Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  For the first time, bright sun was not a bane to Ghrenna. And for the first time, she was able to admire a city in full bustle, gaudy and garish, bright and full of life. Luc and Ghrenna ambled arm-in-arm down a main avenue in the Abbey Quarter, taking it all in. The sun scorched down, every fountain plaza teeming with folk enjoying the holiday for the city. Coronation Week was fascinating for Ghrenna. Normally, she avoided crowds, having never felt safe in them, but Lintesh soared with a good humor this week high as the Dhenra’s cobalt banners rippling in the almost nonexistent breeze.

  Their guild had been in the city two days already, after the week-long journey up from Fhouria. Luc had been treating Ghrenna the entire way, and today her headache was merely a subtle irritation, a tension deep to her temples, but little else. And it had become evident since they’d arrived, that they weren’t going to get anywhere near the palace to find Olea, not until all this was concluded. The Dhenra had apparently opened her galleries to the common folk for the duration of the week’s proceedings, and the Third Tier had become a madhouse of people waiting for their chance to see the inside of the palace.

  And to see the young soon-to-be-Queen.

  So they were passing the time, taking the days to search for potential scores. Ghrenna and Luc moved along a tree-lined promenade, Shara and Gherris elsewhere canvassing the Craftsman Quarter today. Every inch of territory was occupied by hawkers and gawkers, merchants and menagerie. Tumblers in bright red silk climbed each other’s shoulders and balanced in contorted poses. A man near one sprawling fountain ate fire, juggling it on lit batons and blowing flames from his mouth. Guards in cobalt were present at every intersection, watching the populace coolly, hands folded over the pommels of their swords. Coronation memorabilia was being sold, from silver rings etched with Dhenra Elyasin’s profile to full-sized painted portraits done on black velvet. They passed one such stand, the man hawking portraits swearing up and down he had done a real sitting for the Dhenra from which he captured her likeness.

  Luc scoffed, acidic. “Elyasin looks nothing like that.”

  Ghrenna lifted an eyebrow, still wondering at the fact that it didn’t hurt. She hadn’t even touched her pipe today. But it was in her belt-pouch over her modest flax dress and summer lambswool corset, just in case.

  “You’ve met the Dhenra?”

  Luc shrugged. “I used to live in the palace. She was just a little girl then. But Uhlas was a straight-nosed man with heavy brows. Elyasin is pretty, but she has her father’s stern features when she’s not smiling. This woman he’s had sit for the portrait is all plump curves and a button nose. She looks like a dumpling.” Ghrenna laughed, amused, and Luc smiled, glancing at her sidelong. “It’s good to hear you laugh, Ghren.”

  Ghrenna nodded. “It’s good to be able to. I can’t remember the last time laughing didn’t hurt.”

  Luc stopped their promenade, reaching a hand up to smooth her half-bound hair, nudging his fingers in to touch her scalp at the back of her skull. Ghrenna felt that cool wave pass through her head, and what little pain there was rolled back further.

  “You didn’t need to do that.” She murmured, blissful. “My head hardly hurts at all today.”

  “I know,” he muttered, standing very close. “But I like the way you succumb to me when I do it. Byrune.” Luc bent to try for a kiss. Ghrenna drew back a little, but not so much that his hands would leave her head.

  “When are you going to learn that just because I appreciate your healing doesn’t mean I’m yours?”

  “A man can but try,” he murmured. It was more tender than usual. Since they’d shared secrets over a week ago, Luc had become more solicitous, less testing to Ghrenna’s patience. They’d come to each other’s beds every night since then, for quiet lovemaking by the campfire’s light while on the road. And now, Luc gazed at her, something complicated sliding through him, before his hands eased from her scalp.

  “Better?” He murmured, his fingers lingering at her nape, massaging beneath her hair.

  “It wasn’t bad to begin with.” Ghrenna found her eyes closing, absorbing that touch, the noise of the street and the bustle of the crowd fading away. She felt him draw near. Felt his breath on her lips. And as his lips touched hers, she lingered in it, letting him draw her in. Letting herself enjoy it. Enjoy a man who was real, who was here.

  And who cared for her.

  Slowly, he drew away, letting the moment stretch between them. At last, Ghrenna opened her eyes, to see him smiling down. His green eyes held no teasing. They were entirely light. As if something good had blossomed out of this rogue smiling down at her, beaming. It made Ghrenna feel terrible suddenly. She pulled away, something clenching deep in her body, something resisting. She broke eye contact, pulled back more. He let her go. They stood there a moment, silent in the raucousness all around.

  Luc gave a chuckle. But it was just on the edge of harsh. Ghrenna flushed, moving her gaze to the houses around them, forcing herself to scout the broad bluestone mansions and forget that kiss, for now.

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Luc spoke at last.

  Ghrenna glanced at him, saw he was gazing at the buildings. “Good pickings.” She murmured. Relieved, though she could not say why, she surveyed the lay of the rooflines, the way the wealthy mansions were packed just a bit too tightly in the cramped space of this Quarter. Most had wrought-iron fences to keep out the gutter trash and petty burglars, and in front of some Ghrenna saw dogs, others with house guards. Ornate iron grilles graced doors and many first-story windows. Gazing down a long alley, she saw the neighborhood was backed by the distant bluestone wall of the First Abbey, towering ten feet or more above the mansions.

  She nudged Luc. “Over there. We could get on the roofs, have our pick.”

  Luc squinted in the hot afternoon sunlight. “The First Abbey of the Jenners. They run a watch on that wall at night. Or they used to. Remnant of tougher times, you know? I wonder if they still do…”

  “Only one way to find out.” Ghrenna tugged him towards the alley.

  Luc grinned, his roguish humor returned. “The Jenners brew all the beer for Lintesh. If you pretend to be interested in the Faith, they give you free samples.”

  Ghrenna cocked her head, considering it. For the first time, she could enjoy an afternoon of drinking without throwing her guts up in the morning. She was grateful for Luc, and her day would be well-complimented by a midafternoon ale. But something still clenched her, something that needed easing, which an ale would help, also.

  “Then let’s go get some religion.” She murmured.

  Luc laughed, a full, bright sound. He offered his arm again and Ghrenna took it, and they angled down the alley towards the distant wall. Both were quiet as they took in all the details of the buildings flanking the Abbey. It was their usual scouting, and would come in handy later when they spoke, both having noted different aspects of the building, the guards, the rooflines. At last, they reached the wall and headed left to a side-door covered by a wrought-iron grille.

  Posing as a married couple visiting from Fhouria for the coronation and curious about the Jenner faith, they gained entrance without difficulty. The Jenners, it seemed, were a solicitous lot, and provided them with ample brew as they toured of the sights from the five-story wall. Not only were they each given a pewter flagon, but their flagons were refreshed at intervals by fresh-faced young Brothers who blushed and stammered to see Ghrenna.

  More lighthearted than she had been in years, and now drunk to boot, Ghrenna had actually pinched the ass of one smart young Jenner as he turned back to his duties. He had yelped, flushing red, then stammered an apology to their more senior tour guide, saying he had stubbed his toe. Ghrenna and Luc had stifled laughs as the two Brothers finally left them alone to admire the view from atop one of the turrets. Giggling like children, Ghrenna mimed pinching the Jenner’s ass again. She and Luc burst into laughter so badly she had to lean over the wall to catch her breath, fanning out her whit
e-blonde waves from the back of her neck, she was sweating so hard.

  But laughter had never felt so good. She had not a single twinge of her temples, not a throb through her skull. Ghrenna took a tremendous breath, feeling alive, reveling in the day, drunk as skunks and merry as the fae. She glanced over, her heart swelling for the golden-handsome bastard before her. He’d risked everything coming here, for her. Ghrenna sobered suddenly. A twinge of guilt gripped her, and then regret, a feeling like she was deceiving him.

  Luc was still in a fit of wild chortling, wiping at his eyes. “Aeon, Ghren! I never knew you could be so much fun! Always so calculating… and here all this time I thought you were just a sour apple. But you’re not, are you? Quiet, mysterious, but not really sour at all…”

  Ghrenna took another swig from her pewter flagon, masking her change in mood. This seventh round of beer was thick and hearty, a good stout with a caramel head of foam. She leaned heavily on the ramparts, gazing stuporous over the city, twirling a lock of white-blonde hair, a tic she hadn’t had since childhood.

  “I never knew I could be fun, Luc.” Ghrenna murmured, staring out over the gabled rooftops. “As a child, I remember I was merry. But that pain, it just… saps you. Everything you have. Everything you could ever be. Until you only focus on surviving one moment to the next. I never realized I could actually live.”

  Luc stepped up next to her, close enough that their bare forearms touched, and gazed at her sidelong. “Any visions since I started treating you?”

  “No. Thank all that’s holy.” Ghrenna took a swig of her ale.

  “You don’t miss them? You don’t want them back?”

  “No.” Ghrenna turned to study the golden-blonde thief before her. “It’s a burden, Luc. It’s something I can’t control. I never know when the visions will strike, or how terrifying they’ll be.”

  “You never saw anything nice? Like winning a lot of coin at dice?” He leaned his tall frame over the barrier-stones, flagon cupped in his long fingers, gazing at her with a mixture of pity and concern. It was a good look, a look Ghrenna wanted in her life. A look she wanted to come home to. Something about it made Ghrenna feel empty inside, and she turned back to the view with a wry smile.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Luc. I see what it wants me to see.”

  He reached out, stroking her neck drunkenly but with a tender concern, playing with a lock of her white-blonde waves. “Have you seen my death?”

  Shock flooded Ghrenna. It took her a moment to realize he meant it to be teasing, his tone had been so utterly serious. She glanced over to see that a strange emotion had contorted his face into a hard frown. Gazing out over the rooftops, his attention was fixed upon the palace, and as Ghrenna watched, his jaw flexed in a hard anger. Ghrenna sidled closer, worried for him. Luc had been morose on and off since they had entered Lintesh two nights ago, and this was more of what haunted him.

  “Do you think you’re going to die?” Ghrenna murmured.

  He chuckled, ominous, his gaze never breaking from the palace, lit golden now in the slanting late-afternoon sun. “We all die, Ghren. The question is, when?”

  “Do you think you’re going to die soon? Because you’re here in Lintesh?”

  A shiver passed through Luc. “I may seem like a flippant fool sometimes, Ghrenna, and sometimes a callow lout, but whatever I am, I tell you this. A curse runs through my family, walking those halls.” He nodded towards the palace, his gaze still fixed upon it. “My mother died there. I had an aunt Mollia who died there before I was born, before she even made it to age seventeen. And now my brother and father. Every Lhorissian dies there, too young. If I go to serve the Dhenra… I’m going to meet a tragic end.” He looked around, an old woe haunting him. Reaching out, he stroked one finger down her cheek suddenly. “Those lake-blue eyes of yours… they make me wonder what you see. Fates of men?”

  Ghrenna shifted, pulling away. His words pricked her, as if stirring memories that went too deep, things better left dead and buried out in the snows. “You could die anytime, Luc. We all could. You could fall and break your neck tomorrow, trying to raid one of those mansions.”

  He chuckled again, and his hand returned to his flagon upon the stone wall. “Then my death would be a story, not a curse. I tell you, Ghrenna, death walks the halls of Roushenn. Untimely, secret death. People disappear there. My mother—” But he stopped abruptly, shutting his mouth and turning back to stare out over the rooftops, brooding.

  “Your mother?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” Luc snapped sourly. “Focus, Ghrenna. We’re supposed to be scouting mansions. I’ve seen a number of potential access-points from this wall. Enough dawdling and drinking.”

  “As you say, Luc.” Ghrenna blinked in surprise, feeling like he had just slapped her in the face. But it was unsettling, the thoughts Luc had provoked today. As Ghrenna tried to blink away her ale-fugue, gazing out over the red roof tiles of Lintesh, she found her thoughts wandering. It wasn’t a vision, merely dire fancy, images of death, of battle, of starving out in deep snows, of being cut to ribbons by blades. Death after death after death plagued her, sourced from too many stories and too many of her own past visions. A late afternoon breeze caught the ramparts, stirring her white locks, cooling her sweat at last. Ghrenna looked up, gazing at the pinnacle of the glacier-capped Kingsmount, wishing the breeze could take her away from her own mind.