“This way,” Peer said, pointing down at a grate in the road.
“You’re kidding,” Bray said, understanding suddenly why the two of them had smelt so foully upon their return.
“It’s mostly just rain runoff,” Peer said, as he pried the grate free from its hole.
“And feces,” Bray said without enthusiasm.
“Well, I won’t say there’s no feces,” Peer said. He bowed with mock gallantry and held out a hand. “Ladies first.”
Bray snorted and shook her head. He lowered her into the opening and she landed with a splash, sewage halfway to her knees, her skirt clinging to her legs. The stench was immediate and oppressive. Bray gagged as she waded away to make room for Peer.
He dropped down beside her, sending a splash of waste water her way. She shuddered and tried not to think of just what she was touching. Su-Hwan joined them with a smaller splash and Peer hoisted her onto his shoulders so she could replace the grate—they did this with silent coordination, clearly not for the first time. As the disk of metal slid back into place, they were plunged into near-darkness.
Bray heard faint scratching and scurrying sounds. Rats, she thought, grimacing.
Peer’s hand found her shoulder. “Only a block and a half. There’s a grate right ’neath the stage, so we can get under without being seen.”
Bray had to acknowledge the brilliance in this, as there would no doubt be many lookouts on street level.
“Besides,” Peer slung his arm around her shoulder and they trudged with sloshing steps. “What’s more refreshing than an early morning shit-swim?”
She nudged him with her elbow. “You’re disgusting, you know. Resourceful, but disgusting.”
“Why, thank you,” he answered with a laugh. “A good thing Adearre isn’t here, really. He’d not have gotten in.”
She laughed, imagining the scenario. “Remember the time you fell into that manure pile and he insisted on burning your clothes?”
“How many times do I have to say,” he responded, his voice growing annoyed and ringing in the dark tunnel. “I didn’t fall. You pushed me.”
She snickered and turned to include Su-Hwan. “You be the judge. So we were staying at this farm outside Westport, and—”
A cool blade pinched against the man’s windpipe in the dimness of the cell.
“You will tell us where that bloody monarch is, or, I swear by all the Spirits, I will slit your throat.”
“There’s no point in that,” a young woman said, her head cocked to one side, as if listening to something no one else could hear. She eyed the man with an intrigued expression. “He knows nothing. His head is like a house without furniture. I’ve never seen a mind so empty.”
The man felt vaguely insulted by this, but could hardly contradict. He could not understand their questions, let alone provide answers. He did not even know where he was. He did not know who he was.
He did know a few things—that the knife against his throat was sharp and that he did not want to die. He knew his body was bloody and battered and the floor was cold and he was missing a finger. It was as if he’d only just been born, as if life had just begun for him, only he’d somehow started in the middle. He hoped it wasn’t about to end as inexplicably as it had begun. “I am terribly sorry, but I don’t really understand what you’re asking.”
The bearded man exhaled through his nose and lowered the blade. “Shit. Quade’s not going to like this.” He turned his head the other way, to a sandy-haired young man who appeared to be only half-awake. “Whythe. You were supposed to stop him from getting any more gifts.”
The lad’s eyes flicked open. “He hasn’t gotten a gift, I don’t think. Just a sacrifice. I can’t do anything about that.” He half laughed and rubbed a weary eye. “Clever, isn’t he? He even asked me if I could turn off sacrifices before he did it—gave up all his memories to protect his people. That’s like something out of an old epic, don’t you think?”
“He asked you about it and you answered him? And didn’t do a bleeding thing to stop it?” the bearded man boomed.
The lad shrugged. “Thought he was just being conversational. What do I know?”
The man tied to the chair soaked in this new information and it gave him some satisfaction. To know that he—or whoever he had been—had chosen to expunge his own memories, somehow made his current state of ignorance more bearable. At least this was something he had done, and presumably for a worthy cause, rather than something that had been done to him. He speculated as to who ‘his people’ were. Friends? Family?
The lad called Whythe consulted a pocket watch and jumped from his seat, upsetting his chair in the process. “Late,” he said, hurrying to the door. “I was meant to be up there already—it can’t start without me.”
The older man’s brow furrowed, incredulous. “You can’t just leave him,” he said, gesturing to the prisoner. “He’ll—”
Whythe waved him silent. “He’ll do nothing. He has no idea who or what he is, remember?” With a wink, the lad yanked open the door and exited. They could hear the sound of him jogging up the hallway until the door clicked shut again.
The bound man reviewed this statement critically—who or what he was? An odd thing to say.
A stinging slap across the face halted this contemplation. “If you don’t know anything, then you’re no use. Didn’t think of that, did you, clever boy? Quade’ll have no reason to keep you alive now.”
The man wondered who Quade was, but kept his questions to himself. It was plain these people were his enemy and therefore unlikely to supply information.
The young woman knelt before him. She was pretty—warm brown eyes and an olive complexion. He wished he weren’t naked. “We don’t have to be your enemy.” She bit down on her bottom lip. “Do you even know your name?”
The man shook his head and her face tilted the other direction, eyes alight with interest. “Fascinating.” She turned to her companion. “I’ve never seen the third sacrifice in action before. It’s so strange—a fully-formed, adult mind with language and basic perception, but just…empty. A blank slate.” She stood, and added as a casual afterthought, “I hope Quade doesn’t kill him.”
The bound man hoped likewise, once he’d finished assessing his discomfort that this woman clearly could see into his mind. She’s the reason I’m like this, he realized. I must have given up my memories to protect them from this woman’s scrutiny.
She smiled down at him. “It was your choice. Don’t blame me.”
He didn’t really—he had too little information to assign blame. He did wish that she would tell him his name, at the very least. It seemed an excessively stupid thing not to know.
The bearded man flipped open his pocket watch. “Hanging’s to start soon. Bet the fun’s already begun now Whythe’s there.” He peered up, as if seeing through the ceiling. “Pity to miss it.”
“Quade should be here shortly,” the woman said.
They waited in silence. The prisoner let his head fall forward. His stomach objected to its emptiness loudly, aching with hunger, he knew, though he could not recall what it felt like to not be hungry. Equally, he could not recall the opposite of pain—was there a word for such a state? He conjectured that people who were fed, warm, clean, and whole must be entirely happy creatures.
Of course, of people he only knew those three so recently in his company. It occurred to him that he did not know his own face—would there be recognition if he glimpsed his reflection?
Of places, he knew only this dank, dark cell. That there was more beyond seemed a certainty, and yet he had no evidence apart from the existence of a door.
These reflections were brought to an end when he detected footfalls once again. He forced himself to look up, to see this fourth face.
The man was tall, fair, handsome. He had a sharp nose and black eyes that were instantly friendly, an immediate charm that put the prisoner at ease.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” the man said,
addressing the woman. His voice soothed, deep and velvety. “What Whythe has just told me, it isn’t true.”
The woman shrank back, her cheeks losing some of their rose. “I’m afraid so, Mr. Asher. He did it before I arrived.”
This Mr. Asher, glowering and yet still having a pleasing countenance, moved very close to the prisoner. He squatted and stared deeply into the eyes of his captive, as if hoping secrets still lay within their depths.
“And there is no way for you to see beyond the block, to delve past the sacrifice?” he asked the woman, though he did not break eye contact.
“There is nothing blocking his old memories,” she said, her voice apologetic. “They simply aren’t there. Totally eradicated.”
An emotion flickered across Mr. Asher’s face—his nostrils flared and black eyes flashed. The prisoner thought it might be fury, yet he did not fear. For some indefinable reason, he liked this Mr. Asher. He trusted him.
“So,” the man said after a long, breathless pause. “You do not know who I am, I take it.”
“I do not.”
“My name is Quade Asher.” This came as something of a shock to the bound man, who recalled that a ‘Quade’ might choose to kill him. “And you have been something of a thorn in my side. I thought you and I had reached an understanding. I confess, I am disappointed.”
“I’m sorry,” the prisoner said, and meant it.
Quade reached out and placed a gloved hand on the man’s bare shoulder, his black eyes seeming to tug. “Are you truly sorry?”
The prisoner nodded. Everything about this man pronounced him good—his bearing, his voice. It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps he, he the nameless prisoner, was the enemy. He knew nothing of himself, after all, had no proof that he was a decent spirit. Perhaps he had done something deserving of this treatment. Was it the action of a trustworthy person to deliberately erase his own memory?
Quade flicked a questioning look at the woman, who answered with a dip of the head. He turned back to the prisoner. “If you are indeed remorseful, then I think you might yet make amends. I have said this before to you, though you won’t recall—I should like us to be friends.”
“I’d like that as well.”
“I have an important event to attend, or I’d stay to discuss it longer,” Quade said. He stood and pulled a pocketknife from his coat. “If I cut you loose, will you swear to remain here? I will have food and clothes brought in a while.”
“I swear it,” the prisoner said.
Rather than freeing the captive himself, Quade handed the knife to the woman and turned to the door. “Join us in the plaza when you’re done,” he said, and, with the bearded man in tow, he departed, taking with him the warm sense of safety his presence afforded.
The woman set to cutting the ropes that bound him by the wrist to the chair’s arm. “I’m Trinna, by the way,” she said, and darted a quick look up through her eyelashes. He caught a whiff of her hair—a pleasant, floral scent he could put no name to. He suspected his own odor at that moment was less appealing. Once again, embarrassment warmed his cheeks.
The ropes fell away, immediately inducing a novel, tingling sensation as blood returned to his fingers. “I’m glad you’ll be staying alive.”
He laughed—his very first laugh. “You and me both.”
Once his bindings were all cut away, she stood, folded the knife, and tucked it into the pocket of her dress. “Stay here, as Quade ordered.” She softened her command with a shy smile. “We’ll meet again soon, I think.”
As she turned to the door, he called out, “Wait.”
She spun, brown brows raised expectantly.
“My name,” he said. “Do you know it?”
For a second, she appeared to contemplate whether to share this information, but must have decided it a harmless fact to disclose. “Yarrow.”
“Yarrow?” he repeated.
She shrugged. “Bit of a weird name really, but that’s what Quade called you.” She pointed at him and said with mock seriousness, “Stay, now,” then withdrew with light steps.
When the door shut behind her, the prisoner stood and stretched. Every muscle protested, but it was a sweet, liberating kind of pain.
“Yarrow,” he said aloud again, to himself. He’d expected his own name to be more familiar, but it sat strangely on his tongue, like a meaningless sound.
“Yarrow,” he tried again, but the effect was the same.
24
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Ko-Jin said to no one in particular.
He peered over the ledge of the roof, down at the staggeringly large assemblage. The edges of the tile dug, cold and hard, into his knees.
He’d never seen so many people in one place before, never half so many. The roar of conversation went quieter as a bell tolled at the capitol building—eleven in the morning. One more hour.
The town square was packed tightly, people even perched on the ledges of the great fountain at the center of the cobbled square. A platform had been constructed at the head of the plaza days earlier, a wooden stage that supported a line of nine gallows, standing in stiff wooden formation like soldiers. Already fitted with nooses, the ropes swayed in the wind, dancing.
Ko-Jin’s gaze lingered on the small missing square of wood beneath the middle scaffold, where Dedrre’s canister of gas was concealed. He bit his lip. He wouldn’t like to make such a shot himself—doable, but hardly a guarantee. She was a far superior archer, he reminded himself for the dozenth time that morning. She could do it. She would.
On the stage, a juggler performed to heckles. His nine colorful balls whizzed in a neat circle, unimpressive after hours of better entertainment. The audience, gathered since dawn, had clearly tired of waiting. It would not be long before they began throwing things, he mused.
Amidst those many thousands of people had to be more Chisanta, those others whose families were to be executed. He wondered if Bray and Yarrow were out there. Perhaps they, too, had formed a plan. He hoped so. His mother’s life was at stake, after all.
“Are you quite well?” Chae-Na asked from her perch, where she was carefully lining up some dozen arrows. She needn’t bother, Ko-Jin thought. They’d likely have only one shot.
Ko-Jin forced himself to smile. “Better than well. I’ve been itching for a fight.”
She arched a single dark brow. He shrugged in concession. “I admit, I’ll be more at ease once I know my mother’s safe.”
Jo-Kwan and Dedrre crouched on the other side of the roof, out of view, their whispers barely audible over the din of the crowd. The others of their party had taken up positions in the audience.
Chae-Na trimmed the fletching of an arrow with shears, her forehead creased in concentration. “What is she like, your mother?”
Ko-Jin sank down next to the princess, joining her in her careful inspection of their missiles. He took his time answering, not sure how to define his mother. She was the sort of person who was so impactful and distinct that words seemed insufficient to capture her.
“She’s funny, in a brash kind of way. Always speaks her mind. And strong. When my father left, abandoning her with a deformed baby, she didn’t have the money for rent. Mind, most people wouldn’t keep a child like that—they end up abandoned more often than not. Ma says she never once thought of that, though.” Ko-Jin smiled ruefully. “We lived on the street for a while, and she started doing some sewing in exchange for food; scraps, really. We lived like that for a time—cheap lodgings when we could get them, alleys when we couldn’t. All the while she was saving, though. After a few years, she was able to open up a shop, became popular with the rich women in Chasku for making these gowns that blended Chaskuan-style hanboks with Dalish frocks. By the time she met my step-da, a Dalishman with a fleet of fishing boats, she was already the foremost seamstress in the city.”
“Why did she marry then?” Chae-Na asked. “If she didn’t have to?”
Ko-Jin found this an odd response. “She loved
him, of course. Why shouldn’t she?”
The princess shrugged this question off, not meeting his eye. “Do you have a handicapped sibling then?”
Ko-Jin’s brow puckered. “I’m an only child.”
She opened her mouth to ask another question, but was cut off when Dedrre scrambled across the tiled roof. His white mustache bristled as he sucked in his lips. “Lad, we’ve got a problem.” Ko-Jin gestured for him to proceed. “The wind’s shifted.”
The old man stuck a fingertip in his mouth then raised his hand to judge the direction. He nodded, certain.
Ko-Jin closed his eyes to discern the direction of the wind, then groaned. “It’ll blow the gas out into the crowd.”
“Correct,” Dedrre said. “It isn’t dangerous, but we might end up with a lot of unconscious civilians and a lot of very awake Elevated.”
Ko-Jin pressed his eyes shut. “Blight it.”
“If Quade and his entourage stand near the canister, it won’t matter much,” Dedrre said.
“Let’s hope they do us that favor,” Ko-Jin said, clenching his jaw.
Below, the buzz of the gathering shifted, becoming less idle and more anticipatory. Ko-Jin scuttled back to the edge for a clearer view of the proceedings. Five people mounted the steps.
From such a distance, Ko-Jin could not make them out in detail, just enough to know that they were each unfamiliar to him. Elevated, he suspected, based on their youth.
He regarded them with mounting confusion as they formed a circle and held hands, bowing their heads forward, as if reverently.
A chill swept over him, as if his skin itself were rippling. He tried to slide away from the ledge, but found he could not move. With a sudden, desperate panic, he realized he had been totally immobilized. He couldn’t open his mouth to speak, though within his own consciousness he howled. He could not even move his eyes to look at the people who crouched on either side of him.
A second shiver passed through his body, this one familiar. It was exactly like the cold, stripping sensation of that horrible Sphere. He could not see his own body, but he knew that it had changed—that his gift had been stripped away. He felt his own form crumple in, shrivel—felt all the strength leaving him. He wanted to punch something, to scream in frustration, to do anything, but all he could do was stupidly crouch, his eyes still geared towards those five figures.
Elevation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 2) Page 32