Unbound (The Griever's Mark series Book 3) (19 page)

Chapter 27

LOGAN HAS KEPT his unspoken promise. I find him in our bedroom, shoving broken furniture into a corner. He’s dressed in clean clothes now, leather breeches snug on his hips and a dark blue linen shirt tucked in.

I need his touch. I need him to help me forget what Belos said. I need to feel myself unwind in Logan’s hands, to feel him unwind in mine. I need to believe that we don’t need Belos.

When I slip my arms around Logan’s waist, he returns the embrace, but he’s not really there. We might as well be across the room from each other. It freezes me, makes me draw away. Logan doesn’t seem to notice. He picks up a broken chair and tosses it out of the way.

I rub my arms, chilled in spite of the warmth of the room. Belos is right: I am going to lose him. Those may not have been his precise words, but they are, I fear, the truth. I want to save him, but I don’t know how.

He won’t let me.

When someone knocks on the sitting room door, I’m almost relieved.

“Korinna,” I say in surprise when I open the door.

She reads my tension. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all.”

“I have a message and a request. The message is for Logan.”  She looks over my shoulder, and I glance behind to find Logan standing in the doorway between the bedroom and sitting room.

“Message?” he says. “The only one who sends me ‘messages’ is Aron.”

Korinna huffs surprise. “Good guess. He asked that you come to his rooms.”

“Is it just him?”

“And the Polemarc.”

“Hmm. All right.”

I ask, “Do you want me to come?”

“No,” he says, “It’s fine.”

Fine. I hate when he uses that word.

“Oh, good,” says Korinna. “Then maybe you’ll be interested in my request. I’m going into the city. Kind of a goodwill venture. I’ll go through the camps and visit some of the local physicians. The worst wounded were brought to the castle, but there may be many that should be evaluated. I was hoping you’d come? I warn you, though, Renald is coming also. It was his idea actually. Interested?”

I’ve already made one cowardly escape today. Why not another?

*     *     *

Half an hour later, Korinna, Renald, and I are approaching the neat rows of canvas tents that occupy Tornelaine’s market square. A few hawkers cry their wares at the edge of the encampment. Earthmakers and Keldans alike filter toward the carts of hot bread and roasted meats.

“Honey cakes!” exclaims Korinna, a hand flying to her lips. “I can smell them. Renald, sir...”

“Oh, all right. But only if you bring me one.”

Korinna grins and nods for me to follow. We make our way through the crowd to one of the more popular carts. I shift uneasily in the line. So many people. And not only that, but...

“Korinna, I don’t have any money.”

She looks at me aghast. “Really? You’re the king’s daughter! Surely you’re entitled to something.”

“Entitled?” I find that an uncomfortable word.

“Owed, then. Good gracious, a soldier’s pay if nothing else!”

I never thought of that. Not that I particularly want money, but it would be nice to be able to buy, well, honey cakes and such. I wonder if I’m going to have to start thinking about things like that now. I’ve never had a...job.

Korinna offers, “If you don’t want to talk to your father about it, I’ll mention it to the Prima, and she’ll mention to the Arcon, and he’ll mention it to the king.”

I give her a sidelong look. “Is that how things work?”

She returns my look with one of surprise. “And I thought I was hopeless at politics. Of course that’s how things work.”

We get to the front of the line, and Korinna trades three coppers for three cakes. She hands me one. It’s warm and sticky, and when I bite into its sweet bliss, I decide that, yes, I need money for honey cakes.

By the time we get to the tents, my cake is long gone, and I’m licking my fingers in, I’m sure, a quite unladylike way. Korinna, I notice, is doing the same. Renald, on the other hand, wipes his fingers surreptitiously on his pants. I’m not convinced that is any more proper, and it’s certainly a waste of honey.

Renald stops at the first tent to inquire if there are any wounded or ill. As part of his inquiry, he announces himself as “the king’s physician.” Renald is not generally pompous, so I have to assume this venture is as much about making a show of Heborian’s generosity as it is about tending the sick. Maybe I’m unfair. Heborian
has
been generous and has asked for little in return. Of course, he’s put himself in a position to receive plenty from the Earthmakers, like all the repairs to the castle.

Huh. Sneaky bastard.

I turn such thoughts aside. I hate being cranky.

We’re directed to a large tent at the center of the camp. The front flap is tied open to let in the fresh air. Renald enters first, announcing himself once again as the king’s physician. He waves me and Korinna in behind him.

The interior space is clean, if cramped. Several cots, three of them occupied, are pushed against one canvas wall. A worn rug lies underfoot to keep out the chill of stone.

An Earthmaker woman dressed in robes that were once fine but are now worn and stained greets Korinna and me. “Thank you for coming. I’ve done my best, but I’m no Healer. We have nothing too serious here. A few colds. A difficult pregnancy.”

Renald makes his way to the pregnant woman, and I can’t help staring after him. He seems to feel my eyes on his back.

He turns and says, “What, you think I’ve never attended a woman who is with child? Who do you think helped bring you into this world?”

I jolt.

Renald gives me an I-know-something-you-don’t smile. “You were
such
a screamer.”

I will never get used to way the past slams into me, the way things I learn about myself feel so bizarre.

“Do you want to know what your mother said about that?”

That hits me with even greater force, but instead of being bizarre, it’s painful. I’m not ready to think about her. I may never be.

Renald doesn’t seem to notice my discomfort. “She said, ‘Good. I don’t want her to be quiet.’ A strange woman, was Sibyl, but she knew her own mind. I respected that.”

Renald turns back to his patient, and I follow Korinna to another of the cots, where a boy of perhaps nine lies sniffling into a handkerchief. I’m still trying to shake off the unexpected thought of my mother when Korinna nudges me with her elbow.

“Do you want to try?”

“Try what?”

“Healing.”

I gape at her. “I don’t anything about Healing.”

“It’s a blending of the five elements, and you can use all five. There’s no reason you can’t do this.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course! Let me try to explain. Healing is about being in tune with the other person. It’s a certain...empathy, a connection to what the other is experiencing. That is why touch is so important. You bring yourself into contact, you
feel
the injury. You...understand it.” She chews her bottom lip, clearly seeing that she’s lost me. “Never mind. Don’t worry about that. You’ll know it when you feel it. Maybe start with this: Healing requires an awareness of how the body is built of the elements, how they interplay.”

“I think I understand that. When I blend with the elements, I’m using my body’s affinity to them, finding the way we are alike.”

“Yes! Good! To Heal someone, you find that affinity.”

“All right, but how do you get from affinity to actually, well,
healing
.”

“That comes from giving of yourself. Letting a portion of your energy—the energy that lies in all the elements within you—flow into the other person. It’s hard explain because it’s not a procedure like stitching a wound. It’s flexible. Each person is different, and you must seek compatibility with them. That will open the door, so to speak.”

I mull that over as the boy sneezes into his handkerchief.

“What’s your name?” Korinna asks him.

“Melus,” he says, the name garbled by congestion.

“Astarti?” Korinna prompts.

Awkwardly, I put my hands on the boy’s head. He lies still, trusting me. I try to let my mind dip into that place where I am aware of the elements, but I feel it only in my own body, not in his. I don’t know him. How can I have an affinity with someone I don’t know? Feeling foolish, I take my hands back.

“You have to let yourself be comfortable,” Korinna explains. “Here, watch me.”

She lays her hands on the boy’s face. She smiles slightly and closes her eyes. When she takes her hands away, Melus blinks in surprise.

“Better?” she asks.

He sits up. “I’ve never been Healed before.” His voice is clear and full of wonder.

Korinna chucks him under the chin, which seems to surprise him as much as the Healing did. I am reminded that most Earthmakers are firmly inexpressive. I like Korinna’s way better.

“Go on,” she says. “Go help your mother. But, Melus?”

He pauses halfway out of the cot.

“Do me a favor? Find Kassandra Irenos and tell her that her daughter is here.”

“Yes, of course,” he says with a serious expression, for all the world like a thirty year old man. “At once. Thank you, Healer.”

As Melus skitters out—not so much like an adult after all—Korinna explains, “My mother refused to stay in the castle. She doesn’t care for the king.”

I liked Kassandra when I met her in Avydos. Someday—not today, but someday—I’d like to ask her about Sibyl. Who would have known her better than her own sister?

As Korinna and I get up to move to the next cot, Renald says heavily, “Haven’t we discussed this, Korinna? How will you feel if we encounter a severe injury when you’ve used up your strength Healing sniffles?”

Korinna sighs. “Yes, Renald.”

Korinna crouches beside the cot of an older man. He looks around forty, but it’s impossible to guess the age of Earthmakers once they’re past about sixteen. The man covers his mouth with his sleeve and coughs.

“I’m sorry,” Korinna tells him. “It looks like you’ll have to heal the old fashioned way.”

“No matter,” he replies in a scratchy voice.

Korinna has him sit up. She places her hands on his chest and back and asks him to take deep breaths. She looks into his eyes and mouth. I have a strange feeling as I watch her, a feeling that crept up on me with Horik as well. I like her. I think we could be friends. Maybe we already are?

From the corner of my eye, I see someone large lean into the tent. I bolt to my feet. “What’s wrong?”

Horik’s lips are compressed, his eyes filled with worry. He waves me toward him, and I stride to the open flap and duck through.

“I think you should come back to the castle.”

My heart knocks against my ribs. “Is it Logan?”

“I was on my way to see Heborian when I heard those Ancorites in the air. I followed them, and they went straight to the Arcon’s room, where Logan was in a meeting with him.”

I think of the damage to our bedroom when Logan chased them out. It could have been much worse than broken furniture.

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No, and I lost track of Logan because I couldn’t see him from the Drift. I looked all over. I thought he’d gone into the city, and I started to head that way. Then I found him.”

“
And?
”

“I wasn’t trying to spy. I just wanted to make sure he was all right. He’s in your rooms. I think you should go. He was...well, you’ll see.”

Chapter 28

I RACE THROUGH the Drift, skimming through the ragged, ruined barrier that sags around the castle. I speed toward our rooms, but none of my fear prepares me for what I find. At first, I can’t make sense of it. Then horrified understanding fills me.

I slide from the Drift in the sitting room. My heart pounds hard enough to dizzy me. I inch toward the bathing chamber, flinching at the snap of leather. My hands are shaking by the time I reach the door.

I can’t find my voice to announce myself. I turn the handle and ease the door open.

Logan doesn’t look up. He’s sitting on a stool, leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. With his head angled down, the messy waves of his hair hide his face. He’s taken his shirt off. Over the curve of his shoulders, I see the upper edges of long red welts. His belt, wrapped tight around one fist, dangles to the floor.

I move toward him cautiously. He still doesn’t look up. I’m not sure whether he knows I’m here, but I still can’t find my voice.

I kneel before him, putting my hands on his forearms. He’s trembling, and it makes his hair shiver. The moment seems to stretch on forever, then Logan shakes his head, denying something.

“I can’t, Astarti. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

The pain in his voice makes my heart clench, but I’m still too frozen with horror to respond.

“He said I wanted it, but I didn’t. I
didn’t want it
.”

Logan seems stuck, like these are the only words he can allow himself to say, but there’s so much more festering beneath them.

I dredge up my voice, whispering, “What didn’t you want?”

He shakes his head slowly, refusing the answer in himself more than he’s refusing me.

“His control?”

Logan’s trembling redoubles, like the words send a shockwave through him.

Lying, as I well know, works best when formed around a grain of truth. That is the only way to construct a lie that really hurts someone. If there’s no truth, the lie can be dismissed. But if there is some underlying truth, no matter how small, that lie can twist a person up and make them believe that the lie is reality. It can
change
that person’s reality.

What, then, is the grain of truth here? If I can’t dig it out, if I can’t use it to deconstruct Belos’s lie, Logan will never believe it was a lie to begin with.

I whisper, “Just because you manage to force something on someone doesn’t mean they wanted it.”

“But they were weak enough that it happened.”

“You don’t believe that. Anyone can be overpowered.
Anyone
, Logan. Even the gods.”

“But I—” He cuts himself off.

“You what?”

“I was—”

I wait. He’s shaking so hard his teeth rattle. I want to put my arms around him, to tell him he doesn’t have to do this, but he does.

“I was—” He shakes his head again, refusing, but the truth tries to shake him apart from the inside, desperate to get out.

I whisper, “You were what?”

“
Relieved!
”

He tries to drag air into his lungs, but he can’t. I slide my arms around his neck, cradling his head against me until the word has stopped choking him. Then, as though that word was the one thing holding it all in, the rest starts to pour out.

“I was tired. I was
so tired
. I didn’t know how tired I was until then. I didn’t have to—it wasn’t my responsibility anymore. And I was
relieved
.”

I know his weariness goes back much, much further than his time with Belos. My heart aches at the thought of the burden he’s carried all his life, of how much he’s had to control.

“I’m so tired,” he breathes.

“I know, love, I know.”

His tone changes abruptly, angry again. “And he knew it. He knew I wanted him to take over.”

Here it is: the lie built around the grain of truth. And Belos has convinced him of it; he has made this twisted reality for Logan.

“No,” I say, leaning back. “
No
. What have I told you about how lies work?”

“That they are really the truth underneath!”

“You know that’s not what I said, and you know that lies are not truth.”

“But this—”

“No. You were relieved”—he turns his face away, and I lay my hand on his cheek, not letting him escape—“and why shouldn’t you be? Logan.
Logan
. Of course you don’t want this burden—”

“But I do. I like the power. I like it, Astarti, I like it. Don’t you see that’s what’s wrong?”

“No, that’s not wrong. Of course you like your elemental power. You are supposed to. It’s beautiful. It’s you.”

“It’s horrible! You’ve seen—”

“It’s dangerous, yes, I know.”

“That’s why I have to—that’s why—”

His fist tightens on the belt. I lay my hand over his, but he twists it away. I move my hand to his wrist. He’s not ready to give that up.

“You wanted that burden eased. That’s why you felt relieved. That doesn’t mean you wanted Belos to take control of your body and mind. There’s a huge gap between those two things. Do you know what fills that gap? Lies. Manipulation. And
fear
, Logan. You are afraid that he’s right, and that’s why you’ve let yourself believe that he is. But he’s not. He is
not
. Remember, please remember: this is how lies are made.”

“But there’s still truth under it.”

“That’s why the lie hurts so much. You were relieved.” Again, he tries to draw away. I lay my hands on either side of his face. “You were relieved,” I say it firmly, making him hear it. “That is all right. You can accept that. There’s nothing wrong with it. And it
does not mean
you wanted Belos to control you.”

Even though his face is still angled down, I can see that his forehead is wrinkled. I don’t know if he believes me, if he’s accepting my words, but at least he’s thinking about them.

After a few moments, he lets out a shuddering breath. “There’s...something more.”

I sit back on my heels, returning my hands to his wrists. I let him take his time.

His breathing roughens as he tries to tell me. He makes a series of barely audible, inarticulate sounds. He starts to rock slightly. Fear crawls up my spine.

“He...” Logan keeps rocking.

Some deep instinct makes me connect this to Koricus’s last words:
And that wasn’t the only thing you liked, was it? Do you remember? Does it embarrass you?

I have avoided those words in my memory, finding the others easier to reason with. But they’re eating at Logan, poisoning him, and this is no time for me to be a coward.

I ask quietly, “Did he—?”

Logan growls. The sound is deep, rumbling up from his chest. He shakes his head sharply, and the hand clenching the belt jerks upward a little. But my hand is on his wrist. I don’t shove him down, but I don’t move. His hand lowers, forearm braced on his thigh again. He is steel under my hands. Low animal sounds roll through him.

I whisper, “Tell me what happened.”

He rocks back and forth. I still can’t see much of his face, but those sounds are anger and hatred. But that hate, I fear, is for himself, and that’s what makes it so horrible.

“I
thought
he was you.”

I recall when Horik and I first found Logan in Belos’s dungeon. He was confused. He didn’t believe it was me. He acted like I’d been there before. I knew, even then, that Belos had worn my face to torment Logan, but I didn’t let my thoughts run deeper than that.

“What did he do?”

Logan shakes his head sharply.

I wait.

“He came to me. As you. Like you were there to get me out. I should have hated his hands on me. I should have known from the first.”

I ache for him, but he is wrong to blame himself, and I need him to see that. “Do not forget that Belos is a master deceiver. Or that he knows me well enough to make such a deception seem real. Besides, Logan, when Horik and I got to you, you were utterly exhausted. In that state, anyone would have been fooled, even me.”

“But I was...” His mouth clamps shut. He breathes angrily through his nose.

There is another word here, another he hasn’t been able to handle, but I think I can guess this one.

He tries again. “Just a light touch, nothing much. Nothing even happened. But that was all it took. That was all. He accomplished more with the lightest touch of his fingers than with the whip. He broke me then.”

I close my eyes. Belos was getting nowhere with physical abuse, so he did what he does best. He lied. He found a way to make Logan doubt himself, hate himself. He destroyed Logan’s reality, then he rearranged the broken pieces for his convenience.

But this logic will not help Logan. He must get to the grain of truth, the reason this lie bothers him.

“Astarti, I was...” He grits his teeth, unable to say the word. “I...”

“You were—”

“Nothing happened!”

He doesn’t want to hear the word any more than he wants to say it. But it must be said. It doesn’t matter that nothing happened. What matters is Logan’s view of himself. I have to make him look at this square on. Only then can he begin to deconstruct the lie that it is.

I whisper, “You were aroused.”

He explodes up from the stool, tearing out of my hands. The stool clatters to the floor. Logan stalks to the far side of the bathing chamber. He braces his left hand against the wall, leaning hard on it, head hanging. His right arm is rigid at his side, his knuckles white around the belt. Now I can see his back fully. Angry red lines, some trickling blood, lie in stripes over his shoulders and down to the band of his pants. The sight makes my eyes prickle because he has done this to himself. He has repeated the wrongs that others have done to him and
that
, I do not understand. But this isn’t about me and my horror.

I approach slowly. The air whistles through his throat. I lift my hand to his right arm. He is rigid and doesn’t respond to the touch. I slowly walk my fingers around him, trying to turn him. He is far too strong for me to force him, and at first I think he won’t yield. Then he gives in all at once.

He spins toward me, putting his back to the wall, and slides to the floor. He draws up his knees, forearms resting on them, that belt still in his white-knuckled grip. I sink slowly, kneeling between his feet.

“Lo-gan.” I have to stop and steady my cracking voice. “Logan, this is nothing but another lie.”

He says softly, wearily, “And what is the truth here?”

“That you wanted me. That you were happy to see me.”

For the first time, he raises his eyes to mine. I bite my lip to keep from crying out. His eyes are red-rimmed and so, so sad. His irises are gray-green, defeated. I have never seen that before.

He can’t take it. He looks away.

“But it wasn’t you,” he whispers. “It was him, and I...” His voice drops so low it’s barely audible. “I’m so...” I can’t help it; the tears are filling my eyes as he tries to dredge up this last word. “Astarti, I’m so ashamed.”

He gasps, and I know it’s coming at last. He starts shaking again, and his face twists. His eyes squeeze shut. He tries—he tries
so hard
to stop. He covers his face with his left hand, his right still gripping the belt. His stomach jerks; his throat works like he’s choking. His lips are clamped tight, but a hiss, a huff, the first edge of a sob, works its way past them. He sucks in hard, trying to haul it back.

Shame is not something you can take from someone by telling them they shouldn’t feel it. It doesn’t work like that. I know. And nothing—
nothing
—kills you more inside. In this moment, I hate Belos more than I ever have.

I start to pull Logan toward me. He resists at first, then he spills into my arms. He still won’t let out the sound, and he sobs silently into the crook of my neck, his whole body jerking with the force of it. My heart shatters. I press my cheek to his head, clench my hands in his hair. I hold him tight against me as the horror works through his body. I squeeze my own eyes shut, but the tears leak through.

Eventually, it’s too much for him, and he can’t stay silent. He gasps, choking, and I can feel his tears against my neck. His sobs come out broken, like he doesn’t know how to cry. I have the terrible feeling that he never has before, at least not for himself. I let him learn to do it in my arms. I hold on, I hold on, I hold on.

At last, exhausted, he slides down my front, slumping silently into my lap. I stroke his hair. His arms are on either side of me, forearms on the floor. His left is curled around my foot, hanging on, but his right is still clenched on the belt. I try to work my fingers into his grip, to get him to let go, but his fist tightens in resistance.

I keep one hand resting lightly on his fist. With the other, I stroke through his hair and down his neck. I stop above the lash marks, which are raised, swollen flesh crisscrossing layers of similar scars. Seeing the overlay, I realize: this goes back to the beginning. I think of what he said that night I confronted him about fighting. He said that fighting helps him get control. At the time, that made no sense to me, but I think back further. The Ancorites were the first to whip him, the first to teach him the power of physical pain. They wanted him to release his magic so they could know what he was. They thought it would make him lash out, open up, expose himself.