The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) (5 page)

I shake it away. It’s not the Warden that matters. My assignment was Martel, and I failed.

I shouldn’t have come all the way back here. I panicked when the Warden sensed me in the Drift, and I took the most familiar path, running home like a fool. I have to leave before Belos realizes I’m here. I must get back to Kelda and figure out another plan.

Before I can ease into the Drift again, Belos’s voice drops from the courtyard above: “Astarti?”

Fear spikes through me. What is he doing up there?

“What are you doing down there? Come up.” His voice snaps with anger. Not good.

I take a steadying breath and make my way toward the sloped path. You don’t say no to Belos. And you never, ever run from him. I learned that the hard way.

As I trudge up the dark slope, making my way by memory and feel, my teeth chatter with cold and my mind clicks through excuses and lies. When I reach the top, the scattered stars, devoid of any pattern here in the Dry Land, lay faint lines of light over the jagged Fortress. Starlight also paints the pale branches of the dead tree in the courtyard’s center. Belos, all but hidden in his black clothes, stands under the twisted branches. Only his pale hair catches the light.

“What happened?” Anger radiates from him. This isn’t just me. He’s mad about something else.

“I had some trouble.”

“I gathered.” His voice oozes with scorn.

I clear my throat. “Martel seems to be planning to draw Heborian out of the castle. I don’t know how he imagines he’ll get Heborian out and unprotected, but that is clearly his intent—”

Even though Belos’s pale eyebrows have risen with surprise, he cuts me off impatiently. “I asked you what happened. Why are you back here?”

“I thought I should pass along my information—”

“You lie.”

My heart thumps into my throat. “There was a fight. I was outnumbered—”

“You’re a Drifter, Astarti.”

I know what he’s saying. There’s no excuse for me to lose a fight unless there are other Drifters involved. Or Earthmakers. But I don’t tell him about the Warden. If I do, the Seven will kill him. And I don’t want that. I want to know why he could sense me in the Drift. I want to know who—or what—he is.

I insist, “I wanted to pass on my information and make a new plan. I was getting nowhere with Martel. He believes that making a deal means giving up his soul.”

Belos’s mouth twitches at the word, and I wonder suddenly what he believes about the idea of the soul. “But you ran, Astarti. Perhaps Straton is right that you’re a coward.”

He’s digging at me on purpose, looking for a fight. Unfortunately, he knows me too well, knows just what to say. Heat flares in my chest. I don’t know what angers me more: the word, or the fact that it comes from Straton.

“That’s right,” I snarl, even though I read my danger in Belos’s shadowed eyes. “Listen to Straton. And when that bastard turns on you, as you must know he will do—”

Belos moves so fast I have time only to register the faint blue outline of power around his fist before the blow to my chest sends me flying back. I skid across rough stone, which abrades my already torn back. I gasp, shocked lungs refusing to draw air. Panic floods me as Belos tromps near, a faint heat emanating from his lean body, telling me he is drawing heavily on his Drift-energies. Heat and light only bleed through like that when a Drifter is pulling hard through his mooring. And Belos has a lot of power to draw. That is why he Leashes, why he makes deals. Any energy, any lifeforce he absorbs, adds to his own.

Instinctively, I reach along my mooring, drawing out a thread of power and shaping it into my spear.

Belos stomps on my wrist, and the spear vanishes with a hiss. He crouches over me, teeth gritted, blond hair falling forward. I force myself to face the shadow that hides his eyes.

He will kill me. I saw him once, in a rage, drive his sword through the heart of one of the Seven—back when they were the Eight. He wept afterwards, but it was too late for the man dead at his feet. My anger cools. I have to stop him, and if I have to beg forgiveness to do it, I will. “Belos, I’m—”

He hauls me up by the hair, fingers twisting through the loose tangle. I pull away instinctively, wincing at the flash of pain across my scalp. He wrenches me closer, his body pulsing with heat.

I hear the rushing air of his Drift-sword forming. Panic leaps into my throat.

I shape my own sword, though it’s not my favored weapon. The tip aims at Belos’s belly. He releases my hair. As he swings, I duck, spinning to slice at his knee. I feel the light pressure of my blade’s contact. It can’t have given him more than a scratch, but Belos screams, rage flooding his voice.

He hacks at me wildly. In an ordinary man, such loss of control might be a weakness. In Belos, it is a force of nature unleashed. His sword glows bright, snapping heat across my face as I desperately block each blow.

He drives me backward, and I trip over the raised roots of the tree. As I fall, I reach along my mooring. Perhaps the Drift will buy me a moment. I can hide in it briefly, even if I can’t cross the barrier. When my back hits the gnarled roots, I feel a pull. It tugs right under my heart. Even though it doesn’t feel quite right for the Drift, I follow the pull, desperate for escape.

* * *

It’s dark, though something faint and gold, nebulous as smoke, flows around my lighted form. Is this some part of the Drift I’ve never seen?

I steady my mind, feeling for other energies, but there is only the strange golden flow. Almost like a current. It runs around me, runs
through
me, and I realize I have been instinctively bracing against it. I discern a low hum. I follow it, letting it sweep me along.

The golden glow intensifies. When, the flow branches, I brace against it, panic threatening. This is not the Drift. I don’t know where I am or what to do. I don’t know how to get out. I can’t feel my mooring.

When I see a light, far ahead, along one of the branches, I flow toward it. At least it’s something. As I draw near, the light takes on the shape of a familiar male body. The energy pulses and whirls wildly.

The Warden.

I push within the flow, and I feel like I’m swimming. He senses my approach and spins to face me. I see shock—and a little fear—in the lighted planes of his face.

I’m trying to say a word when he grabs me. He pulls me, and I feel like I’m being dragged from water.

* * *

I am stunned. I kneel on the moist earth, the Warden’s arms around me, his heart pounding against my back. Then he lets go and falls away from me. I hear him scramble back a pace, hear his ragged breathing.

“What—how—” He swallows. “How were you in the Current?”

We are in a forest. Moonlight, filtering through the budding branches overhead, paints his face with lacy patterns. His eyes, though their color is hidden, are wide. He is sitting, leaning away from me, hands planted on the ground behind him. His chest heaves. Why has this unsettled him more than anything, more even than the fact that I work for Belos?

“Where are we?” I ask, my voice shaking. My hands are shaking also, and I’m cold. I rub my arms. “What happened?”

“You were in the Current.” His voice is shaking as much as mine.

“The Current?”

He says nothing. Then he pulls himself together, as I have seen him do before. He sits straighter, hands on his knees, ready. “It’s how Earthmakers travel. How did you get into it?”

I think back. I was fighting Belos in the courtyard. I fell into the tree. It pulled me down and I used it to get away. From Belos. But there is no escape from Belos. He will find me, right at the end of my Leash, where I always am. It won’t take long.

I shoot to my feet.

The Warden scrambles up beside me. “What?”

“You have to get out of here.”

“But—”

“Listen, Warden—”

“Logan.”

“Fine.” My heart hammers. I don’t have time to explain things to him. I stiffen my voice, “You have to get out of here.”

“Astarti.” I jump when he says my name. I forgot I gave it to him. “Slow down. Maybe I can help you.”

The way he says it makes me pause. The way his body is so close to mine makes me want him to. He is warm, strong, certain. Something about him makes me trust him. I know what deception and manipulation feel like, and I feel none of it in him.

But.

I am not, whatever Straton might say, stupid.

It doesn’t matter how strong Logan might be, or how much I might want to say, “Yes!” No one is as strong as Belos. No one can help me. But I can help Logan, if I can get him away. Belos will kill him on sight.

“Listen to me, Logan. Belos”—Logan stiffens at the name—“yes,
Belos
is on his way. He will find me. And if you’re here, you will die. Don’t shake your head. He will torture you, he will learn everything you know, then he will kill you. That’s how it is.”

Logan’s jaw hardens, and the moonlight lying over his handsome features looks suddenly cold. Then it passes, and his voice is gentle and curious when he asks, “Why would you protect me?”

I am silent, uncertain. Then, “Why did you pull me from the Current?” I know if he hadn’t I would not have found my way free of it.

Now it’s his turn to be silent.

“You won’t go, will you?”

“No.”

“Even though Belos will kill you?”

“Why do you serve him?”

I snap, not looking at him, “What choice do you think I have?”

He closes the distance between us. He grips my arm in a strong hand. His other hand lifts my chin, forcing me to look up into his moonlit face. “Everyone chooses.”

“Not me.” I am trembling, terrified. I have never talked about this to anyone.

“How can that be?” He’s not skeptical, exactly, but he wants an answer. I can’t give it to him. I can’t say the word. He says it for me, slowly, “Leashed.”

It sounds as dirty out loud as it does in my mind.

He stiffens and lets go of my arm. “But you must have chosen—”

I step back angrily, making space. “You don’t know anything about me!”

“That’s why I’m asking! And not fighting you!”

That shuts me up.

We stare at each other.

I say, “Yes, I am Leashed”—the word is filth in my mouth—“but I didn’t choose it, whatever you might think. I have to go. If you won’t save yourself.”

“Astarti, please—”

That’s the last thing I hear from him, and the last image is his hand reaching for mine as I enter the Drift.

I haven’t gone far when I feel a pull on the white thread of my Leash. The pull is nothing like I felt when I entered the Current. This slides into me, violates the boundaries of my very self. Even within the Drift, distanced from my body, I feel sick.

Two forms approach.

Belos I recognize at once. Even if I couldn’t feel him at the end of my Leash, I would know his energy anywhere. He is like dozens of people blended into one. Logan’s energy is wild, but it’s a wildness that moves together, with its own strange rhythm. Belos has no rhythm, no flow. He has absorbed the energies of so many, and they fight within him. It’s unnatural, nauseating.

As the two draw near, I recognize Theron. Theron’s energy, as usual, is controlled. Tidy.

Belos stops before me, and the white Leash pulses between us. I feel his anger through the Leash, and I try to step back. Belos squeezes, and a shock of pain surges through me.

“You know better.” His voice is strained within the Drift. It’s not easy to make sound here.

I am silent. There is nothing I can do or say. Leashed, I’m at his mercy, which is not something he generally shows.

But when I hear a scream of wind, a mad lash of sound, I realize that Belos is not the most immediate threat.

“The Hounding,” says Theron, and I can hear his fear despite the strain of speaking here.

Wind, sharp and furious, slices through me, disrupting my energies, disorienting me. Theron screams and disappears along his mooring. Belos snarls as the wind plucks at his chaotic form. He vanishes. For one moment, I think I will get to choose between Belos and the Hounding, but then, with the wind shrieking around me, my Leash is tugged, crippling me with a wave of nausea.

I am ripped along my mooring.

Chapter 6

I FALL TO my knees in a field, freezing from the fierce wind of the Hounding, wracked by nausea from the pull on my Leash. The corset digs into my ribs as I hunch around my rebelling stomach. The patter of fleeing hooves and frantic bleats of sheep tell me I am far from the eyes of people. Of course. Belos would want it this way. He bends over me, harsh breaths ruffling my hair.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?” I force out through chattering teeth.

“Don’t play with me. You traveled from the courtyard. How?”

I climb to my feet, making Belos take a step back. If he wants me on my knees, he’ll have to force me.

He doesn’t. His arms are crossed, his neck too tense, his footsteps a little too quick. He’s shaken. Why?

Behind him, Theron shifts uncomfortably, his eyes darting to me then away.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand.”

“You fell,” Belos prompts. “And then?”

I hitch the front of my tattered dress a little higher. I don’t like feeling this exposed in front of Belos. What I wouldn’t give to trade this dress for pants and tunic, these sandals for a pair of stout boots.

“Yes, I tripped over the tree roots. I fell...
into
the tree.” I shake my head in frustration. “I don’t understand what happened.” I watch Belos warily, waiting for his anger, but his crossed arms only tighten.

He asks testily, “But what did it look like?”

“Kind of...gold. And it was strange. I was swept along, like there was some kind of...stream?” I avoid the name Logan called it, not wanting to open the door for other questions.

Belos and Theron exchange a look.

“How did you get out?”

My heart thumps with the memory of Logan, but I say, “I don’t know.”

Belos’s arms uncross. “Describe it.”

I try to remember the sensations, to imagine how I might have done it alone. “I dragged myself from it. It was like...getting out of water. I ended up in a forest. Then I stepped into the Drift. To come back.” Before Belos has a chance to call me a liar or ask further questions, I launch into questions of my own. “What was that place? What happened?”