Elevation of the Marked (The Marked Series Book 2) (39 page)

Quade patted his mouth with a linen napkin. “Interesting. What is he hoping to learn?”

“He asked that I discover where you are housing your prisoners and if you truly mean to kill them, or if it is merely a ploy to root out the rebels.”

Quade’s thin lips curled at the corners like a roll of parchment. “Ah, intriguing.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “And what should we tell him?”

“I expect he will feel less obligated to obstruct you if he believes no innocent lives are in danger.”

Quade unexpectedly rose, tossing his napkin down. “Come, Arlow. I have something to show you.”

Arlow followed Quade down the hallway, a growing sense of unease compromising his outward cool. They passed few others as they made their way down several flights of stone steps and crossed the main atrium, then took yet another flight of stairs tucked discreetly beside a suit of armor. The dankness in the air and the lack of natural light did not help Arlow’s increasing panic.
What if he knows? What if he knew all along?

An Elevated lad stood guard outside a thick wooden door. He straightened at Quade’s approach.

“You are relieved,” Quade said. The boy bowed and scurried back the way they had just come. Looking up and down the hall, Arlow grew certain that this basement was a prison. It seemed like something out of a sensation novel—torture chambers hidden deep underground, below the palace itself.

 
If Quade were to lock him away, what would become of him? What would Mae think if he simply never returned?

“Do you know what I like about you, Arlow?” Quade asked. He placed fingers around the base of Arlow’s neck and applied pressure.
 

Arlow felt dizzy at the contact.
Quade Asher is a cruel man.
He gazed into Quade’s face, rendered gaunt in the torchlight. “No.”

“You are not given to heroics. You are someone who looks out for himself above all else. A man like that is easy to trust as long as you are offering him more than any competitor.” Quade stepped terribly close, so that he was whispering directly into Arlow’s ear. His breath tickled at the small hairs within. “The Pauper’s King has nothing to offer a man like you. I, however, can give you power, wealth, security. All you could want.”

Arlow gulped. He could feel Quade’s influence washing over him like a warm rain shower. Half his mind had grown drowsy and content, the other desperate at the thought of losing himself once again. “That is how I know I can trust you, Arlow. But I understand the Pauper’s King can be a persuasive man, so let me show you one more thing of yours that I have.”

Quade opened the cell door. It was too dark within to distinguish anything, so he removed a torch from the wall and directed the light into the chamber.

“Yarrow!” Arlow bellowed, before he could stop himself.

His friend was tied to a chair, naked, plainly the worse for wear—his face puffy and discolored, flesh chafed around the bindings. His head slumped to the side, unconscious. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest gave Arlow any comfort.
 

Quade made a shushing sound, as if to calm a startled colt. Arlow froze as a hand began to stroke his hair, affectionately.
Quade Asher is a…is a…

“If you trust me,” Arlow finally asked, his voice quavering. “Why are you threatening me?”

“It is not a threat, my friend. It is a reward.” Quade paused. “Despite the fact that your friend is an enemy, I will let you have him.
If
you do your part well.”

Arlow swallowed with difficulty, his mouth parched. “What would you have me do?”

Quade smiled, baring all of his perfect teeth. “An excellent question.”

Yarrow’s hips swiveled and his arm extended in a slow swoop, forming
Floating Down Stream
. The long grass on the second ledge of the
Aeght a Seve
brushed at his bare calves.
 

Bare?
he thought, distantly.
Why am I naked?

Sunlight soaked into the top of his head and shoulders, the warmth not quite touching something cold deeper within.

Like a mental fracture, he experienced a short flash of confusion, as if being in two places at once: one part of him in the Place of Five, another part in immense agony, in a dark room that smelt of pain, full of the metallic tang of blood, the pungent bite of sterilizer.

The moment of dissonance passed. He closed his eyes and his lips curved into a contented smile. He lifted his foot, toes pointed, and turned, weight shifting from his left side to his right. The alignment of his body and the earth sang a harmony through his core and limbs. The tree in the clearing below him—the Confluence—kept company like an old friend, a guard against the distant terrors that tugged at him.

Divide the Air
smoothly transitioned to
Circle
, his hands cradling a sphere of wind as he shifted.
 

White-hot pain shot up his hand, halting his step. The
Aeght a Seve
quivered around him, then shattered. Its peace and light crumbled away in an instant, forcing him back to reality.

“I see,” a gravelly voice said with mocking empiricism. “Cutting arbitrarily could not pull you from your mental hiding place, but divesting you of a finger does the trick. I will bear that in mind.”

Yarrow stared in round-eyed disbelief at his right hand, splayed spread-finger on a rough oaken table—at the place where his pinky finger had once connected to his hand. The finger lay on its side, like a discarded thing, a few inches from his hand. Blood gushed from the wound, but for a long second he could feel nothing.
It isn’t real. If it were real, it would be painfu—

And then his senses caught up. He bellowed, despite a previous resolution to remain mute in the face of torture, and twitched against his bindings. It felt like fire to a nerve. Sharp, searing—the pain centered in his hand, but firing up his arm, shooting all the way to his toes curled against the bare stone floor.

His muscles slackened and his head drooped, the bearded face of his tormentor grew fuzzy.

“No you don’t.” Icy water struck him full in the face. He shuddered and spewed, blinked furiously. Freezing rivulets ran down his exposed skin. The man
tsk
ed. “No passing out. Not when you’ve only just joined us. That would be terribly rude.”

The palm of a hand struck his left cheek with a resounding slap. His head wrenched to the right as far as his neck would permit.
 

“Get Quade,” the man said to someone behind him. “Tell him I’ve got him out at last.”

A sliver of torch-lit hallway appeared and, just as quickly, disappeared as a door opened and closed. Yarrow panted, panicked.
Not Quade.

He screwed his eyes shut and clamped his jaw, tried with every ounce of his remaining mental force to envision himself performing the
Ada Chae
. To see his hands rise up before him in
Warm Hands over Fire.
 

That same palm slapped his cheek a few more times, lightly, as if with affection. “Now, now, none of that. Go away again and I’ll just have to cut off more fingers.” His glove circled Yarrow’s ring finger. “Or perhaps there are some other parts you could stand to lose. I understand you don’t have much use for this one anymore.” Yarrow felt the blunt end of a knife tap the bit of him in question, between his legs. “Want me to rid you of it?”

Yarrow’s eyelids sprung open, horror slithering down his insides—even the fire in his hand, for a moment, forgotten. His tormentor squatted before him, so they were face-to-face. His black beard split, revealing a line of unusually straight, white teeth. A smile, Yarrow supposed. The man was older by at least a decade; not a kidnapped youth, but a regular Chisanta. The thought made Yarrow’s mouth turn down in disgust.

“Don’t you dare,” a cheery voice said from the right side of the room. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a nude model these days?”

Yarrow lolled his head to the side to look at the speaker. A young, sandy-haired man hunched over a drawing pad—the reason Yarrow could not use his gifts. The lad’s blackened fingertips gripped a stick of charcoal, his brown eyes darting up from paper in regular intervals.
 

The bearded man snorted. “Somehow, I don’t think Quade went to all this trouble for your sake, Whythe.” He stood and strode behind Yarrow. A gloved hand clenched around Yarrow’s neck, forcing his head straight. “If you want to draw the poor bastard, better do it fast. He won’t be with us for long, I think.”

“A pity,” Whythe murmured to the sound of charcoal scraping paper. “He has perfect bone structure.”
 

Yarrow’s mind strayed from the inanity of this conversation, back to the agony of his hand. His eyes flicked to his severed finger. He wondered, had he the use of his gifts, whether he would be able to heal himself. He was not certain, but suspected not. He’d only needed to heal others when he’d made the sacrifice. Gifts had an unpleasant way of including such inconvenient parameters, as they were usually born to meet the need of a particular circumstance rather than out of general utility.
 

This none-too-buoying contemplation was cut short by the opening of the door. The form of Quade Asher crossed the small space like a shadow, silently. Yarrow discerned the sharp profile of his face—the spear of a nose, the thin mouth, two black eyes alight with firelight and malice.
 

“Yarrow Lamhart,” he said in deep, honeyed tones. “How good of you to join us.” He looked down at the bloody mess on the table and tutted. “Was this really necessary, Jorren? They were such nice hands.” Quade withdrew a handkerchief from his own pocket, sat in the seat beside his prisoner, and began to tenderly wrap the wounded appendage. Yarrow choked back a scream as the fabric pulled against the open wound. He watched the snowy fabric turn crimson.
 

Quade sandwiched Yarrow’s fingers between his own two gloved hands, delicately. “How is the pain?”

Yarrow had to admit that, with Quade’s attention, it had become far more manageable. Rationally, he knew this was Quade’s gift in play, but the alleviation was so sweet it was difficult to keep that fact in mind. He cleared his throat. “Is this your plan?” He raised his eyebrows with a censure he did not truly feel. “Your dog there is the stick and you the carrot? A bit transparent, don’t you think?”

Quade laughed. “Oh, very good. Excellent bravado, really.” He scooted his chair in closer and relaxed his posture. He kept one hand gently clasping Yarrow’s injury, the other he placed on a bare knee, much to Yarrow’s discomfort. “My mother used to say there are as many kinds of people as shells on the shore,” he said conversationally. “But she was wrong. There aren’t so many types, only a few. Most can be grouped easily. Still, I find them fascinating, people. What makes them tick. Who they
really
are, when all inhibition and expectations are stripped away. You might be surprised, Mr. Lamhart, how a man changes when under duress.”

Yarrow responded with only a glower, though Quade’s words inspired a spasm of fear.

“It is one of my keenest pleasures,” Quade continued, “to discover a man’s breaking point. To find out
just
how much he can stand.”

Yarrow shivered again.

“Ah, you’re cold.” Quade said. “No wonder, wet in these damp chambers.” He stood and moved beyond Yarrow’s line of sight. He returned with a towel.
 

Every muscle in Yarrow’s body tensed, he turned his head away as Quade’s intention became clear. The man kneeled and, with gentle, fastidious movements, blotted away the wetness from Yarrow’s skin. “You have done well, Yarrow Lamhart. You have held strong in the face of torture. You have not betrayed your friends. I admire that. Loyalty is an admirable quality; in fact it is one I seek in my own friends.” The towel worked its way across Yarrow’s chest, drying but also rubbing the countless lacerations he’d received over the past days. He gritted his teeth.
 

“What I admire most about you is this, though.” Four gloved fingers drummed against Yarrow’s forehead. “Ah, what a mind. What a tool for our cause. So much information. Because I respect you, Yarrow Lamhart, I am not going to break you, no matter how much I should like to. And I could, I hope you know. Not only could I inflict more pain upon you than you could bear, but I have your entire family in my custody. I have a feeling that if it was your old ma’s fingers at risk, we’d hear you sing.”

Yarrow’s lips thinned, his heart slamming in his chest cavity.
 

“But I won’t do that. I’ll let you win, Yarrow. You don’t have to betray your friends, nor watch your family suffer. Soon, an exceptional young lady will join us. She has the ability to hear thoughts and pull information from the mind. You see, this way everyone wins. I get the intelligence I so need, and you get to know that you did not crack under pressure. And then you and I can spend more time together.” Quade flashed a blinding smile. “You’ll like me better than you think. We have much in common, you and I. We share a certain—well, never mind that for now.”