THE MARK Read online

  “Alright. What lies did he feed you?”

  “I don’t think they were lies. He basically said to beware of the mercenaries, that I need to watch out for them, that they’d like to get to me. I just don’t know how he could possibly know that mercenaries could be an issue.”

  Megland mulled that over for a moment. “He can’t know that you’re targeted by Swampers or he would have already turned you in…” She trailed off, her eyes searching the floor while she thought. “It can’t be a coincidence. We need to go to her.”

  “Who?”

  Megland looked at the dancers. The song was slow and sad, a violin lamenting, backed once again by the flute. Two melodies swooped and dove, mixing for a moment before going their separate ways again. All the while, the dancers swirled around each other, a shifting kaleidoscope of colors.

  All the anger seemed to have drained from Megland. Chris wasn’t sure what had prompted such a dramatic shift, but she was glad the argument was over. She was just about to apologize when she saw Megland’s entire body tense up.

  Chris hadn’t heard the moment when the music stopped. She hadn’t heard the tell-tale clomp of boots walking in her direction. But she did hear the low rumble of his breathing and saw the crowd part to let him through.

  King Karniv seemed taller up close. He towered over her, and she thought that he must cast an enormous shadow over everyone around him. Being in his presence was like being close to an eclipse. It would never be safe to look up for too long.

  He tilted forward into a slight bow, really just a nod of the head, and Chris guessed he didn’t bend at the waist for fear of toppling over. The thought of him falling and crushing her didn’t help her already frazzled nerves. She was trying so hard not to shake, but it seemed like the more she tried to steady herself the worse it got.

  Anything in the world would have been better than having to dance with him. She entertained the idea of trying to get out of it, but when she looked to Megland for help Megland’s eyes got really wide and she just nodded toward Karniv. His head was still down but his eyes were on Chris, impatient, waiting for her to respond. Everyone was. She took a deep breath, curtsied, and when he offered her his large paw she laid her hand on it, lightly, and fighting the urge to run, she let him lead her away.

  When they took a spot in the middle of the room the band began to play again. It was another slow tune. Karniv led her in a simple box step. His paw rested heavily on her waist. The pads were rough, catching on her dress’s fine threads.

  “Hannah tells me you are a friend of her family’s come to visit,” he said. His voice rumbled, and she could feel the vibrations deep into her bones.

  She didn’t want to open her mouth to respond. Karniv’s breath was rank, reminding her of when she used to have a friend whose parents owned a slaughterhouse. Her own parents would drop her off there when she was to stay the night at their home. The smell of blood was metallic, but the smell of bleach made it so much worse. It didn’t cover up the blood stench so much as give it a sharper smell. The king didn’t smell like bleach, but blood mixed with something else, something sweeter that was meant to mask it.

  He was waiting for an answer.

  “Yes, your majesty,” she said, trying not to step on his feet. “My home is a fair distance away, so I may stay for a few days before continuing my journey.” It felt odd saying it, but that’s what Megland had coached her to do.

  “Ah,” he said.

  A waft of blood-sweetness blew over Chris’s face and she tried not to gag. She turned her head to the side to gather fresh air.

  Finally, Karniv said, “Do you like my kingdom?”

  “Of course, your majesty. I’ve seen nothing like it in all my travels.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  This wasn’t so bad. Chris was just thinking that Megland might have blown the whole thing out of proportion when Karniv asked, “What particular region do you hail from?”

  She was going to puke. She had forgotten the name of the region Megland had said earlier.

  When was this song ever going to end?

  “North” wasn’t going to suffice anymore. According to Hannah, she was in the northernmost region on this land mass, and when Chris was in space she could see the many orbs of continents, so she had no idea where to begin. She did the best she could.

  “If you’ll forgive me, your majesty, I would like to refrain from speaking of my homeland,” she said, improvising and tried to put to use all the old fantasy she and Micah had watched. “Times are troubling, and I’d be ashamed to cry in your presence.”

  Dear God, let him buy it.

  It was a tense moment before he said, “Of course. You must be speaking of Amberthane and the war. I’ll respect your silence on the matter, though I’m not sure I’m very happy about taking in a refugee.”

  The music and the king’s steps slowed.

  “I will ask one thing while you are in my kingdom, though.” He looked into her eyes. His were beady and dark. She was sure her own were wide and terrified. “We have problems from time to time with The Marked. I know Amberthane flushed theirs out centuries ago, but we still have them here. They look just like you, but they’re a danger to everyone around them. They have dark spots just here,” he said, dragging a claw along the underside of her forearm. Chris could see Megland holding Micah back, making sure he didn’t come out onto the dance floor. “Or here,” Karniv said, tracing a line across her neck, his claws sharp and scratching. “Just let me know if you come across anything like that. Or tell The Last Resort—Lionel as you may know him. I saw you speaking to him earlier.”

  She cleared her throat and fought the urge to wriggle out of his arms. “If I may ask, what would you want with one of them? With one of The Marked, I mean.”

  “We have, uh, ‘special plans’ for their kind.”

  The song finally ended. Karniv bowed and Chris curtsied, and she tried not to shake as she walked back to her friends who were anxiously waiting for her.

  What did he do to The Marked when they were brought to him? Where did they go after The Last Resort put them in their holding cells?

  She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  CHAPTER 9

  Megland had to work the next morning and Micah couldn’t pass up the opportunity to practice swordplay when one of the stable boys offered, so it was just Chris and Hannah. They were walking along the top of the castle’s walls when Chris saw a large hunched figure in a brown cloak standing next to a cart full of dolls in the courtyard. For some reason she couldn’t take her eyes off of him even though there wasn’t much to see. He was just standing there, occasionally reaching out a hand to adjust the pile in the cart, but something about him made Chris’s stomach clench.

  It was the same feeling she’d had the night her dad left to pick up Claire. The phone had rung so late at night it was turning into morning. Its jangling had woken her.

  “Okay, honey,” he said mumbling into the old house phone. He had always insisted on having one “in case something happened and the cells don’t work.” He had always wanted to be prepared.

  There was some rummaging and stumbling around, then he walked out into the hallway. He stopped for a second, just looking at Chris like she was something odd placed in his path. But then he sighed a little, placed his hand on her back, and guided her back to bed.

  “Go back to sleep,” he said.

  Chris’s parents were used to her weird, waking dreams by then. They only called it “sleepwalking” those times when she did something like smearing peanut butter on her stomach or when she was very small and took a dump in the backyard.

  Chris shook her head and focused on the present. She wanted to get a closer look at that vendor.

  By the time they climbed down from the top of the wall it was midmorning and the courtyard was more crowded than usual. Even though the grounds still possessed a dingy, soiled kind of atmosphere, it seemed like everyone—with the exception of King Karni
v, who thankfully was absent—had been drawn to the same place. All sorts of people milled about, drifting from stall to stall, perusing the wares: fabrics for dressmaking along with saddles and brushes. There was even a vendor selling “pre-owned” teeth. But what stood out to Chris the most was the absolute somberness of those present. She was quickly becoming acquainted with the general lack of happiness in the kingdom, but this was different. There was a crushing heaviness to it all. Like how it feels right before a big storm. The stillness, the weight, the air’s thickness… Something deep inside told her to take shelter, to go back to her room and wait whatever it was out, but she just stood up straighter and tried to ignore it. She walked with Hannah to stand near the tooth vendor’s cart, the invisible finger of dread tracing a line up her spine.

  They were so close to the doll vendor that Chris could smell him. The odor reminded her of a pond on a humid day, that fishy smell of motionless water and the slimy things that dwell in it. It was murk and stagnation, and rot. She gagged, clamping her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t vomit. Hannah saw her and laughed.

  “Look at the people browsing,” she said.

  Those brave or stupid enough to approach his cart held handkerchiefs to their faces. Their eyes watered, tears running down their cheeks. Most of them wore expensive-looking clothes made of fine silks with jewels encrusted around the neck or waist, but there were a few who donned the more common, plain clothing of the villagers.

  “I thought only the rich could afford the dolls,” Chris said.

  “The poor are looking for their loved ones. Their families might have helped them raise the money. Sometimes people even spend their entire life savings on it.”

  A woman walked past with a screaming baby. The mother jiggled and rocked it, begging it to please, just be quiet. When she finally passed and the screaming stopped Hannah said, “They’re just trying to get their hands on their loved ones’ dolls before someone else does. It’s the closest thing they’ll ever have to holding them again.”

  An old woman with creased skin bought one of the dolls. It had a carved wooden face shaped into the features of an elderly man in ragged brown clothes. She handed the vendor a bag heavy with what Chris assumed were coins. Then she walked away, crying, clutching the limp figure to her chest.

  Chris just watched the hunchbacked vendor as he peddled his wares in silence. His area was busy. For a moment she couldn’t understand why that bothered her, other than the fact that he was basically peddling people. Then it clicked.

  “How can all of these people be buying loved ones if it’s illegal to help someone who is Marked?” she asked. “Megland told me the penalty is death. Aren’t these people afraid of the king finding out?”

  Hannah smiled. “Now you’re getting it! That’s how this all works! The king doesn’t want people helping The Marked because if they do then the mercenaries can’t find them. If the mercenaries can’t find them then the Swampers can’t take their magic. If the Swampers can’t take their magic then they can’t put it in the dolls. No dolls nothing to sell. But if people can’t buy dolls for fear of getting their heads chopped off then no money gets made. So the king doesn’t want people to help out The Marked before their magic gets taken, but he’s not going to do anything afterward because that’s where the money is.”

  Chris looked at Hannah in wonder. She was a smart kid. Really smart. It was a shame that she would probably work at the castle as a servant her whole life, that the world she lived in dictated how far she could go. Back on Earth Hannah could have been almost anything, but here she would never go to college, never be anything more than one of the king’s maids. Maybe they could take her with them when they left the castle, if she wanted to leave, of course. Maybe she could live a whole other life outside of the northern kingdom and Polaris. Maybe.

  “Come on,” Hannah said. “The hotter it gets the more he’s going to smell. And it’s not polite to watch these people on the worst day of their lives.”

  They left the courtyard, left the vendors to do their business, left the buyers to grieve. She and Hannah climbed stairs back to the top of the wall, back to their perch above the castle grounds, a couple of sentinels watching over a kingdom of lost hope.

  * * *

  Chris was in her room trying to take a nap, but the old woman from that morning holding the doll of what Chris could only assume was her husband was burned into her memory. She was there whenever Chris closed her eyes, like an afterimage. How much longer would Megland need before they could leave?

  Someone yelled in the courtyard outside Chris’s window. More yells followed. Before long, people were shouting—angry, but with an undertone of something else. Chris got out of bed and ran downstairs.

  Hannah was in the courtyard keeping to the shadows at the square’s edge. Chris joined her. In the middle of the courtyard a man with silver hair was caged in a wagon. He shook the bars on its small window. He was yelling, and even though his language was foreign, the word he kept repeating, and the sound it made as it tore through the shouts from the crowd, could only have been “help.”

  He reached through the bars, and Chris had the impulse to reach back, to grasp the hands he held out. But then the sleeve of his shirt slid back and she could see why he was caged. He had what looked like a large coffee colored birthmark on his forearm. Right in the spot that Karniv had traced on Chris’s own arm the night before.

  “He’s marked,” Hannah said, not bothering to look at her. Instead, she pressed her palm to one cheek then the other as she kept her eyes on the wagon. “The mercenary that caught him must be staying the night before driving west.”

  The afternoon was starting to wane, the light retreating from the walls. Early night was falling on Polaris.

  Chris wanted to go back to her room and plug her ears. The shouting, and what lay underneath the shouting, was overwhelming. She looked away from the mob and tried to focus on something else, anything else. She stared at the tray of teeth on the cart next to her. Her vision blurred, and the teeth seemed to float up over the cart’s flat surface. The top row separated from the bottom, each tooth sharpening and elongating, and she was staring down the maw of something evil, something blood-drenched, its hot breath threatening to swallow her up in one gulp. “It’s a sight, isn’t it?” it asked. “Christina? Christina?”

  A tap on the shoulder jolted her, and she realized the mouth in front of her belonged to Karniv. The teeth she’d been staring at, and the vendor, were gone.

  “Are you alright?” Karniv asked.

  It was quiet. The crowd was gone and the stars were out. It was just Hannah, Karniv, and her standing in the courtyard then. The prisoner’s head rested against the bars, arms dangling in the spaces between them, that birthmark showing, a silent testimony to his offense.

  “I’m fine, your majesty,” she said.

  “Good,” Karniv replied, walking to the wagon. He tilted his head a bit as he looked at the prisoner and trailed a claw down the wood.

  Next to her, Hannah began to shake. Chris was about to ask her if she was cold, maybe suggest that they go inside. Then she saw Hannah’s face. It was contorted in pure fury. Chris tried to be casual as she stepped in front of her, masking her features from the king’s view, feeling like her heart was going to burst at any second. She could feel Hannah’s rigid tension behind her, see the straightness of her arms held down at her sides, her fists clenched.

  Please. Please don’t do anything, Chris thought. Just stay still and keep quiet until we’re alone.

  Karniv sniffed the air around the prisoner then swiped a paw across his own mouth. He cleared his throat before turning around. “Disgusting creatures, are they not?”

  Chris struggled to smile politely.

  He stood there for only a moment more, but it seemed much longer. She could practically see the torches dying down, the stars swirling overhead. Finally, he gave her a slight bow, that mere nod of his, and instead of going into the main keep he took a smaller en
tryway off to the side. It was the same door Megland had said the holding cells were behind. Chris realized in horror what Karniv must be doing with the sapped Marked.

  When she was sure it was safe, she touched Hannah’s shoulder. “There’s nothing we can do,” Chris said. Hannah didn’t respond, just kept staring at the figure behind the bars.

  “Hannah?”

  Chris couldn’t believe that one person could hold so much emotion. Hannah’s eyes were brimming with tears, but it wasn’t just sadness that Chris saw there.

  “I’ve never actually seen a Marked boxed up like that,” she said. Her voice was low and phlegm-choked. “They’re not animals.”

  “I know.”

  “No!” she yelled. “You don’t.” She pointed to the cart. “Doesn’t that remind you of something? Haven’t you ever seen pigs or chickens taken to slaughter?”

  “But it’s not the same thing, Hannah.”

  She either didn’t hear Chris or didn’t care. “I remember doing that. Helping my parents load up the cart with pigs for market. I hated the stink. When it was chickens, I hated the feathers that would fly out the back. It was a pain. That’s all it was to me: a pain. I was so happy when we sold them and I could breathe fresh air again, not have to smell or see it anymore. We can’t look away from this. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “We should go in,” Chris said.

  “No.”

  Chris took her hand and tried to lead her back to the hall.

  “No!” she screamed. She jerked her hand out of Chris’s grip.

  They stood there in the courtyard facing each other down. Any moment someone could step outside to see what was going on, and there Hannah would be, fuming, yelling about the injustice of caging people. They would learn she was sympathetic toward The Marked and who knows what would happen then. Chris had to get her inside. Quick.

  “Hannah,” she said, her voice soothing, almost purring. “We can talk to Megland about it after dinner. Maybe she’ll have an idea about what to do.”