Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) (9 page)

“Hello, Magery,” Arlow called with a wave. “Hello, Roldon.”

They waved back. “What are you up to?” Roldon asked, as he hopped down the last few rocks.

“Nothing much.”

 
Bray’s eye was caught by the figure at the rear of the promenade. He was obviously Chaskuan, by his dark gleaming hair and the distinctive way his eyes were set in his face. He was so small she would have guessed him to be nine or ten years old, not the fourteen he must be. More than that, his back curved strangely, and his left foot turned inward and did not seem to bend properly. He made his way down the sharp incline with slow careful steps, but without aid.
 

“Peer was showing us how to outrun the ocean,” Arlow said.
 

Magery’s gaze lingered on the apparent wetness on Arlow’s pants and she smiled.

“We were just showing some of the newbies around,” she said. She gestured to a Chaskuan girl who had her shiny black hair cut to frame her face. Her cheeks were like smooth plains and her mouth a rosebud. “This is Mi-Na.” Mi-Na bobbed her head in acknowledgement. “Adearre,” Magery continued, pointing to a boy with dark skin and honey-colored eyes—an Adourran, clearly. “Rinny.” A girl with sandy hair and a mousy face. “And Ko-Jin,” she said, as the small boy finally caught up with the group.
 

Bray and her friends introduced themselves and the newcomers took seats on the shore, forming a circle in the sand. They took turns saying where they were from. Magery was from a wealthy family in southern Daland. Roldon’s family ran an animal preserve down in Andle. Mi-Na’s mother had been a seamstress in Anask, a city in southern Chasku.
 

“What about you, Adearre?” Magery prompted.
 

The boy Adearre ran sand through his hands, feeling the coarseness between his fingers. “I come from a town outside Leonna,” he said in a musical cadence. “My people had cattle.”
 

“And Rinny?” Magery asked.
 

The girl twitched. “I’m from Accord,” she said with a rough accent that Bray associated with the uneducated.
 

“Really?” Arlow asked. “What quarter? I’ve spent a lot of time in the capital.”

“No quarter you’ve ever been to,” she said, examining him with dislike, “though I did on occasion conduct business in the green district.”
 

“Conduct business?” Arlow asked dryly. “What kind of business?”

Rinny gave him a wide smile, revealing a large gap between her front two teeth, then tossed something to him. Arlow caught the object in his hand and stared at it dumbfounded. “My wallet?”
 

“It was already empty,” she said.

“I’m aware of that fact,” Arlow replied, jamming the item back into his pocket. “And you could hardly call that
business
.”

She shook her head. “You’d be surprised; ever since the Pauper’s King took charge, theft in the city has gotten real organized.”

“Have you met him?” Bray asked. She knew his face from the ubiquitous wanted posters. Was he as handsome in person?

“The King?” Rinny asked, rubbing her nose. “Sure I have. Well I’ve seen him, anyway. He doesn’t have much to do with street runners like me.”

“So you’re a real professional pickpocket?” Ko-Jin asked. Unlike Mi-Na, he had no discernible accent. “I’ve always wondered how that’s done—how do they not feel your hand?”

“I’ll show you,” Rinny said and hopped up to her feet. “It’s a real art, you know.”
 

Ko-Jin pushed himself up off the sand, leaning the majority of his weight on his one good foot.
 

“Now the trick is to have them bump into you. If you bump into them, it’s more suspicious…”

Rinny began guiding Ko-Jin through the proper etiquette of thieving, and he listened with rapt attention.

“How long have you three been here?” Adearre asked.
 

“Just two days,” Peer said.
 

“That’s quite a
redrre
you have.”
 

Peer’s brow quirked in confusion, so Adearre pointed to his swollen eye.

“Aye, my shiner,” Peer said, touching the purple skin with delicate fingertips.

“
Shiner
,” Adearre repeated, trying the word on.

“You’ll probably have one of your own soon enough,” Arlow said.

The sound of the waves lapping rhythmically against the beach was lulling Bray to sleep. She looked up at the sun—the morning had grown late. In a few hours they would need to return for their third round of testing. She wondered what would happen if they just refused to go. Would they be dragged into the ring?
 

She aroused from her stupor at the sound of Ko-Jin sitting down next to her and Rinny rejoining the other side of the circle.
 

“So Ko-Jin, what’s your story?” Roldon asked, his soft brown curls dancing in the wind.
 

“Yeah,” Rinny said. “What happened to your foot?”

Bray thought this rather rude, but Ko-Jin merely shrugged and said, “Nothing happened. I was born this way.”

“You’d be good on the streets, you know,” Rinny said. “Cripples always are.”
 

Ko-Jin frowned, a touch of color blooming on his cheeks. The circle grew uncomfortably quiet.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”
 

Ko-Jin shook his head. “I just don’t like that word—cripple. It isn’t even accurate. It comes from the old Dalish word for ‘creep.’” He offered them a wide, dimpled smile. “I don’t creep. I shuffle.”
 

They laughed, and the tension eased. Mi-Na asked him a question in Chaskuan and he answered in that language, leaving the rest of them in the dark.
 

“How do you speak such good Dalish?” Peer asked.

“My step-dad is Dalish. He’s a fisherman in Ucho Nod.” Ko-Jin tucked his deformed foot underneath him. “So, is there something we are meant to be doing now?”

“Not really,” Bray said as Magery nodded agreement. “We have to be in the gardens for testing every day, but other than that we’re allowed to do as we please.”
 

“We were thinking on a game to play before you lot showed up,” Peer said.

Roldon perked up, a boyish smile crossing his face. “I know a great game.”

Roldon and Peer bent over a hand-drawn map of the Temple grounds, intent. Bray and her new friends had taken refuge in the Philosophy library, a small, round den of books near the cliffs. Bray chewed on her lip and gazed out the window. She could see straight out to the horizon, the sea glittering with morning sun.

“I think our best shot lies up here,” Roldon said, pushing his brown curls from his eyes.
 

“Nah, B team took up there yesterday,” Peer said.

Roldon’s shoulders slumped. “Yes…yes, you’re right.”

“I say still,” Adearre’s musical voice sounded from behind a bookcase, “that we should stay mobile.”

Roldon smoothed the map with his hands, pressing it flatter to the table. “We already tried that—it was an utter disaster. No, a good concealing location is best.”

“Besides, I’d hold you back,” Ko-Jin said.
 

Bray shot him an annoyed look. “How many times do I have to tell you? Our team is stronger
with
you. We’d have been out in the first ten minutes yesterday without your quick thinking.”
 

Ko-Jin smiled thankfully at her.

“Why don’t you get your great brain over here? Help us choose a spot,” Peer said, moving to make a spot for the Chaskuan boy.

“Hey now,” Ko-Jin said, rising awkwardly from his chair. “I’m more than just a brain. What I lack in foot speed I make up in upper body strength.” He raised one bone-thin arm and flexed, winking at Bray, then turned to the map.

“The real problem is me,” Arlow said, his bruised face morose. “I’m famed for my atrocious luck. Always have been.”
 

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Roldon said. “It’s tactics we need.”

Bray smiled. The game—Smugglers and Scrutineers—had, in the week since their first round down by the beach, become a serious business. They played every morning, and with such a sizable group and wide, interesting landscape, it had reached an impressive scale. Bray lived for the game, as did they all, for the simple reason that it served as a distraction. A distraction from the testing, the pain, the failure and humiliation.
 

Roldon removed the quartz paperweight from his pocket and placed it on the table reverently, as if it were really the diamond they purported it to be.

“Here’s what I think,” Ko-Jin said, his brows drawn together in concentration. “We hide it in the foliage here.” He pointed at the map. “It’s got good visibility but a limited entrance. Peer and Adearre will serve as runners again. Bray and I will act as lookouts in one of these trees.” He looked over at her. “Do you think you could help me up again?” Bray nodded. “Roldon and Arlow scout. I’m willing to bet B team will be up in this area again.” He ran his fingers along the lake. “C team is less predictable.”
 

Roldon shook his head and whistled. “You should have been a general, Ko-Jin.”

“There hasn’t been a war in over two hundred years. Generals are forgotten things these days.”
 

Ko-Jin rolled up the map and handed it to Roldon.
 

“Is it all settled, then?” Arlow asked. “Truthfully, I could really use a win today…”

“We all could, mate,” Peer said, clapping Arlow on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

They left the library and hurried, keeping low to the ground, to their selected location. The Temple grounds sprawled, massive and winding. It was easy enough to get lost. Playing the game for the past week had familiarized them better than any tour could have, but they still found themselves easily turned around. As they approached the Cosanta portion of the Temple, Bray crouched lower still, careful to keep out of sight. The Chisanta didn’t seem to mind what the plebes did, as long as they stayed out of the way.
 

“Hey,” Arlow whispered, halting and peering between two shrubs. “It’s Yarrow.”

Bray shifted a clump of bushes and peeked into the opening. Yarrow hunkered beneath the shade of a tree. He wore long emerald green robes and sat near several Cosanta in their mid-twenties. The others carried on an animated conversation, but Yarrow did not join them. He had placed himself apart and leaned over a thick book in his lap. Bray felt an ache in her chest at the sight. He looked lonely. Spirits, how she missed him. As much as she adored all of her new friends, none of them could replace Yarrow.

“Lamhart,” a blonde woman said, her face so covered in freckles that even her lips and eye lids were spotted.

“Yes?” Yarrow looked up.

“You need to practice. Books won’t get you to the
Aeght a Seve
.”

Yarrow sighed but nodded. He set his tome aside and stood, then crossed to a circular clearing. His legs bent and he began to move with slow, fluid steps—the warrior dance Bray had seen many Cosanta do since coming to the Temple. Her breath caught as she watched him. He was so graceful, his face a smooth mask. He looked so unlike himself.
 

“Bray,” Roldon whispered, “we have to keep moving.”

Bray recalled herself to the game and nodded. She spared one quick parting glance for her estranged friend before they crept beyond the Cosanta grounds, up to the gardens.

The dark earth bore neat rows of vegetables: red peppers, squash, and zucchini. Roldon placed their treasure amidst the eggplants, keeping it partially visible as the rules stipulated. Adearre and Peer crouched behind the well, ready to dart out and run away with the diamond should the need arise—in opposing directions so as to split the opposition. Arlow and Roldon slunk away, in search of enemy treasure.

“Ready?” Bray asked, when she and Ko-Jin had reached a promising tree, a tall evergreen.
 

“Maybe if you just give me a leg up I can manage…” Ko-Jin said. He frowned up at the lowest bough.
 

Bray contained a sigh. It was much easier when he let her help, but his pride seemed to demand he do everything with as little aid as possible—especially from a girl.
 

She cupped her hands and he placed his good foot in them. She lifted with all her strength, though he was quite light, and he grabbed the branch and slowly pulled himself up. Despite his crack earlier about the thinness of his arms, he really did have a fair amount of upper body strength. Bray stayed below and watched him as he climbed up, or rather pulled himself up, limb by limb.
 

“This is a great view,” he said, looking down at her. “Come on up.”
 

Bray backed up several paces and took a running start. She bounded and caught the lowest branch, wrapped her legs around it, and swung until she perched upon the bough—a move that would be impossible in a dress. Thank the Spirits for trousers. She then balanced on the branch and repeated the process until she had joined Ko-Jin high up on his roost.
 

“You look like a monkey,” Ko-Jin said, and slid over to make room for her.