Unbound (The Griever's Mark series Book 3) (22 page)

“You do look quite dangerous.”

“Of course,” he agrees. “I am the Man of Many Secrets.”

I snort.

I do a better job of staying out of Horik’s way than I did the last time we danced. I step on his toes once or twice, but he pretends not to notice.

When the song slows, Horik asks quietly, “Everything is all right? With...”

I recall that the last time I saw Horik was when he came to get me this morning in the refugee camp. The last he saw of Logan was...not good.

“It will be all right,” I assure him. “It’s better.”

“I hope so, Astarti. You deserve good things.”

“I have good things, Horik.”

He looks doubtful, but he says, “All right.”

That is when things go wrong.

The hair rises on the back of my neck, and a chill races down my spine.

Find them, bind them. Bind, bind, bind.

The Ancorites’ ghostly fingers scrape through my energies, seeking, probing, testing. I spin as they sweep over me and away. I shove through the crowd, where people are shifting uncertainly. The music has stopped.

The wind stirs, beginning as a low whoosh and rising to a keening wail. Now people are scattering, clearing space around my destination.

But Logan cuts himself off before I get there. He is already walking away, the wind swirling at his back. The Ancorites whisper and flow around him. Tablecloths flutter and goblets topple as Logan and his pursuers sweep past the tables.

“Desist!” comes Heborian’s shout from behind. “Norimosis! Harilos! Furiklesis! Desist!”

The Ancorites lift into the air, hovering above Logan, then they are gone. I glance back to see Heborian standing at the edge of the dancing floor, his face set with determination, his body language a silent challenge.

He knows their names.

They obeyed him.

I need to know why, but I cannot confront him and go after Logan at the same time. I jog to catch up with Logan as he storms from the dining hall.

I find him with his hands braced on the wall, leaning into it like a winded runner. Air swirls around him, making the flames of the sconces dance and gutter. Logan drops one hand to unbutton his doublet. He hauls at the neck of his shirt. When I touch his arm, he starts.

I say, “Look at me.”

“I want to
kill
them!”

“I know. Look at me.”

He raises furious eyes. The firelight flickers over the surging green, blue, and amber of his irises.

This, I realize, is our first test.

I ask softly but firmly, “What do you need?”

Emotion plays over his face, uncertainty sweeping through the anger. “I don’t know.”

“Please.” I hold out my arms. “Come here.”

After a moment of fighting within himself, he pushes away from the wall. He moves toward me stiffly, but all I ask of him is that first step. I close the distance, slipping my arms around him. He is unyielding at first, then he molds his body to mine. He lets out a deep breath. His chin rests on top of my head.

“Thank you,” I say against his chest.

“I didn’t do anything.”

But he did. He let me help—he didn’t turn away—and that is everything right now.

Heborian’s voice echoes from the dining hall. I edge back to the doorway. Heborian stands on the platform that the musicians have abandoned. The crowd stands silent and trusting before him.

“You have nothing to fear! They want what we want: the security of Kelda and all lands. I
will
keep this city safe. Do you trust in your king or not?”

A resounding “aye!” booms from the crowd.

Heborian’s face angles toward me. The distance is too great for me to see his expression, but I don’t need to. I know what I’d find: a decision long since made. An acceptance of one more evil in the name of good.

Chapter 31

I DECIDE THAT snooping will yield more truth than a confrontation with Heborian, and so, late in the night, I find myself walking the castle’s battlements, looking for clues. Logan is asleep. I didn’t want to leave him. It feels like a breach of newly found trust, but I didn’t see a good alternative. If my suspicions are correct, and if I set this mad plan into action, there will be no going back. I must be sure.

I slide into the Drift at the approach of the guards. I could make up an excuse for my presence, but I don’t want it reported to Heborian. I move farther down the wall and continue my search.

I know the weapons themselves aren’t here because I would have seen them from the Drift. But I keep expecting the walls to show modifications to accommodate them. I find nothing, but I don’t let that ease my mind. I slide into the Drift and skim toward the brilliant white glow of the harpoons.

When Kronos tore through here, he frayed even the protective barrier around Heborian’s tower workroom. I duck around the broken, listless threads and slide out of the Drift. Half of the roof is missing, and starlight makes the floor glow dimly. The rubble has been pushed aside but not cleared. Heborian must not want anyone up here even to clean. Instinctively, I keep my footsteps silent. I shape a Drift-light and let it hover overhead.

The blue light catches on the long, smooth shapes of the bone harpoons. Half a dozen lean against the wall, the cruel barbs gleaming. The chains lie coiled like rope. The design, however, has been modified. The end of each chain is fitted with a long stake. When the hair lifts on the back of my neck, it takes me a moment to realize it’s not just the sight of the harpoons that unsettles me.

Bind, bind, bind.

I shape my spear, not caring that it’s useless against them.

Bind
, they whisper.
Bind
.

Heborian appears from the Drift limned by a soft blue glow. The Ancorites swirl around him and fade at his back, but they are still there. I can feel them.

“What have you done?” I whisper.

His face is impassive, as always, though new weariness hangs on him. “I’ve been clear that I will do what is needful.”

“You have an arrangement with the Ancorites. Don’t deny it.”

“I will ensure security.”

“Speak plainly!”

“They want what I want, Astarti. What I need.”

“But they want to bind the Old Ones. Would you turn on your gods that way?”

“Do you take me for a zealot and a fool? Do I strike you as a man who sets tradition above progress? I left much of Rune behind when I came here to start a new life and a new way. I will not have that crumble into the sea as so much of this castle did a few days ago.”

“And Logan?”

“If he does not join them, he is not my concern.”

“They may not return. They’ve not been seen since Kronos was freed.”

“They will return. In a month, a year, in ten years. Maybe not for another fifty or hundred. But they will return.” His face is stone where he says, “They are too dangerous to be allowed to live.”

“Could that not be said of you? Or of me or any Drifter? What if humans banded together and hunted us?” I add, to hurt him, “Do you think the Keldans love you?”

But it doesn’t pierce his armor. Nothing flickers in his tired eyes. “Of course they don’t love me. But they are glad to have a strong king at a time such as this.”

“And at another time? What if they turn on you?”

“You think they never have? I conquered this place. You think they liked that? But I have held it, and I will keep my hold of it.”

I am getting nowhere with this, so I return to more practical matters. “You don’t need to bind the Old Ones to do that.”

“You don’t know whether that is true. That is your guess, and it is based in compassion, not reason.”

“Perhaps, but I think it entirely
reasonable
to learn more about them before seeking to destroy them.”

“And how should we do that, Astarti?” He inflects his voice like it’s a question, but he doesn’t really mean it as one. He means that it’s not possible to learn about them. Because they are too dangerous. Because they are too different.

I answer him anyway. “With courage, Heborian. By trying.”

It doesn’t move him. He says with finality, “You must think your way. I must think mine. It is a good thing, perhaps, that we are not as alike as it sometimes seems.”

I feel distance grow between us. If I ever thought we might become more to one another, I was wrong. It is surprisingly painful to realize. I say, hardening my voice, “No, we are not so alike after all.”

“I wish I could trust you to abide by my decision,” Heborian says. The Ancorites whisper over his shoulder, sliding toward the harpoons. I lurch after them, but it’s far too late. I know it even as I swing my spear. The blade cuts through the insubstantial forms of the Ancorites and the harpoons as they shimmer and fade and are gone.

“But,” Heborian concludes as I wheel on him angrily, “I can only trust you to follow your own conscience. Perhaps it will all lead to the same place in the end.”

With that, he vanishes into the Drift.

*     *     *

I slide from the Drift into the sitting room, where Logan is waiting for me. A candle flame dances in a glass-faced lantern beside him. The light plays over his elbow planted on the chair arm and the fist propping up his tight jaw. His expression is distant, holding me away. Even when he speaks, he doesn’t look up.

“You say I don’t trust you, but I think that you do not trust me.”

That makes my heart gallop. “Why do you say that?”

“You had a suspicion, and you went to investigate it. Why did you not tell me?”

He has caught me; he knows me that well. “I wanted to confirm it before I said anything.”

“Why? Why could you not have told me your suspicion, whatever it was?”

I don’t want to answer because the truth is hurtful, but I also don’t want to lie to him.

He looks up, his eyes wary, and says quietly, “Please tell me, Astarti.”

I let out a slow breath. “Because it had to do with Heborian, and I did not think you would be level-headed about it.”

He takes that in. “You are probably right, but I still wish you would have told me.”

And I should have. What if he could have seized and destroyed those harpoons before the Ancorites took them? We would not be in this mess. I was cautious, as I always am, seeking information before deciding on my actions. I knew Logan would not be that way, and so I left him behind. But my cautious, thoughtful method has left me with a mess. A big one.

“I wish I had told you,” I admit. “I’m sorry that I didn’t. And I have a problem now. Will you help me fix it?” I hold my breath, unsure how angry he is with me.

He drops his fist, and all the distance that was in his expression vanishes. He is with me again. His eyes tell me that even before he says, “Always.”

I pace before the empty fireplace and tell him what I learned tonight. By the end, he is on his feet, arms crossed and face scowling.

He bites out, “He said he didn’t bring them here.”

“Well, he didn’t. But he’s certainly making use of their presence.”

Logan makes a cutting gesture with his hand. “That’s still a lie.”

I don’t argue the point. We have bigger concerns.

He says, “So what do we do? Wait for a chance to get a hold of the Ancorites and destroy the harpoons?”

“That’s one possibility, though we have to consider that Heborian could seek out more bones and make more weapons. He used you to find these bones because it was expedient. That doesn’t mean that, given time, he can’t find more on his own.”

Logan’s expression hardens, and I know what he wants to say. He tilts his face down, trying to repress it.

“Just say it,” I tell him. “Get it out.”

He shakes his head.

“It won’t hurt me to hear you say it.”

“But it would hurt you if I did it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I won’t do it, Astarti.”

“I know.”

“But I want to,” he says. “I want to kill him.”

“I know.”

His arms loosen a little now that he’s gotten to say it. Sometimes, that is all we need.

He shakes his head. “I don’t see what we can do other than wait for our chance at the Ancorites.”

I take a deep breath. “There is one more option.”

Chapter 32

LOGAN

I LET ASTARTI take me through the Drift to reach Belos’s prison cell. Even for the brief moments we are in the Drift, everything in me rebels against the exposure. Astarti pretends not to notice how my energies surge, but she does hurry us past the dozing guard and straight to Belos. When we reach him, I am briefly calmed. He sits listlessly on his bench, arms chained above him. His energies are ragged and dim, marked by dark holes like they’ve been burned through. It’s hard to believe this ruined man ever held so much power over me.

But when Astarti pulls me from the Drift—when Belos lifts his head and smiles that cold smile I remember so well—rage churns in my gut again. He may be diminished, but it’s still him, and I am sickened by the memory of what I was under his power. He looks at me in a way that says he, too, can still picture it.

I cannot go through with this plan.

To give him what he wants? No. It’s wrong on every level.

Worst of all, I will have to touch him. My hands start shaking at the thought. Nausea boils up, and I have to close my eyes for a moment. I open them to find him watching me, so pleased with himself.

He turns his sly smile on Astarti, taking in the leather pack slung over her shoulder. “And to think you doubted me. Will you never learn?”

I growl, “And how do we know you’re not lying?”

He smirks. “The application of reason, of course. Astarti, I think, has it figured out. One thing, above all, makes it clear.” He gives her the chance to answer, as though she is a pupil anxious to please her tutor. When she refuses to play his game, he continues without missing a beat, “Heborian kept me alive. Surely, Logan, you didn’t believe that whole ‘his death doesn’t belong to you alone’ speech? Heborian is far more practical than that. Tell me: did he ever announce a date of execution?”

I try to keep the surprise from showing on my face, but Belos’s satisfied smile tells me I’ve failed. Heborian did not announce a date. And the execution would have made most sense before the feast. My mind has been such a mess that I didn’t even notice.

Astarti did. At least, she’s put it together with the other clues. “He’s kept you alive to attract Kronos. He thinks Kronos will be drawn back to you.”

Belos doesn’t answer, but he looks disgustingly pleased.

“There will be a few rules,” Astarti says.

Belos straightens as though to pay careful attention. “Oh, do tell.”

“You will not lie about Kronos’s location. If you mislead us, we have no use for you, and we will kill you.”

“Got it. Next?”

“You will tell no one who you are. We don’t need that kind of attention. If you give yourself away, we will kill you.”

“Anything else?”

“If you try to escape, we will kill you.”

“I’m noticing a pattern here.”

“I should hope so.”

I cut in, “You’re quite glib for a man in your position.”

Belos opens his mouth to reply, but Astarti cuts him off. “What direction?”

“North.”

“Can you be more precise?”

“No. I can’t track him through the Drift, and the sense of direction is vague at this distance.”

“And what distance is that? How far are we talking?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

Astarti studies him, unsure if he’s lying. As far as I’m concerned, he’s always lying.

Astarti concedes, “We’ll have to take it a bit at a time. Logan?”

I set my jaw. I just have to not think about it. This will take me to my father, and that is all I can allow to enter my thoughts. We have to warn him not to come back here. We have to know what he wants. Belos is a tool, a means to that end. Nothing more.

But the second I put my hand on his wiry arm, revulsion swallows me from the inside. My lungs seize up. I jerk my hand back.

I spin away, pacing to the edge of the cell as he says, “Oh, come now, Logan. It’s not like we haven’t danced before.”

“Shut up!” Astarti hisses.

Her hand touches my hip. She waits until I get my breath back then says, “You know we can’t take him though the Drift without using the Shackle, not now that he’s lost his Drift-power.”

“I know,” I grit out. “I’ll do it.”

We can’t let him near the Shackle, not yet.

She whispers, “He has no power over you.”

I let out a breath that shakes my whole body. How can she be so strong? Surely he must give her the same sick feeling he gives me? Surely it is worse for her, given that she spent so many years with him,
Leashed
to him? She says it was not the same because she was not possessed, but it was the same. He controlled her life, set her boundaries. Yet she can move on, move forward. Why am I so stuck?

It is the thought of Astarti and not of my father that makes me turn again to Belos.

Astarti adjusts her grip on the pack and takes my right hand. I lay my left on Belos’s arm. Shudders work their way up my arm and through my body. Astarti squeezes my hand. I close my eyes so I don’t see Belos’s sickening face. I let myself dissolve. Astarti fades quickly. I know her energies, and they respond like an extension of my own.

Belos, however, flickers then solidifies. I tell myself it should feel good to have such power over his body, but reaching into him to alter his composition is far too intimate. I pull back—how that must delight him. Astarti’s essence brushes close to mine, soothing and steady, certain I can do this. I let my mind focus on her. I force Belos to the edge of my awareness, where I touch his energies with little thought. His chains thump against the wall.

I draw us out of the cell, past the oblivious guard, and up the stairs. I slip us through the nearest window.