Chapter 4
I was a wild creature, snarling, kicking, scratching, and lashing out at anything or anyone who dared touch me. There was nothing sensible left in me. I wasn't worried about surviving. I wasn't even worried about dying. I was worried about death. Not my death. No, not that. My death seemed simpler than what I was facing now. What I faced now was horror.
The sights, the smells, the sounds . . . it left impressions on the brain. Grey impressions. It wiped all color from the scene as men stamped down any lingering flames, spreading ash into the air as they kicked at the remains left behind.
Ash caught in my hair, on my gown, along my cheeks. Some even entered my mouth as I breathed.
Ash. Aigneis.
It was all too much. Even as I fought, even as I screamed, I gagged. And then I was retching, spewing the contents of my stomach onto the ground as the soldiers threw me down in disgust.
“Do we burn her, too?” an irritated voice asked as I heaved.
Bile rose up in my throat, and my stomach cramped as the soldiers around me paused. There was no reason to dismantle the pyre if another mage was going to burn.
“Lady Consta-Mayria, do you accuse this young woman of magery?”
It was the captain's voice. I hated his voice, hated the way it cut through my clothes and chilled me to the bone one moment and then made me sweat the next. The anger in my blood was a palpable entity. He was a mage who had murdered a mage. I wanted to burn him, to see the way his ashes floated away on the breeze.
Ashes. Aigneis.
“No,” my stepmother replied after a moment. “No, I've not seen anything to suggest the girl is a mage. But scribery, yes. She is not a licensed scribe, but she practices it.”
There was kicking inside my stepmother's carriage. Muffled screams. My father.
“So be it,” the captain said firmly. “No death, but mark her. We'll leave sentencing to the king.”
My stomach was empty when the soldiers dragged me backward, my throat on fire, raw from acidic bile, smoke, and yelling.
“And your husband?” the captain asked.
I stiffened. My father. Taran laughed, and I struggled again. My cries were feeble and hoarse, but they were still cries, still screams for justice. I would fight or die trying.
“Garod is a naive man who took in a pitiful creature. She deceived him. I accuse him of nothing,” Taran said.
I fell limp, my chest heaving. The raspy groans escaping my lips were sighs of relief. My father was going to be fine. Taran still needed him. My maid and I were nothing more than collateral.
“Hold her down,” one of the young soldiers commanded.
A man at my back forced me to kneel, his knee and hands trapping me against the ground as another soldier pulled my left arm onto the rough bark of a fallen log. The timber was damp and uncomfortable, but I didn't fight them. Aigneis was dead. My father was safe. I had no energy left.
“Derrin!” a warrior yelled.
A portly, almost feminine-looking man with oily blond hair appeared next to me. He was nervous and his mouth twitched as he removed a bottle of ink along with a small, razor-sharp metal prong attached to the end of a stick. He tested the prong on his own skin, nodding in satisfaction before smearing ink along the pointed end. His breath smelled of wild onions and moldy cheese as he leaned next to me. I inhaled sharply, holding my own breath as he placed cold, grimy fingers around my arm just below my wrist.
“Hold still, you hear? Marking is a delicate thing, and I don't want to cut too deep.”
He gave me no time to answer. I fought involuntarily when the prong sank into my skin. The point bit into me, and I thrashed as the three soldiers surrounding me tightened their grips on my body. The increased pressure of the log was hurting the back of my hand even as the prong's bite transformed into a burn.
“Please,” I begged.
I hated the weakness in my voice, hated even more my obvious low tolerance for pain.
“Not much longer,” one of the soldiers said quietly, and I glanced toward him, my gaze finding the brown eyes of a young man not much older than me. Black hair fell over his forehead. Pity. There was pity in his stare, and I looked away, whimpering as the prong continued to dig into my flesh. I was tired now. So, so very tired, and my wrist was on fire.
“Tricky things these marks,” Derrin said jovially.
I kept my head turned away, my eyes on the trees. I was feeling faint, and I took deep, unsteady breaths in an attempt not to pass out. Aigneis had stood strong. Even knowing they were going to burn her alive, she had remained strong.
Again, I heard her screams in my head, and my breath caught. For Aigneis, I would not falter. For Aigneis I would bear the marking with pride and strength. The thought gave me new resolve, and I grit my teeth as the prong moved along my wrist.
The burning sensation had turned oddly numb, and I welcomed the reprieve from pain. The trees swayed in the darkness before me, the only light coming from the lanterns swinging from the carriages and the torches held up by the guards attending me. The dim glow made the trees look eerie in the darkness, like black figures beckoning me into the night.
“That will do it,” Derrin said. I cringed as spittle hit my arm before a cloth closed over my wrist. “Pour some ale on it and bandage it.”
The onion-cheese smell was overwhelming as Derrin leaned over me, his chubby face close to mine.
“Nice skin you have, dear. Soft as butter.”
I turned my head, and my eyes met his. Torch light glowed in his pupils, and I smiled despite the renewed pain in my arm.
“A curse on you,” I whispered.
Derrin's eyes widened, and I spit in his face. There were cries of outrage as hands tightened around my arms. A cruel tug on my hair pulled me toward the back of the carriages, and I stumbled over the loose soil and strewn branches littering the forest floor. Leaves crackled under my feet, and the humid breeze picked them up, throwing the dead foliage against my skirts. “Run,” they seemed to whisper.
“You only make it harder on yourself,” a voice said.
It was the black-haired soldier again. His hand was on my left arm, his grip firm. He nodded at the guard on my right side, and I had just enough time to note a brown, earthen jug before a cork was popped free. The cloth on my wrist was removed, and the dark-haired young man lifted my wrist while the other guard splashed ale onto the raised, angry design. It was my first real look at the inkwell now etched into my skin. An inkwell covered in cracks.
I hissed when the ale hit my wrist, my eyes stinging from the burn. It brought tears I had been fighting hard not to shed, and I looked at the top of the soldier's head as he leaned over my arm, drying the wound before wrapping it with an old rag.
“You killed the only mother I have ever known.”
The soldier's head came up, and his eyes met mine again. I didn't look away. A solitary tear forged a trail down my mud-covered cheek as I gazed at him.
“And you want me to make it easy on you?” I asked.
I never received an answer.
“Cage her!” another guard hollered.
There were rough hands again, shoves and kicks. In the dark, I could make out little. The pain in my arm was intense. One moment I was stumbling, the next I was lifted up. There was a brief weightless sensation before my cheek met rough flooring, a crude surface made of hastily nailed wood.
“Move!”
The order was loud, harsh. It wasn't safe to camp in certain areas of the woods at night. A door banged shut behind me, and it was suddenly pitch black as the torchlight moved away.
I pushed myself up gingerly, ignoring the wet chill on my cheek as the wind pushed through spaces in the wagon walls. Blood was nothing to me now, although the scrape on my face was uncomfortable. I cradled my left arm against my chest. It still burned from the ale. My mark.
“Ho!”
The sound of horses stamping and wheels turning had me grabbing at the floo
r as the wagon jerked forward, and I was slung against the side of the cart. The fingers on my right hand found spaces between bars made out of thick wood, and I held on tight.
A soldier on horseback moved past, a torch held up as he took his place at the party's rear. There was light again. It was dim, but it was light nonetheless, and I looked at the small area brightened by the flames.
Fire. Ash. Aigneis.
I was in a rough prison, a wagon with wooden bars. The floor I sat on was littered with debris. Leaves, dirt, and other remains I refused to look at carefully. Those remains didn't matter.
My sobs were silent when they came, my shaking body camouflaged by the night and by the wagon's jerking motion. There were chains on my heart now. My flesh was caving in around me. It was a heavy feeling, a weight that sat solidly on my shoulders, and I felt like I was bleeding from every pore in my body. Aigneis.
Somewhere in the forest, a wolf howled. The sound was eerie, causing the horses to spook, the wagon to jerk even more. I clung to the thick bar, letting my scraped cheek rest against my hand.
“The Ardus is three days by foot.”
The voice startled me, and I clasped the wood as I sat up, my eyes on the torchlight now visible outside the wall I leaned against. In the space provided, I could make out the dark-haired young soldier's face, made eerie by the night and the flickering flames. He was a handsome man, rugged with a small scar along his temple.
Another wolf howled, and the soldier pulled his horse away briefly, calming him before coming close again.
“Who are you?” I asked.
My voice cracked. My throat hurt, and my head throbbed almost as painfully as my arm. The boy watched me a moment before inclining his head.
“Kye,” he answered.
He looked away then, his eyes searching the torches up ahead. I studied him, my thoughts a chaotic, grieving mess.
“The Ardus?” I asked finally.
His gaze didn't return to mine. He sat up straight in his saddle, his expression even. He was one of the king's soldiers. He was risking his life talking to me, and I was having a hard time understanding why.
He knew I knew what the Ardus was. It was the desert between Medeisia and Sadeemia, visible from my bedroom window at Forticry. It was a beautiful sight in its starkness, a little over a day's walk from my father's manor. It was also deadly.
“There is sanctuary in Sadeemia for those who survive the crossing,” Kye replied, his gaze flicking to mine before moving away again.
I let my cheek rest once more against my hand.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
Kye didn't answer. He kicked his horse instead, turning his steed so that he rode once more behind the wagon. The torchlight moved away from me, highlighting the boards at the cart's rear. I could still see the young soldier as he waved his light back and forth, searching the woods before signaling the guards ahead. All was clear.
I hugged my marked arm more tightly against me. The throbbing in my wrist was wave-like, the pain receding and then returning. My jaw was beginning to hurt as I clenched it against the ache in my arm. The sharp stinging sensation radiated down into my fingers and back up into my shoulder. And yet, the pain must be nothing compared to the agony Aigneis had experienced on the pyre.
I closed my eyes against the screams echoing in my head.
“We will camp in a few hours. The lock on the back of this wagon has always been faulty.”
Kye's soft voice swept over me, but I kept my eyes closed against the memories, against the stinging pressure in my arm. The mark branded more than my skin. It branded my soul.
“My father.”
I hadn't realized I'd said the words aloud until a hand suddenly touched mine on the bar. When I opened my eyes, Kye's face was close enough to be frightening rather than intimate. When I gasped, he pulled his horse away.
“Your father is too important to the king.”
It was all Kye said, and then he was gone again. Somehow, I knew he wouldn't be back this time.
Ardus. A faulty lock. The soldier was giving me a chance to escape. I would die in the capital. I knew it. The final look in Aigneis' eyes told me she had known it too. Maybe she had had hope for me and for her at the beginning of this journey, but it was a futile hope. I saw that now, but it had still been hope.
My father was a powerful man, and one of the few men who knew both the Sadeemian language and politics well enough to be useful to King Raemon. I was his illegitimate daughter. I had practiced the work of scribes for years, and the scribes had just been royally disbanded. I was the perfect political example. It would show the people that rank and birth mattered little to the king. Anyone with magic or knowledge would die marked. The thought made me angry.
Once more a wolf howled, and I heard Aigneis' scream in the sound. I saw the burning pyre, saw Aigneis' face as she looked at me, her eyes wide with concern. Listen to the forest.
The wolf howled again followed by a faint kek, kek in the skies above.
“Run, run,” the animals screamed.
I would not be Raemon's example. I would not be the political tool used to scare his own people into subservience. I'd be damned if I would die without killing the king first.
My eyes moved to the back of the wagon, to the light on the wood as Kye guarded the back of the procession. The flickering torchlight danced on the dry, cracked remains of leaves and broken pottery, and I let my gaze travel from the floor to the door, my eyes finding the iron lock as the flames from the torch illuminated the metal before going dull.
Ardus. A faulty lock.