Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) (53 page)

“No.” Bray said. Her jaw popped as she clenched her teeth.

“No?” Vendra asked, her voice soft and dangerous.
 

“You can’t take me.”

Vendra pulled a pistol from the holster at her hip. “Did Yarrow tell you how your friend died?”
 

Bray’s stomach clenched in anger. She did not reply, could not trust herself to speak.

“I said I would shoot him. And then I did.” Vendra cocked the firearm with a resounding click. Then she pointed it directly at Yarrow’s head. “So know that I speak truth when I say this: if you do not come quietly, I will kill him.”
 

Her dark eyes appeared almost bored, her tone flat and uninterested. Bray did not need Yarrow’s gift to know that this woman meant what she said.

“We will all go quietly,” Yarrow said, “if you promise to leave these civilians alone. They did not know what they were doing.”

Vendra gestured impatiently with her hand. “They aren’t important.” Then she turned to the orderly group of youngsters behind her. “Take them to the ship and lock them in the brig.”
 

Rough hands pulled at Bray, and only the knowledge that Yarrow would otherwise be shot gave her the resolve to remain solid. She saw the same two young men pick Yarrow up and, as they bore him across the planks to the cruiser, she saw him wink at her.

Bray’s brow furrowed. Had she imagined it? Could Yarrow truly have a plan? She hoped that he did, because what else was there to hope for? He was a handicap to her. She cared for him, and that would keep her as bound and contained as any normal woman.

With a good deal of unnecessary shoving, she was guided onto the plank and pushed forward. She considered allowing herself to fall over the side, into the churning sea below. But what would that accomplish? Nothing at all.
 

The cruiser must have been recently commissioned. Its impressive expanse of gleaming wood had a definite aura of newness. Bray was shoved into the shadow of the sail, a massive cream sheet against the sky. She did not have long to admire the grandness of the ship before she was forced below deck and into a cell.
 

Vendra followed them, keeping her pistol pointed at Yarrow’s head. She handed the weapon to a young Adourran lad. “Take it in shifts. He needs to be at gunpoint at all times. If she does anything, shoot him.”

Then she reached into a satchel strapped round her waist and extracted a black leather case, now familiar to them all. They were to be drugged again. Bray’s hope deflated. Even without the sphere, she would be irremediably trapped in fog and nightmares.
 

“Come here,” she said to Ko-Jin. His mouth clenched and eyes flashed, as though he might defy her. His handsome face set in obstinate lines, but then he stood and crossed the small space. He even rolled up his sleeve for her.

Bray watched as she stabbed Ko-Jin’s arm and pushed the horrible poison into his veins. Vendra moved to Yarrow’s cell next. She didn’t have to ask this time. He came, clutching his stomach wound, and allowed her to drug him.

Yarrow looked right into the Adourran woman’s eyes with a hatred and a determination Bray had never seen there before. “You will pay, for what you have taken,” he said, his voice cold enough even to match her own.
 

Vendra smirked, but did not rise to the taunt. She clearly found his threat too empty to concern her.

She moved on to Bray, who summoned a look of such intense loathing that Vendra laughed. The sound made Bray sick to her stomach.

The woman grabbed her arm through the bars with needless force and stabbed her with the needle. Bray felt the cold liquid surge into her body, and knew what its effect would be.
 

Vendra did not let go of her arm. Fingers dug into her flesh, but Bray did not flinch.

 
“I hope you know, as the greatest liability, you will be the first to die,” Vendra said. “Will you allow yourself to be killed to save your boyfriend?”
 

She expected no answer and Bray gave her none. Her tone had been taunting, but Bray suspected she spoke the truth. They would kill her. And if she did not allow them to, they would kill Yarrow. She wondered, in that moment, what she would do.

Vendra stalked across the cabin and proceeded up the stairs. The brig hung in shadow and the drugs seeped into her system quickly. Taken with the gentle rocking of the ship, Bray’s eyelids already began to droop.

She sunk to the floor in an awkward heap. Here she was again, captive and drugged. And what had they gained? Surely nothing that could compensate for what they had lost.

Her mind shied away from Adearre’s death. It was like an open wound. Like a bright light to unadjusted eyes. She knew she would have to come to terms with it in time, but just then it seemed too absurd to be true. How could he be dead—gone? He was so young and smart and kind. A good man, a far better person than herself. He had been right, entirely right, about her methods in the field. And she would never have the chance to confess that to him—to ask his forgiveness.
 

She imagined him, his bright honey eyes, his wide white smile, saying to her, “I cannot pardon sins. Only you can forgive yourself. And if you are truly repentant your spirit will lighten once again.”

He would have said something like that. Adearre had believed in such things. He had believed in the goodness of man, in his ability to change himself.
About that, he had been wrong
, she thought. His very absence was proof. Man was not good. Man killed.

A popping sound wrenched Bray from her thoughts; her head shot up. Yarrow no longer crouched in his cell. Inexplicably, he was standing behind their Chaskuan guard. He rammed the boys head into the cage that had, moments before, held him. The boy crumpled to the ground, out cold.
 

Bray felt a surge of pride. That move was Chiona through and through; a Cosanta didn’t act with such speedy aggression.
 

Pop!
Yarrow no longer stood beside the inert body of his guard. He vanished from sight then appeared again, in Ko-Jin’s cell.

“Yarrow… how?” Ko-Jin asked.

“I’ve received a second gift,” Yarrow said, though his tone was flat and bleak. He took hold of Ko-Jin and, with another burst of noise, they disappeared. In an instant, the two of them reappeared in Bray’s own cell.

Ko-Jin looked around, startled. “You can teleport? How far?”

“As far as I like,” Yarrow said. “To the Cape in an instant. Shall we?”

Ko-Jin laughed and Bray, though her mind had gone fuzzy, pulled herself back to her feet.

“Why did you wait?” Ko-Jin asked.

“I didn’t want her to kill that nice couple,” Yarrow said. “It seemed the least I could do after she sewed me up.”

“Really?” Bray asked, her voice even sounded slurred in her own ears. “You can take us that far?”

“Yes.”

“Then take us to the Isle,” Bray said, leaning into Yarrow and taking a firm hold of his hand.

“Why?” Ko-Jin asked. “Why not the Cape?”

“Because of Kellar Samgrid,” Bray said around a fat tongue.
 

“Who?”

“He’s the only living Chisanta with a second gift—or was,” Bray said.
 

“So?” Ko-Jin asked.

“He can heal…” Bray yawned loudly, “…for Yarrow.”

Yarrow held onto her tightly, and, she presumed, onto Ko-Jin as well. “Very well,” he said, “to the Chiona Isle.”

Bray leaned into him and felt the floor of the cell vanish beneath her. For a moment, she spun into nothingness. She imagined herself shooting through the air, though this was a fancy. In reality, she had been in one place and, in another moment, she was elsewhere.

The sunshine of the Isle glared down at them. Bray felt the dry heat against her skin, welcome and familiar. Though she clung to consciousness with mental fingertips, she knew where she was. The familiar swirling pattern of the stones beneath her, the palm trees, the spicy smells in the air. This was the main courtyard of the Chiona Temple.

Cries of alarm erupted around her. She did not wonder at them—three people appearing out of nowhere must have been a startling sight, let alone three people in a state such as they.

The Chiona crowded in, the wash of questions running over her like a summer rain. One voice stood out, though—Dolla.

“Bray?” she demanded. She pushed her way through the bystanders. “Great Spirits, Bray, what has happened?”
 

“We need Kellar,” Bray managed to say, though she felt as one just on the cusp of sleep.

“Are you injured?” a voice asked. Not Dolla, but familiar. She could not place it.

“No,” Bray said, “Yarrow…”

“My Spirits, look at that blood!”

The din of voices made her head pound.

A warm hand wrapped around Bray’s waist. She opened her eyes and focused. It was Dolla, her shorn white hair and sharp face the finest sight Bray could have asked for. Dolla was the closest thing to a parent Bray had.

“What has happened, child?” Dolla asked.

“Yarrow?” Bray said as she realized she was no longer touching him. Where was he?

“He’s being treated. He will be well. What has happened?”

It was Ko-Jin who answered. Bray was glad of it. She had so little energy. The fog closed in.

“A man named Quade Asher has been kidnapping marked children these past ten years. He’s formed an army. He intends to conquer Trinitas.”

The crowd must have grown since they had arrived, the babble now significantly louder. She heard the protests of disbelief, even several people asking, “What are
Cosanta
doing here?”
 

It was incredible to Bray that the rest of her people should not have progressed along with her. She had nearly forgotten that the two halves disliked each other. How could such a trivial thing matter when they now had a true enemy—a common enemy?
 

“Bray?” Dolla asked, giving her a small shake.
 

“Mm?”

“This can’t be true.”

“Of course it’s true,” Bray said with another yawn.
 

“She needs sleep,” Ko-Jin’s voice said beside her. “She’s been given a strong sedative. I can explain everything; I won’t be able to rest for a long while, anyway.”

“Very well,” Dolla said tartly. Clearly, she did not like being told what was best for Bray, certainly not by a Cosanta.

“Tell me where to take her,” Ko-Jin said. Bray felt herself lifted off the ground and cradled in strong, familiar arms. She looked up at his weary face. “Look after Yarrow.”
 

“I will,” he promised.

He must have been guided by Dolla, because some short time later Bray found herself placed into a soft bed—gloriously soft. After so many weeks sleeping on a stone floor it felt like the clouds of the Spirits’ home.
 

“Bray?” Dolla’s voice asked. Bray roused herself as best she could, opened her eyes.
Spirits, but she just wanted to sleep!

“You can tell the whole story later, but where are Peer and Adearre?”
 

Bray felt a lance of pain to her chest, hot tears leaked from her eyes. Dolla’s face grew alarmed by her response. She must have thought them merely separated.
 

“Very well, dear,” Dolla said. “I understand.”

“Peer lives,” Bray managed to say. Dolla nodded and retreated. The door shut behind her with a soft click.

Bray realized she had confessed Adearre’s death in just the same way Yarrow had. As a contrast from Peer. As if Peer had done something right and Adearre something wrong. As if he had committed the sin of dying.
 

The tears continued to flow as she fell to sleep, the soft cloud of a bed not nearly heavenly enough to chase away the remorse-driven terrors that awaited her resting mind.

She found herself in their beachside cave, preparing to undertake the ill-fated venture of stealing the sphere. She was saying her farewells. It snowed and the roar of the ocean and wind battered her ears. Adearre embraced her, a firm, friendly hand on the back, pulling her close. He smelt like…well, like
him.
 

He leaned in to whisper, tickled her ear with his breath. “Try not to kill, love. They are astray, not wicked.”

How wrong you were, my friend.