Chapter 85 Marked
Marked
Cold rips me upward from consciousness before I understand what is happening.
A bucket of water crashes over my head and shoulders, the shock of it driving breath from my lungs in a broken gasp as the chill seeps instantly through fabric and skin.
The liquid smells sour and thick, and somewhere above me Mysin’s voice drifts down with obscene cheer.
“Wakey, wakey, little sister. It’s horse water. Your favorite.”
My vision clears in fragments. Rough timber walls. A low ceiling. A lantern swinging gently from a hook. I am bound at the wrists, rope biting into already cut skin, my dress torn and heavy with damp.
Mysin stands before me, one hand reduced to two fingers, the others long since taken by Colsar and healed into rigid scar tissue.
His smile is soft and satisfied. Four men linger around him, unfamiliar, broad-shouldered and unrefined, dressed without crest or tailoring.
The sort he surrounds himself with when he wants to feel superior.
Men whose fathers likely serve beneath the Baron, welcome in his company only when our father is not there to disapprove.
I think of the noise from the Baron’s house last night and wonder if they were celebrating this.
For a moment I do not understand how I am here, then it comes back to me. Yvara’s perfect face framed by dark curls. Her reluctant tone. The secret passage. The courtyard and sunlight and my foolish gratitude.
Mysin watches understanding dawn in me and laughs quietly.
“She really is an excellent actress,” he says, pacing slowly. “You should have seen her practice. The concerned sister. The dutiful one. She said she hated letting you out but felt obligated.” He smirks. “And you followed her like a starved dog.”
He crouches in front of me and brushes wet hair from my face with the back of his fingers.
“She’s even made the King believe she’s carrying his heir.
I almost admire it. The belly rubbing like there is actually something in there.
The soft sighing. The way she makes herself fragile. She even fooled you, didn’t she?”
He smiles cruelly. “She would never allow you to steal her blood or the King’s attention without consequence. She would never miss the chance to destroy you.”
One of the men steps closer, eyes lingering on me without pretense.
“When do we get our fun, Mys?”
“You’ll get it,” Mysin replies calmly, though something possessive tightens his tone. “After we do this properly.”
He looks back at me with theatrical affection.
“You’re going to die slowly. I’ve been planning this for a long time.
When Yvara told me about the chamber he made for you, the one covered in paintings, I knew it was only a matter of time before he locked you away. And when he did, we would be ready.”
“What do you want?” I manage, my voice thin from cold and shock.
The red bearded one steps forward without warning and strikes me across the face. My head snaps sideways and blood floods my mouth instantly. Laughter ripples through the cabin.
I sway. My vision blurs.
Another man draws a blade and presses it against my arm, dragging it slowly across skin. Not deep enough to kill. Deep enough to hurt.
My body recoils but I refuse to scream.
They circle closer, the blade moving again along my leg, my hip, my thigh. The pain builds in increments, growing deeper, more searching, as if they are mapping me.
Through the ringing in my ears I hear Mysin’s voice, light and almost fond. “You always did look better marked.” The knife moves again. And again. And again. Their laughter fills the cabin.
I force myself not to scream. I will not give them that. I hear one of them mock my attempts to crawl, though I do not remember deciding to move. Blood slicks the wooden floor beneath me.
Mysin’s voice floats above it all.
“You know I love fire,” he says almost cheerfully. “Once we’re done, we burn it all. Countryside. Abandoned cabin. No one will find anything but ash. They’ll think the spoiled, golden princess ran away when the King told her she could not attend the theater.”
I stop counting the cuts after six.
My body is heavy now. So tired.
Another man steps closer and grabs at my dress, and something in me snaps back into place with violent clarity.
No.
Heat rises inside my chest from something older and far more volatile. I have bled before. I have nearly killed myself forcing magic through a body untrained to contain it. I know what it feels like when it comes too fast.
This time I do not let it erupt, I let it flow.
It begins as a low vibration beneath my ribs, then spills into my arms in thin luminous threads that run along my veins like liquid light.
The ropes around my wrists smolder as warmth spreads through my palms. I breathe through the pain, forcing the power outward instead of inward.
One of the men notices first.
“What the hell—”
Light unfurls from my fingers, wrapping around the wrist of the man holding the knife.
He jerks back but it is too late. The magic tightens and twists.
The blade slips from his grasp and turns in the air, guided by intention rather than touch, and drives into his throat with merciless precision.
The power pulls from somewhere too deep, and for a moment I cannot tell whether I am wielding it or feeding it.
Silence falls, and then chaos.
The second man lunges, but I feel him before he moves.
Intent ripples toward me like a disturbance in water, and I shift just enough to let his weight carry him forward.
Light lashes from my hand and strikes his knee.
Bone cracks. He falls and I do not hesitate.
The knife embedded in his companion’s throat wrenches free and arcs across the room at my command, sinking into flesh again.
The third charges with a club. I pull the magic wider this time, letting it surge through my shoulders and down into the floorboards. The planks beneath him splinter and he stumbles, and I am on him before he regains balance, blade flashing upward beneath his ribs.
The fourth backs away, fear finally overtaking appetite.
Flames creep along the far wall, licking at dry wood. The fire catches quickly, eager and bright. A faint smell of gasoline is in the air.
The last man tries to bolt for the door. I reach for him with what little strength remains and light streaks from my fingertips again, wrapping around his throat and crushing until he falls.
And then there are only two of us left.
Through the haze of smoke and the pounding in my ears, I see Mysin still standing in the far corner where he has watched everything unfold. His smile has faded, his earlier smugness drained from his face. His skin is pale beneath the soot streaking the air between us.
He does not move toward me now. He does not laugh. He simply watches.
I stagger in his direction, each step unsteady, the knife slick in my hand from the blood coating my fingers and wrist. My magic still hums faintly beneath my skin as though it has not yet realized the fight is over.
My vision blurs at the edges, heat and blood loss pulling at me, but I keep my focus fixed on him, on the brother who orchestrated this and called it entertainment.
“You,” I breathe, the word torn from a throat raw with smoke.
When I am close enough to see the calculation in his eyes he turns abruptly and slips through the door before I can reach him.
Almost immediately I hear the unmistakable scrape and metallic click of a lock thrown from the outside.
At the same moment the flames that had been creeping along the walls seem to swell and brighten, feeding hungrily on the timber as the heat rolls inward toward me.
I stumble toward the door and slam my shoulder against it, but it does not yield. The exterior must already be burning. Heat presses inward from every direction.
I try to force it open with my power, but my vision swims. The magic sputters. Blood loss drains what discipline I had left.
My legs buckle.
The fire spreads with a roar that fills the cabin and devours oxygen. I crawl once more toward the door, pounding against it until my fists leave streaks of red. Outside there is only crackling and collapse.
My strength ebbs.
The magic still glows faintly at my fingertips, but it feels distant now, like something slipping beyond reach. I sink to my knees.
If this is how it ends, at least I did not die begging.
I close my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, to Colsar, to myself, to the girl who once thought she could have sunlight and love that lasts all in one lifetime.
A tongue clicks in the smoke filled air.
“Always ashen, Ashen,” a voice says through the heat, amused and annoyed all at once. “Although perhaps I’ll start calling you Ash. That would be rather poetic, given your circumstances.”
Strong arms lift me before I can question whether I am hallucinating. The fire surges outward as if repelled, light exploding through the cabin in a violent burst that shakes the walls and shatters what remains of the door.
“I used it,” I murmur weakly against a shoulder that smells of night and iron. “Tell him I…I tried."
A low sound escapes him that might be a laugh or might be something far more dangerous. The explosion swallows the cabin behind us. Darkness folds over me as everything disappears into flame and smoke.