Unbound (The Griever's Mark series Book 3) (7 page)

Drift-light glows around all the Drifters as they prepare for attack. She ignores them.

She turns to me, moving in and through the rain. Her rainy hand touches my face. In that brief touch, I feel a power like my own, elemental and wild.

But I picture the ship, full of lives that meant nothing to her. Astarti was aboard that ship.

I harden myself, clenching the fist that holds me together. Because it’s not enough, and those fingers are too weak, I look to the one person who can save me from myself.

The Old One follows my eyes to Astarti, who stands a few feet away, drenched in rain and unmoving. Astarti watches me with sad, accepting eyes. She believes I will leave her.

I close my own eyes to shut that out before it drives a knife into me. When I open my eyes again, there is nothing but the rain.

Chapter 9

SITTING PROPPED AGAINST the headboard, I keep my Drift-light faintly glowing. My foot is pressed to Logan’s hip, waiting. I yawn at my book, and the lines of text blur. I blink a few times to clear my vision. I reread a paragraph. The book is a collection of Runish tales. It’s a translation, so I don’t know how much has been altered from the original, but I’m finding it difficult to make sense of these stories. In the one that keeps going blurry, the gods walk backward along a river, growing younger around each bend.

Logan twitches, and I am suddenly wide awake. He mumbles something in his sleep, then relaxes. The sheet is pulled up to his chest, hiding the bruising, but I can picture it well enough. I will not let him do that again.

He sleeps quietly for a while, and I go back to my book. One of the gods trips on a stone and complains, “That wasn’t here before.” Another laughs, “Did you imagine the river would be the same? Walk it again tomorrow, or yesterday, and it will be changed once more.”

Logan twitches again. His arm jerks, and I lay my fingers on his shoulder. He settles only briefly before the shudders start through his body. I drop the book and shake him gently. His muscles are knotted tight, his torso and neck straining and slick with sudden sweat. He makes a choking sound, and I shout his name, shaking him harder.

He lurches up. His hand shoots out, fingers spread as though clenched around someone’s throat. He is snarling, furious.

I lay my fingers on his rigid arm. I say his name a few times before he gasps. His arm drops. His stomach jerks with his harsh breathing.

When he starts to throw the sheet aside, I spread my hand low on his belly, pinning the sheet. “No.”

He is frozen, undecided. He won’t look at me.

“Come here.
Logan
.”

He pulls away and swings his legs out of the bed. He props his elbows on his knees. My Drift-light paints cool blue over his sweat-slick, scarred back.

I slide out of bed and grab the waiting cup from the washstand. I hurry around the foot of the bed before he can get up. I crouch before him, but he still doesn’t look at me. His fingers are laced together, twisting.

“Please don’t leave,” I beg him.

He takes a shuddering breath. He hasn’t said a word. I lay my hand on his thigh. He’s shaking like he’s cold, but his skin is too warm. I tighten my fingers, asking him to look at me, but he doesn’t.

I press the cup at his hands. His fingers twitch away from it. “Please,” I implore. “Don’t leave.”

Slowly, his hands unclench, and he takes the cup. I hold my breath when he hesitates with it halfway to his mouth. He puts it to his lips and drinks.

I let him sit there for a few minutes, but the fast-working sedative soon makes him sway. I nudge him until he lies down. Right before the drug takes him, his eyes meet mine. His eyes beg me for something, but I don’t know what. His pain dissolves into oblivion.

*     *     *

I wake with a start, then ease back to my pillow when I feel Logan beside me. Morning light paints his face gold and gleams in the waves of his hair. I brush my knuckles along his stubble-roughened cheek, but he doesn’t stir.

He never shifted positions during the night, and he lies so still that I sit up, worried. I press my fingers to his throat, right under his jaw. His pulse beats a regular, steady rhythm.

I slip from the bed and tug on my clothes, watching Logan all the while. If I hurry, maybe I can make it back before he wakes.

As I cross through the sitting room, I hear someone moving about in the adjoining suite. Though that suite was meant to be mine, I haven’t done more than gather clothes from it since Logan and I returned to Tornelaine. I go to the door between the suites. I’m sure it’s nothing, but suspicion is a deeply ingrained habit.

When I catch a few notes of Clara’s humming, I quietly back away from the door. A floorboard creaks, and I freeze. Clara’s humming cuts off. Her light footsteps approach the door. She knocks. I curse silently and debate whether or not to answer.

“Astarti?” she calls quietly through the door.

I sigh and open it.

Clara sucks in a disapproving breath when she sees me. Her soft brown hair is pulled into an elegant knot at the nape of her neck, and her gown of green and white silk sweeps along the feminine curves of her body. Her fingers twitch as she eyes my hair, and I resist the urge to scrape the loose pieces away from my face.

“Not today,” I say quietly. “I have things to do.”

Disappointment pinches the skin around her eyes. “I could just—”

“Nope. Sorry. No time.”

Frustration gets the better of her. “But you’re really quite lovely, underneath it all. You never do anything to show it.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “You do realize we’re in the middle of a war?” Fear moves through her eyes, so I soften my tone. “What does my hair matter, at a time like this?”

She knots her fingers. “It’s my job. I don’t have anything else to do.”

I want to say it’s a not a very important job, but Clara doesn’t deserve my meanness. Even so, I can’t delay any longer simply to make her feel better. “Another time.”

“Really?”

Oh, dear. Have I just made a promise? “On the right occasion. Not today.” Hopefully that’s vague enough.

Her lips tug up in a smile. “It’s a deal.”

Fingers walk up my spine at the word. Of all the deals I’ve brokered, surely this one is the most harmless. “Deal,” I echo, letting the word mean nothing more than it really does.

I walk down several hallways, moving steadily toward the infirmary. With any luck, the Healers won’t be there yet and I can get a good supply of sedative from Heborian’s physician, Renald. It’s not that the Healers wouldn’t give it to me, but they would ask questions. I don’t want to lie to Logan’s mother, but Logan should choose what he tells her.

The quickest route takes me past the yawning double doors of the throne room. The hum of voices from within makes me pause. I lean against one of the ornately carved and gilded doors, which stretches to a sharp peak some twenty feet above me.

I’ve never been inside the throne room, nor have I known Heborian to use it. He is perhaps a little too Runish to make use of such an imperious space. The huge, rectangular room with its vaulted ceiling is lined with columns. Morning light, bright from yesterday’s rain, filters through the high, stained-glass windows, casting amber, blue, and yellow light over the gathered Earthmaker Council. Several dozen Earthmakers sit on long benches set in a semicircle, taking up less than a quarter of the room’s space. Behind them, a dais rises several feet to elevate an ornate, gold-leaf throne.

Heborian has granted permission for the Council to use this room for its sessions. Such sessions, I’m told, are public by Earthmaker law. However, their definition of “public” is that other Earthmakers may attend, though they are not to speak unless addressed by a Council member. Heborian insisted that, in his castle, public would mean anyone could listen, and I spot Heborian and his advisor, Wulfstan, on one of the benches.

Of course, Heborian allotted the Council this particular room for a reason. Even though he sits on the benches with everyone else, the throne oversees the discussion, reminding the Earthmakers who really holds power here.

I’m told the Council room in the House of the Arcon is circular and has stone benches that rise level by level to overlook a round speaking floor. No doubt that would lend the whole enterprise a bit more grandeur than can be managed here with the mismatched benches and everyone craning their necks to see the speaker of the moment.

I don’t recognize the man in the center of the semicircle. He turns as he speaks, addressing everyone. He wears a typical Earthmaker under-tunic and loose cross-body robes gathered at one shoulder.

“We need information,” he proclaims. “How can we make decisions, how can we guide our Wardens to proper action when we know nothing of what the Unnamed plans?”

Aron speaks from a bench. “And how should we discover his plans, Counselor Argos? The Wood has burned. We cannot reach Avydos, not in secret, not even openly.”

Polemarc Clitus stands from beside Aron. “I will say it again: we must put ourselves under King Heborian’s command.”

Those around Heborian stiffen, and Counselor Argos argues, “No disrespect, Polemarc, but are you so eager to abandon your authority? No disrespect to Heborian either”—he notably leaves off Heborian’s title—“but we are allies, not subordinates.”

“You are missing the point, Counselor,” insists Clitus. “We have not the luxury—”

Someone behind me says, “Eighty-five years since I’ve see this, and nothing has changed.”

I spin to find the Earthmaker from the whaling ship standing with his arms crossed, scowling over my shoulder at the gathering. He is dressed like a sailor in salt-stained sandals, loose linen trousers and a billowing shirt, but there’s no mistaking those eyes or that particular stillness of the face that even being Stricken cannot change. At least, Logan says that must have been the man’s fate.

The Earthmaker backs out of my space and looks me over. “You are Astarti, the king’s daughter. You saved our ship. I did not thank you.”

“Logan brought us in, not me.”

“He is your lover?”

Heat blooms in my face at the blunt words.

The Earthmaker makes no note of my discomfort, only says bitterly, “Let us hope that some things, at least, have changed in that Council room.”

“Is that why you were...?”

“Stricken,” he says sharply. “You can say it, girl; it’s just a word.”

He seems very alone, and I can’t help wondering what became of the one for whom he gave up so much. The question must be written on my face because the Earthmaker’s eyes soften a little, and he says, “I gave her all I could, but long life was not in my power.”

“I’m sorry.”

His lips thin. “Your man. What is he? I’m told he’s the Prima’s son, but he looks nothing like I remember Arathos. Oh, don’t look so angry. I don’t care if he’s a bastard. I’m only curious. Those creatures—he moves like them.”

“Creatures? Did you abandon your gods along with your people?”

Anger flashes through his eyes. “I abandoned nothing.”

Benches scrape inside the throne room. Voices mix, growing conversational, and footsteps ring across the marble floor.

The Earthmaker edges away even as I do. “Good day to you, Astarti.”

I grit my teeth as he turns away. He knows my name, but I didn’t ask his. I don’t like feeling at a disadvantage. But the Earthmaker disappears around a corner, so I head on my own way.

My heart sinks when I peer into the infirmary. Feluvas hovers over a worktable, sniffing one steaming bowl, then another. She adds a pinch of gray powder to one, a few drops of something to the other. Korinna and Gaiana sit on one of beds lining the wall, speaking with a heavily pregnant woman. Gaiana hands the woman a packet and offers instruction on the dosage of the herbs within.

Renald isn’t here. I start to edge away.

“Astarti,” Gaiana calls and beckons me inside.

Caught, I force a smile.

Gaiana and Korinna help the woman to her feet and lead her to the door. We all watch the poor woman waddle down the hall.

Gaiana comments, “As if bearing a child isn’t stressful enough, she must do it during this awful time. She is not the only one. Life was in the middle of happening for us all.”

I make a sound of agreement.

Gaiana adds in a low voice, “It’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. Korinna? If you would help Feluvas?”

I shift uncomfortably as Korinna hurries away. Gaiana motions me into the room. The only escape would be through horrible rudeness, and I can’t quite make myself do it. Gaiana has been kind to me from the beginning.

She sits on one of the beds. I perch stiffly on the edge of the one across from her. Our knees almost touch. Mine are enclosed in tight woolen breeches, hers draped with a filmy robe.

She gets right to it. “Astarti, have you been taking precautions?”

“Precautions?”

“To see that you don’t become pregnant.”

My cheeks flame.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, child. But you should be wise. This is a dangerous time.”

“I, um...I don’t have regular courses. I haven’t had one for months.” Not since the time I spent in Belos’s dungeon before I even met Logan, long before we lay together. My palms break out with sweat. I have never discussed this sort of thing with anyone, and she is Logan’s mother, of all people.

A line wedges between her brows. “That happens sometimes. Stress, malnourishment, many things. I can give you something for it.”

My face is absolutely on fire. “No, it’s fine. Honestly, it’s a blessing right now.”

She nods understanding but says, “All the same, that is very hard on your body. You may want children someday, and you must take care of yourself.”

I give a jittery laugh, though nothing is funny.