Elevation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 2) (28 page)

“Yes,” Charlem said, a wide grin splitting his dark face. “I’m fourteen years old today. Well, give or take a few weeks.”
 

Sunlight poured into the tent as two large forms entered from the street. Charlie froze, fearing the authorities, but relaxed when the flap of the tent closed and he could see the men properly. He smiled and sat up straighter.
Chi’santae!

He had never seen Chi’santae up close before, yet he knew these two immediately. They wore the tabards of their kind, a single red tree upon white fabric, as well as the tattoo on their necks—the five circles halved by a vertical line. Besides, there were two of them. Chi’santae always came in twos.
 

One was a tall white man with a hawk-like nose and blond hair tied into a braid hanging down his back, the other was squatter but broader-shouldered, an Adourran man with a shorn head.

The men ordered the most costly tea Mrs. Velerre carried and took seats, cross-legged, on cushions.
 

Charlem rose to approach them, admiration stamped across his features.
Real, live Tree Guards!

Before he could address the men, however, the tent flap stirred again. He dove under the nearest table and prayed he had not been seen.

“Sorry to disturb you, Madame,” a deep, recognizable voice said. “I am looking for a thief. About this tall, gangly lad, smart mouth.”

Charlem frowned at the underside of the table.
Gangly?
 

“That Charlie boy giving you trouble again?” Mrs. Velerre laughed. “Sorry, sir, I’ve not seen him this day.”

“Thank you for your time.” The constable sighed mightily. “Boy’ll be the death of me,” he mumbled to himself as he retreated.

Charlem let out his held breath.

“You can come out, lad,” one of the Chi’santae said, a laugh in his voice.
 

With as much dignity as he could muster, he crawled from beneath his table and stood, conscious that his clothing was laughably worn and ill-fitted. He strode up to the Tree Guard and held out his hand—to the Adourran, as he was not sure if the white man would speak his tongue. “Thank you for not alerting the constable to my presence.”

The man smiled in surprise. Adults were always taken aback by the way he spoke.
 

“That was a deft move,” he said, gesturing to Charlie’s hiding place. “Have you ever been tested at the temple?”

Charlem’s eyes went wide and he shook his head. “No, never, but I’ve seen it done.”

“You’ve seen what done?” the Dalishman asked fluently.
 

“The test,” Charlem said. “The Chi’santae fight the kids and sometimes the kids can suddenly fight back.”

“How have you seen this? It is done in secret, behind unclimbable walls.”

Charlem grinned. “Not
so
unclimbable, sir.”
 

The two men exchanged significant glances. “Well, you seem an enterprising, agile lad. You should have been tested. Why did your parents not send you?”

Mrs. Velerre placed a tray of fresh fruit on the table for her customers. “Charlie boy hasn’t any parents. Everyone around these parts knows him, though. He’s a bright, funny thing.”

Charlem’s cheeks flushed at this description, but he schooled his face, determined to appear as stoic as these illustrious gentlemen.
 

The Adourran surveyed him up and down, not with pity—an expression he was used to, and which he used to his advantage, but that he nonetheless despised. Rather, the Chi’santae’s gaze seemed to appraise, to weigh and measure. “Where are your parents, boy?”

Charlem shrugged. “If there ever were such people, they haven’t introduced themselves to me.”

“How did you come by a Dalishman’s name, then?” the other asked, his eyes eerily light blue in his pale face.
 

Again, Charlem responded with a shrug. “Don’t know how I got my name, I just know what it is.” His name was something of a puzzle. If he had any Dalish in him, it certainly didn’t show; his complexion was dark as rich soil. It didn’t keep him up nights. He was himself, no matter his parentage.
 

“If you accompany us, we will see you tested. Though, understanding what the test entails, I would understand if you should choose not to join us.”

Charlem grinned so wide the slice of teeth and gums consumed his face. “Oh, I’ll come alright. I’ve seen you all training. I’ve always wanted to be one of you.” He punched the air a few times, grunting as he had heard trainees do. “Learn how to fight.”

The Adourran laughed to his companion. “If this is not a Chi’ona, I will part with my monthly stipend.”

The braided man considered Charlem over steepled fingers. “He does have a certain brutishness to him, doesn’t he?”

The shorn-haired Adourran stroked his chin, his black eyes glittering with mirth. “I don’t know, though. He does seem to favor flight over fight. Perhaps he is Co’santa after all.”

Charlem had the impression they were poking fun at each other and not him, but still he resented the implication. When his countryman proffered a slice of kiwi, however, he forgot his indignation. He tore into the sweet flesh with abandon and sank down at the table with the two gentlemen.
 

“So, why do you all protect that tree?” he asked, as he licked his teeth to remove the seeds.
 

The Adourran leaned in, as if confidentially, with raised brows and a tight smile. “It is a very special tree.”

Charlem squinted to better examine the image of the tree on his tabard. After a short appraisal he said, “Doesn’t look too special to me.”

“As I am sure you know,” the Dalishman said, “many things which appear ordinary conceal greatness.”

Charlem was not entirely sure he did know this, but he nodded his head sagely. “May I ask another question?”

“Curiosity is no crime,” the white man answered.
 

“How come there are so many trainees at the temple but so few Chi’santae?”
 

The Tree Guards smiled at each other, a private, intimate moment. The Adourran spoke first, “You see, Charlem, there are two steps to becoming Chi’santae. The first, as you have seen, is skill. One must have an innate spark—and then they must train. This takes many years of dedication and difficult, often painful, work. When a man or woman has been deemed an expert, then they are tattooed,” he motioned to the mark upon his own neck.
 

“But aren’t there two different kinds?” Charlem asked, his eyes gleaming with enthusiastic interest.
 

“Yes. There are the Chi’ona, like myself, and the Co’santa, like Godderd. They are oppositional, or more accurately, complementary.” He gestured to his companion for help.

The blond chose a cherry from the fruit plate and held it up, pinched between long index finger and thumb. “All things have two kinds of power: the power of possibility and the power of action. What will happen if I release this cherry?”

“It will fall,” Charlem responded with certainty.

“Yes. In this moment, as I hold it, it is full of the power of possibility. It holds in it the potential of the fall, the force the earth gives all things.”

“But if you don’t drop it then it’s just a cherry,” Charlem said with a laugh.

“It is just a cherry either way. But, even should I never drop the cherry, that does not take away its power of possibility.”

“Alright,” Charlem said, not really understanding but growing bored. “What’s its other power then?”

“The power of action.” The Dalishman, with such swiftness his arm seemed to blur before Charlem’s eyes, hurled the small fruit. It smacked his companion squarely in the forehead.
 

“Gah!” the Adourran complained, massaging the point of impact. “You brute.”

“Yes,” Godderd said solemnly. “The power of the Chi’ona is rather brutish, but necessary nonetheless.”

The Adourran glowered at his friend. “Last time I let a Co’santa explain what it means to be Chi’ona,” he muttered.

Charlem propped his head on his hand, elbow on the table. “You haven’t answered my question, you know.”

His countryman laughed. “Patience, young one. As I said, there are two steps to becoming Chi’santae. When the first—skill—is mastered, then one becomes a full Chi’ona or Co’santa, as the case may be. The next part is destiny. It is finding one’s other half,
bevolder,
as it is called in the old tongue. Spirit mate.” He gestured to Godderd. “He is my
bevolder
, my spirit’s complement. Separately, we are first-rate fighters. Together, we are magnificent. Not all men have a
bevolder
, or are perhaps unable to find them. Some men stay at the temple, seeking their other half for a lifetime. But most, after a few years, move on. They take their hard-won skills and find employment as guards, assassins, or soldiers.”

Charlem contemplated this for a time. He’d never been able to rely on another person—he had learned ages ago to accept the help of others but not depend upon it. A man—or boy, in his case—must forge his own way. “Seems unfair. It’s not someone’s fault if their other half gets lost.”
 

The Adourran frowned, serious. “That is true, but there is no single individual who can be Chi’santae. Chi’santae is not one man; it is two.” He tossed back the contents of his tea cup and left a generous sum of coins on the table. “We must return. If you would still like to be tested, you may come with us.”

Charlem launched to his feet without second thought.
 

Charlem itched at his fledgling beard and ran his fingertips idly along the rim of his whisky glass.
 

He half listened to his best mate as he espoused his usual pre-testing spiel. “I swear, if I don’t find my
bevolder
this time, I’m going to take one of those guard jobs in Daland. At a certain point, enough is enough. Can’t stay in a town like Nerra forever. No offense.” He cleared his throat. “What do you say, Charlie? Will you come with me?”

“You know I won’t,” Charlem answered, leaning back in his chair and scanning the patrons of the inn idly. “I’m not going anywhere until I find my
bevolder
.”

“And what if you don’t have one.”

“Oh, I have one. I’ve got a destiny; I can feel it.”

Denrick snorted. “You’ve got a big head, is what you’ve got. I can feel, hear, and see it.”
 

“What, no smell or taste?”
 

The inn’s crowds parted, and Charlem’s eyes locked onto the face of a woman—in that moment all else around him faded into nonexistence. He saw her alone.

She was Chaskuan—
What is she doing all the way down here?
—with a curtain of black, gleaming hair. Her dark eyes bore the glittering mystery of a nighttime sky; her mouth, though frowning, contained secret smiles.
 

Charlem watched, his heart lodged somewhere in his windpipe, as she spun, the candlelight making love to the planes of her face, and her eyes locked on his own for a brief infinity. Too soon, she withdrew her gaze, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly, and spoke to her companion. The man—Charlem noted her comrade’s gender with a frown—replied, and her face broke into a smile so wondrous in its warmth and ease that Charlem’s chest ached.
 

Beautiful,
he thought, though the word seemed woefully insufficient, or at least requiring further qualification. For she was not beautiful in the way of flowers or sunsets. Her allure had none of their frivolousness; it was not ornamental, did not live on the surface. No, she was beautiful in the way the sword at his hip was beautiful—full of gut-wrenching symmetry, but also imbued with purpose, with usefulness—a necessity. Not to mention that, like his sword, he strongly suspected she would feel right in his hands.
 

Denrick’s elbow jabbed his side and Charlem started. “What’s the matter with you, Charlie?”

“I think I’m in love.”

His friend laughed mightily and followed his gaze to the Chaskuan woman. “You’re in love with a woman you’ve only just seen? What happened to your stance on love being a weakness for fools and youths?”

“You should disregard everything I’ve ever said before this moment. I was an idiot.” Charlem knocked back his whisky and winced. “What should I do?”

“Well,” Denrick said, amusement still in his voice. “I recommend you continue staring like a goon, for starters. Girls love that.”

Charlem, once again not truly listening, stood. “I’m going in.”
 

He weaved his way through the crowd, his heart drumming in his throat. He had the strange sense that she was attracting him like a magnet. His skin seemed to buzz as he drew closer.
 

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, belatedly wondering if she even spoke his tongue.

She turned to him, one brow arched in stunning derision. “I have one,” she answered with a thick, appealing accent. She lifted the glass in her hand and shook it in evidence.

“So you do,” he said, covering his foolishness with a charming smile. “Then perhaps I could get you something else…some peanuts, a chicken leg, slice of cake, the moon. Really, whatever you require. I am at your service.”