Maturation of the Marked

by March McCarron

  The woman in red shrieked as the knife handle bloomed in her shoulder. She pitched forward, a streak of red satin overturning in the air. Had his leg not been injured, Ko-Jin would have shot forward and endeavored to catch her, to reduce the pain of impact. But he knew the distance to be impossible to cover in his current condition.

  She landed with a thump, a scream, a sharp crack. He hoped it was a leg and not her back that had broken—he hoped she had survived the fall. If she had not, then he had murdered a young woman for no reason at all. Murderer.

  “Halt,” the Dalishman called. The cranking stopped, and the cage door ceased its upward movement. The lioness within swept a paw through the narrow gap between the cell door and the dirt.

  Ko-Jin lumbered to the woman, who whimpered, entangled in her gown. He had her up off the ground and pressed to his chest in an instant. She wept and half-heartedly kicked. He noticed how small and young she was, and hated himself anew.

  “Step back,” the man said.

  The assemblage, which had been so constantly boisterous, had gone eerily quiet. The silence seemed a monstrous thing; it rang in his ears.

  Ko-Jin held the girl tight, her black curls dancing across his cheek. Hot blood rushed from the knife wound in her shoulder, running over Ko-Jin’s arm. She smelt rich, like rosewater and designer perfume. She had a face like a doll—beautiful, but with a certain glossy vacancy. Her lipstick matched her dress.

  He could sense the lions stirring, but he kept his gaze fixed on the Dalishman.

  “You bade me to die well,” he shouted. “What of her? Should she die well along with me?”

  The man flicked his wrist and three arrows loosed from somewhere much higher above. Behind him, Ko-Jin heard the lions hiss and mewl in agony.

  “Release her,” the man commanded. His eyes were wild, and Ko-Jin wondered if this woman were perhaps a young wife.

  The girl wept, her body going slack in his grasp, like she’d given up—or perhaps succumbed to pain. Ko-Jin bared his teeth at them, like the monster he felt. “And be decorated with arrows? No, thank you.”

  Ko-Jin hauled the girl back to where Zarra waited for him with an unreadable face.

  “You have to press close,” he said to her, “so they fear harming the girl should they aim for you.”

  “I understand,” Zarra said, in a voice without music.

  They shuffled back out into the center of the ring, the three of them sandwiched together like a strange trio of lovers.

  “I’m sorry for this,” he said softly. Then he yanked the knife from the girl’s shoulder. She screamed, one pure, high note, and blood streamed thick and fast. Ko-Jin pressed the flat of the blade to her throat.

  “Reopen the door and let us leave,” Ko-Jin announced. “Or, I swear by all the Spirits, I will kill her. Allow us to go, and I will release her once we’re safely away.” He uttered this with such cold earnestness, he wondered if he might mean it.

  “And I’m meant to trust your word?” the man called down.

  “I am not the one who takes pleasure in watching others die.”

  The silence deepened, seemed to engulf the entire arena.

  “Father,” the woman called out, desperate. Ko-Jin felt like ten kinds of sea-scum, but he maintained a neutral expression.

  The man’s jaw set. “Very well.” His hand jerked in a flashing gesture, and, at his back, Ko-Jin discerned the cranking of the door being uplifted once more. Ko-Jin walked backwards, jaw clamped shut and blade still flush to the woman’s throat. She wasn’t struggling; she was limp and heavy in his arms. He hoped she hadn’t died.

  Zarra continued close at his side, helping to bear some of his weight. Overhead, the crowd roared with a unanimous anger, no doubt outraged that bets had been placed on a fight that would never finish.

  It was slow and awkward progress, but at length they stepped back into the dim antechamber. The door had been unlocked, and so they made their way into a hallway, walking past the door that led down to the prison cells below.

  The Dalishman was waiting for them. His posture spoke of forced calm—arms crossed before his chest and weight leaning against the wall—but the lines bracketing his mouth, the pallor of his complexion, revealed him.

  “Keep back,” Ko-Jin said.

  He straightened. “I agreed to your terms. I am a man of my word, despite what you may think. You return my daughter to me and you may go. What’s more, I will give you a horse to speed your departure.”

  Ko-Jin glanced sideways at Zarra, but her face betrayed no opinion.

  “Only you,” Ko-Jin said. “Lead the way.”

  “Is she—”

  “She’s breathing,” Ko-Jin said—lied. Perhaps she was breathing, but if so he could not sense it. “Act quickly so she can receive medical aid.”

  The man nodded once and pointed to a door opposite him. “This way.”

  He unlatched the door and a draft swept into the space, carrying the noise of a city street. Ko-Jin’s pulse ticked faster—we’re actually escaping. He hadn’t dared hope until that moment.

  “Come.” The Dalishman guided them out into an alleyway, around to a stable. A young man was in the midst of saddling them a horse when they shuffled in.

  “My daughter,” he said in a tight voice, his hands out. “Please.”

  Ko-Jin gave a half-shake of the head. He was afraid the girl had died, and that the discovery of this might impede his escape. “Zarra, mount the horse first.”

  The stable boy lent a hand, and Zarra swung up onto the saddle. She was trembling, her knees clenched tight against the leather.

  “Alright,” he said. “I’m setting her down. Take a step back.”

  The man took one step away. Ko-Jin considered insisting he move further, but decided it would not be worth the effort. He was exhausted and wanted this whole affair at an end.

  He knelt down, finally pulling the knife away from the young woman’s neck. Her arms lolled as he rested her gently on the hay-strewn stable floor. Her eyes were shut, her face perfectly peaceful. Ko-Jin had the terrible suspicion that she was, by then, past saving.

  He sensed movement at his back and kicked himself backwards. A dagger drove into the wooden board between his legs. The Dalishman looked up with crazed eyes, yanking his blade free. Ko-Jin scurried backwards on elbows and feet.

  “Sung!” Zarra leapt down from the horse.

  The Dalishman bared his teeth and sprung forward. Ko-Jin leaned backwards and kicked up mercilessly with his uninjured leg, catching the man in the side of the face with the toe of his boot.

  The dagger skittered toward Ko-Jin, and he snagged it, rolling on top of his enemy. The man bucked, trying to dislodge him, but Ko-Jin would not be unseated. He was panting, spittle flying from his lips, dagger raised.

  “Sung!” Zarra’s voice broke in, her strong hand coming to rest on his upper back.

  Ko-Jin swallowed, closing his eyes. Then he rotated his hand, directing the point harmlessly away, and punched down hard, hilt in his fist. He heard a satisfying crack. He punched again. And a third time.

  “Sung Ko-Jin!”

  He sighed, looking down at the bloody, unconscious face. He pushed himself up and away.

  For a second, he glanced over to the girl in red. Her blood had turned dark, black against the crimson of her gown. She still had not stirred. Half of him wanted to check for a heartbeat, to know for certain if he had killed her. The other half was terrified of the answer.

  “Ko-Jin,” Zarra said, and her voice was now weary. She’d never once called him that before.

  “Let’s go,” he said, swinging up into the saddle, then pulling her up behind him. “Hold on.”

  Her arms wrapped tightly around his middle, and he felt her cheek rest against his back as he guided their new steed out into a busy street in Leonna, full of ordinary people going about their ordinary lives.

  “West,” Zarra said into the fabric of his robes.

  “Okay.”

  K
o-Jin ran a hand over the scraggly growth of hair on his upper lip and jaw. He’d washed again and again in his two weeks since returning from Leonna, but he hadn’t shaved. He couldn’t bring himself to stare at his own reflection long enough to accomplish the task.

  He leaned forward, elbows against knees and back rounded. Zarra’s leg pressed against his, she sat so close beside him. He flicked his gaze upwards, to where his brother Cosanta, Enton, spoke to Hervenne. Beyond them, the ship was being readied.

  Ko-Jin breathed in the sea air, entwining and untwining his fingers. “I can come back,” he said. He’d said it before, but it seemed vital that he repeat himself. “I’m coming back. It won’t be long at all, just until my eighteenth birthday.”

  She nodded, and tucked her wild hair behind an ear with her free hand. The two of them had not spent much time apart in the past weeks—they were ever touching, in some way. But they had spoken little. They had not kissed at all. They had clung, as if each were trying to stay afloat in a hungry sea, and the other were a life-preserver. Their relationship had shifted in a way he could not understand—it was precious, yet it now felt somehow fragile.

  Ko-Jin knew he must let go soon, and the notion terrified him. To have to reflect on what he’d done without her present, without a physical reminder of why he had acted as he had…

  “I have something for you,” Zarra said. She slipped a silver ring from her hand, and held it for a moment pinched between thumb and index finger. Ko-Jin couldn’t recall seeing it before.

  “I don’t wear it,” she said. “Jewelry irritates me. But it was my father’s—”

  “I couldn’t—”

  “You must take it,” she cut in, her tone snappish. “I don’t need a trinket to remember him.”

  “I don’t need a trinket to remember you, either,” Ko-Jin whispered to his feet.

  She shook her head and felt for his hand, then slid the band onto his middle finger. It was only a touch too large. “In Adourra, we wear a wedding band here.” She encircled his ring finger. “Here,” she tapped his middle finger, “is for a ring given as a sign of debt. If you ever see an Adourran with a ring on the third finger, you know that someone, somewhere feels beholden. And when that debt is paid, the ring is returned.”

  Ko-Jin moved to pull the silver band from his finger. “You owe me nothing.”

  She clasped his hands, stopping him. “Yes. I do. You came to me with a clean conscience; you leave with a burdened spirit. I am alive, and yet I do not carry the guilt. I wish that we could share it.”

  Ko-Jin licked his lips. There was a foul taste in his mouth. “No, you don’t.”

  They remained flush against each other. He could feel the heat of her leg against his own. But there was a gulf opening up between them, a growing distance.

  “You’re still a good man, Sung. Don’t think…” she heaved a loud sigh. “It doesn’t change who you are.”

  “No,” he said. “I must have always been capable of,” he swallowed, “that. Now that I know it, I need to make sure I’m never in a situation like that again. If I hadn’t let myself be captured in the first place—if I were stronger, faster, more alert…”

  “You have to keep the ring,” she said. “I’ll ask for it back, when the time is right.”

  “Alright,” he said softly.

  He hadn’t acknowledged it to himself, but he supposed some part of him did resent that he alone had committed the sin that day.

  He looked up to where the ship was nearly ready to leave port. Seeing how little time he had left, desperation charged through him.

  “Just,” he said, “wait for me. I’m coming back as soon as I can. And I’ll write.”

  She crossed her arms before her chest, as if she were cold despite the heat. “You hardly have to worry on that score. I’m the one who should fear, what with your flock of admirers. It won’t be easy, for you, will it? Waiting for a blind girl.” Her voice was brittle, suddenly. He couldn’t understand her shift in mood—she had never once before seemed angry about her condition. “The one that could not help when our lives were at risk.”

  “Zarra,” he began, then paused, uncertain what to say. “You can’t think I…”

  “Ko-Jin,” Enton called in a resounding baritone. “It’s time to board.”

  Ko-Jin’s heart stuttered in his chest. They could not part like this. He needed more time. And yet he could not think of anything honest to say that would ease the strain between them.

  “I don’t resent—” he pushed his hands into his hair in an agitated motion. “I like you because you’re blind.”

  Her brow furrowed and she squared her shoulders. The gulf between them was widening, and Ko-Jin desperate to bridge it.

  “Right,” she said, coldly. “You like that I can’t see you; that’s it. Spirits, I’m a fool.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he jerked to face her. “I—”

  Enton’s shadow loomed before him. “Come on, lad. We’ve got to board.”

  “Couldn’t we delay?” Ko-Jin asked in Chaskuan, leaping to his feet. He winced at the pain in his leg.

  Enton gazed at him with understanding eyes. He answered in the same tongue, “I can ask the captain for half an hour, perhaps. But more than that, and our journey would have to be put off until the morrow.”

  Ko-Jin raised his eye brows, as if to ask why that should be such a problem.

  Enton patted his shoulder. “You’ll be at your liberty soon enough, lad. In the meantime, I vouched for you. If you do not return when you’ve been summoned to report, it will reflect badly on me.” He frowned. “Take your half hour, then join me on the ship. The sooner a Cosanta doctor takes a look at that leg, the better.”

  Ko-Jin kept eyes on his retreating brother, afraid to turn and look at Zarra’s face. Afraid of what he would see there.

  “I like you for a lot of reasons,” he said, at length. “I…I think I love you.”

  There were tears on her cheeks when he finally turned. “It isn’t your fault, I know that,” she said, then clenched a fist to her heart. “But I hate this feeling.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” Ko-Jin said, voice rising. “I don’t like you just because you’re blind; I’m sorry I said that.”

  “Not just, I know. But it’s a bigger factor than you think. I believe that.”

  “No.” His hands fisted. “I really like—”

  “I know you do,” she said, and the pacifying tone in her voice scared him more than even the cold anger from before.

  He grabbed her hand and pressed her fingers against the ring she’d given him. “You said you owe me a debt. How do you mean to repay me, then?”

  “Sung.” she stepped back. “I’m sorry. I’ll miss you, but this,” she gestured between the two of them, “it might have worked before, but now it’s toxic. I can feel your bitterness towards me. And when I sense your presence, I am heavy with guilt and sadness and…”

  They were quiet. The sound of sails being hoisted, of sailors running across the decking, seemed so much farther away than they actually were. As if he and Zarra were not a part of their surroundings.

  “It can’t really end like this.”

  “Perhaps it’s not the end. Who can know? Someday, I do mean to repay you.”

  “I hope you don’t,” he said, some of that bitterness she had spoken of slipping into his voice. “If it means you must continue thinking of me, I hope you don’t.”

  Zarra turned to where her grandfather was beginning to walk back up the road alone. He made a lonely figure, hunched.

  “I should go with him,” she said. She started to back away. “Write me, still. I want to hear from you, at least.”

  “I will,” he said in a perfectly miserable voice.

  She reached out to his face and placed a swift kiss on his lips—a kiss that tasted like goodbye, like a one-last-time.

  She took a slow breath through her nose. “Goodbye, Sung.” Then she showed him her back, setting off at a quic
k pace, her walking stick dancing across the path before her.

  “Zarra,” he called. He couldn’t help himself.

  She stopped and turned her head.

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Just—” he shook his head, unsure himself. “Thank you.”

  Her lips curved into a sad smile. “You’re welcome.”

  He watched her leave. She looked odd as a lone figure, without the massive shadow of Artello at her side.

  Ko-Jin limped to the ship, his shoes thunking dully on the walkway. The boat swayed beneath his feet, a soothingly familiar sensation. He leaned against the railing as the deckhands scampered to and fro, preparing to set sail.

  He felt hollow.

  Enton joined him some while later, as the coast of Adourra grew more distant and they began their passage back home.

  “It will get easier,” Enton said.

  Ko-Jin glanced sideways at his brother. “What will?” he asked with a bitter laugh. “Which part?”

  Enton drummed callused fingers on the bulwark. “All of it. Just give it time.”

  Ko-Jin’s shoulders sagged, and he blinked against a hot pressure in his eyes. He thumbed the band on his middle finger. There was something between them yet—him and Zarra—and there would be, as long as he kept that ring.

  The pressure in his eyes grew, his throat clenching tightly. “I…I…” A sob escaped, and he buried his face in his hands.

  Enton’s warm hand squeezed his shoulder. “No shame in it, brother. Have your cry.”

  Ko-Jin wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his robes. “I did a terrible thing, Enton.”

  “I know,” he said. “You told me all of it.”

  “What…what do I do now? How do I…”

  The light of the day was fading and the glow of dusk haloed the distant coastline of Adourra. Suddenly, Ko-Jin was glad to be leaving. He wanted the familiarity of the Cape. He wanted his friends.

  “You just hold on to the burden,” Enton said. “Until you’re strong enough to bear it.”