The two men mounted the stair, their conversation growing fainter as they departed. When they at last shut the door, the relative quiet was blissful to Ko-Jin’s aching head.
“Zarra,” a youthful voice called from somewhere deeper in the basement. “Is that you?”
Zarra craned her neck. “Colson?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Is Tev with you?”
A moment of silence hung in the air like a held breath. “No,” Colson said in a heartrendingly plaintive tone. “We were together, but they took him a few hours ago.” A dry sob stayed his story for a second. “I heard a lot of chanting and yelling and…and…a scream. And he didn’t come back.” Another sob. “I think…I think he’s dead.”
Zarra drew her lips inward and blinked rapidly. Ko-Jin felt numb. It struck him as impossible that a boy he’d seen so recently could be gone from this world.
“I’m sorry, Zarra,” Colson called. “It’s all my fault. I said we should go look for Ko-Jin. They snatched us just outside the grounds.”
“It’s not your fault,” Zarra said.
Ko-Jin began to test his bindings, wiggling his wrists and chafing the skin.
Zarra watched his progress hopefully. “You’re superhumanly strong, aren’t you?”
He gritted his teeth and struggled with all his strength, but only managed to make his wrists bloody. “Not quite that superhumanly strong, I’m afraid.”
She chewed on her lip, then her face lit up with inspiration. “Artello,” she called.
He whim
pered in response.
“Come, boy.”
Artello lifted his great body onto long, unsteady legs and shuffled forward. He collapsed next to his mistress, and she twisted so that her wrists were before his mouth.
Ko-Jin could hear him licking her fingers, the wet lapping of his tongue.
“No, boy. Chew!”
He continued to lick however, and she sighed. “I suppose that was a long shot.”
Ko-Jin studied his surroundings in search of any sharp object that could fray his bonds. They were in the equivalent of a cell—nothing save cool, smooth cement and the metal bars of an animal-pen door. Colson must be in a similar lockup further down the hall.
“We need to think of something,” Zarra murmured, more to herself than to him.
“What’s going to happen, Zarra?” he asked.
She exhaled loudly. “Sleidre throw people into mortal situations and audiences place bets on how long they’ll survive.”
Above, an ominous hush replaced the drone of conversation, and the footfalls grew steady and more purposeful.
Ko-Jin closed his eyes, took several deep breaths to ease his escalating queasiness, and began to mentally practice the Ada Chae, the meditation which so often brought him peace and insight.
He imagined himself standing upright, his unbound arms lifting slowly up, parallel to the earth. He shifted his weight left into Brush the Dragonfly and glided smoothly into Taking Flight.
The Aeght a Seve blossomed into existence around him, bright and warm—a place that was not a place. He squinted up at the golden orb of the sun and breathed in clean air, so refreshing after the dankness of a basement. With his mind newly, blissfully clear and his wounds distant, he felt better able to think.
He strode through the dry grass, his hands clasped behind his back.
There has to be a way out.
Rocky steps ascended before him, and he shielded his eyes to look up at their unnatural evenness and height. Even the first of the ledges stood impossibly high above him.
Yet, if he could reach that bottom-most shelf, he would be granted an additional gift—a gift based on need. If ever he was in need of a new ability, this was the time. How else could he and Zarra survive, outnumbered, bound, and injured as they were?
Ko-Jin took a bracing breath and charged, pumping his legs and arms until just the right moment. He sprang. For several long seconds he arced through the air, his braid flying behind him and robes billowing, until he collided with unyielding rock.
He landed roughly on his back and massaged his chest, looking up at the sheer incline incredulously.
How could anyone overcome such a height? He allowed himself to collapse backwards, the back of his head connecting with the earth.
There was something more to it, of course. Something to do with the sacrifices, though for the life of him, he couldn’t recall how all of it worked. The supplemental gifts were the stuff of legend, irrelevant to him—or so it had seemed.
Yarrow Lamhart would know, he thought grimly. An image of his friend’s face popped into his mind. He’d likely be bent over a book in the Cosanta Library at that very moment, comfortable and safe. As he, Ko-Jin, might never be again. For the first time in his young life, his throat tightened with true fear—a sudden, unmitigated comprehension of his own mortality.
He experienced a strange tug on his sleeve, though of course he could not have company in the Aeght a Seve. He was about to dismiss the sensation when it happened again, and the Place of Five was ripped from his senses.
“Ko-Jin,” Zarra’s panicked voice called. “Wake up!”
He jerked forward and swallowed down a groan as the pain returned. “What is it?”
“They’re taking Colson.”
Ko-Jin lifted his gaze just in time to see two large forms dragging the boy between them. Colson floundered, kicking and twisting in his captors’ grips, his violent red curls flying to and fro.
The boy’s terrified green eyes locked onto Ko-Jin. “Help,” he called, desperate, half-sobbing. “Please, help.”
And then the lad was borne out of sight and the thud of boots on stairs echoed down the hallway.
“We have to do something,” Zarra said, as she fought with a new frenzy against the ropes binding her wrists. She assumed an expression of total concentration, beads of sweat blooming on her brow.
Above, a cheer boomed.
“They’re loosening,” Zarra said.
“Let me help.” Ko-Jin scooted across the cold floor until his hands, though still bound behind his back, had reached Zarra’s. He dug his fingers into the knot and pried at it until it felt as though his fingernails would rip free from their beds.
“There!” he called, as the knot finally came loose.
In another two minutes of combined, furious effort, they were free. The ropes that had held them lay curled like dead things upon the floor.
Ko-Jin hopped to his feet. A sharp pain lanced up his thigh, and he sucked air sharply through his teeth, but didn’t pause on his way to the iron door. He examined the lock, and then the hinges. He ground his teeth—they might as well still be bound for all the chance they had of escaping. He tugged on the unrelenting metal, though he knew his strength unequal to the task.
“I…” He let his arms fall. “I can’t get us out.”
“Colson,” she said softly.
Ko-Jin squeezed his eyes shut and pushed his forehead against the cool bars of their prison. “When they come for us,” he said, detached, “we’ll need to attack when they open the door.” He swallowed. “Hope they don’t come armed.”
Zarra wrapped her arms around her knees. In the dark of the cell, her milky eyes were the only points of light.
He sunk to the ground, the pain in his thigh so overpowering he could hardly think straight.
Artello lumbered over to him and pressed a cold, wet nose in his ear. Ko-Jin scratched the dog’s ear, letting his head thump back against the wall of the cell.
Above, the din shifted. Feet stopped moving. Ko-Jin pressed his lips into a firm line—not wanting to hear, but unable to block the sounds.
Cheers went up, raucous and, to his ears, vicious. There was a second of hush, and then a loud whoop and applause.
Zarra, across the room, buried her face in her lap. Ko-Jin’s hands shook.
Colson was going to die. He was just a lad, and he was going to die. And all Ko-Jin could do was listen. It seemed an impossible thing, unreal. Wrong.
Overhead, the crowd turned quiet. A young voice screamed, the sound pure and high and wrenching. The cry continued on and on, impossibly long. Ko-Jin jammed his fingers in his ears, but he could still hear it. Until, finally, the wail was cut short, and the crowd erupted, sounds split between cheers and groans.
Ko-Jin’s knees fell to the floor. Zarra’s cheeks were painted with tears, but she remained silent.
The audience overhead seemed to be dispersing; the roar reduced to a buzz and, after an hour or so, dwindled into silence. Ko-Jin slumped, his heart beating in rhythm with the throbbing in his thigh. It appeared they would be spared, at least for the day.
“Hevernne will be looking for us,” Ko-Jin whispered. It was the first either of them had spoken in quite some time.
“Yes,” Zarra said. “But he won’t find us. Even if he knew to look in Leonna, the city is massive. This is one of countless sleirdres holes.” Her shoulders dropped. “We’re on our own, Sung.”
For the first time, he rather liked the sound of his family name. No one had ever called him that. It seemed like something intimate, something shared only between the two of them. And as they were liable to die together, it was nice to think they had intimacy between them, at least.
Zarra pushed herself to her feet, bare against the stony floor. She had no reed to use as guide, so she walked tentatively, feeling her way forward with her toes. She must have been guided by the sound of his breathing, or, more likely, Artello’s panting breaths.
Ko-Jin reached fo
r her hand when she was close and helped guide her to the floor beside him. Art, in his eagerness to be near his mistress, draped himself across Ko-Jin’s legs, as if he thought himself a lap dog. Ko-Jin hissed and pulled his injured thigh away.
“You know,” Zarra whispered, sounding dazed. “I really like you, Sung.”
She rested her head against his shoulder, and the three of them pressed together in the darkness, entwined.
“Why?” Ko-Jin asked.
“Hm?”
“Why do you like me?” He felt foolish to ask, but he honestly couldn’t understand. She couldn’t see him, so why should she like him?
“Because.” She swallowed. “Because there is more life and heart and humor in your voice than any I’ve ever heard.”
Despite the horrible circumstances, despite the searing agony of his thigh wound, a smile spread slow and artless across his face. “I like you, too.”
“I know,” she said, nonchalant, lips cocked in a smirk.
He laughed and tried to pull her closer, but she was already flush against him.
They held fast, and though it seemed impossible, eventually slept.
Ko-Jin wrenched to wakefulness at the chink of metal against metal—key in lock. He remembered enough of where he was that his heart thundered into instant panic. Zarra stirred, her pearly eyes snapping open.
Two men entered, one the same Dalishman from the day before, the other an Adourran gentleman in a long gray coat.
Ko-Jin launched to his feet, but the room swirled before his eyes. He had to throw a hand out to steady himself. Artello snarled at the newcomers, a surprisingly fearsome display for such a cowardly dog.
Zarra looked no less threatening—her unkempt appearance lent her a wildness. She stood ready to spring, knees bent.
“Calm yourselves, this is a doctor,” the Dalishman said.
“Take a seat,” the doctor ordered in heavily accented Dalish. He set down a medical bag and inspected Ko-Jin from top to toe. “It is the head and the leg only?” he asked the white man.
“Yes, as far as I know.”
Ko-Jin still had not complied, but he didn’t feel terribly stable on his feet, between the stabbing in one leg and the swimming quality to his vision.
Maturation of the Marked Page 5