The Marked Girl (3 page)

Liv looked up and could see the bridge above them moving back and forth against the night sky, as though it were being shaken by a giant, unseen hand. Her heart jumped.

“Get out from under the bridge!” Liv yelled. She started to crab-walk down the concrete, back toward Shannon and the crew, who were lying flat against the ground with their hands up over their necks. Liv watched as the cable that connected to the floor light snaked its way past Jeremy's foot and fell over the side of the riverbank, taking the whole light with it.

“No!”

Liv pulled herself over the cracked concrete by her hands, belatedly realizing she must have dropped the prop sword. She turned around to see the strangers following her and staying low to the ground. Thankfully, they seemed to have cleared the bridge.

When the earth finally stopped moving, Liv let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. As a Los Angeles
native, she'd been through her share of earthquakes. But this had been bigger than most of the little rumbles she was used to. She looked up at the bridge, once again a sturdy, unmoving cement structure.

“Are you guys okay?” Liv asked the strangers, who were starting to get to their feet. “I wouldn't do that yet—” she started, but just as the second boy was dusting off his white pants, the earth started to move once again. Softer this time, but still with enough force to keep Liv low to the ground.

The blond boy—once again scowling—turned to his companions. “I told you! I told you we should not have come to this hell. We are all going to die!”

He took off running in the other direction, his feet slapping against the concrete as he struggled to stay upright through the shaking.

“No!” Liv screamed after him. “Wait till the aftershock stops!”

But he was running too fast and too hard to hear. The blue-eyed boy and the girl exchanged a glance and took off running after him, not even sparing a look back to Liv. The blue-eyed boy scooped up the sword that he must have dropped when he'd fallen to the ground. Liv no longer cared enough to yell out after him. Now that the light had fallen into the river, her deposit was long gone anyway.

After a few moments, the aftershock subsided. Liv pulled herself up to a sitting position and looked back to Shannon and the others.

“Are you okay?” Shannon yelled out across the thirty feet of
cement that separated them.

“Yep! You?”

“We're fine,” Shannon replied. “But I think Jeremy wet himself!”

“She lies!” Jeremy screamed back, voice breaking.

Liv heard sirens in the distance, which was par for the course after any earthquake. She stood up and reached for her fallen prop sword. But something was off. It didn't feel like the lightweight wood-and-plastic model she'd been holding earlier; the boy must have taken that one as he ran off. But his sword—the one she held now—was different.

It was too heavy, for one. And its hilt felt smooth and hard, like polished stone. Liv held the blade up to the weak light coming from the streetlights on top of the bridge, and she gasped.

The edges of the sword were beveled down to fine points, and they shone in the light. She ran a finger against one of them, lightly, and pulled it back fast when it broke her skin.

This wasn't any prop sword. It was real. It was dangerous.

Liv's head snapped up in the direction that the white-clad strangers had run off. But they were long gone.

T
hey came for him in the middle of the night, the way that cowards do.

Cedric West was deep in a dreamless sleep, the kind he sometimes brought on by drinking one too many glasses of mead with dinner. That night, he'd had yet another argument with his father, which had prompted him to drink not one, but three too many glasses.

So when rough hands wrapped around his arms and shoulders, jerking him out of his bed, Cedric did not wake immediately. He remained in a state of oblivion until hoarse words carried on foul-smelling breath reached his ears and nose, respectively.

“Morning, Your Highness.”

Cedric opened his eyes only to find himself in a waking nightmare. The creature holding him had two blunt horns that curled up from its forehead, making it seem impossibly tall as it hovered over the bedside. Its jet-black eyes were set deep into a boulder-shaped head covered with grayish skin.

Only the pain in Cedric's arms was able to convince him that the hideous vision was real. And not only real, but familiar. A wrath.

“Before you think of screaming, look left,” the wrath growled in a voice that sounded like rocks falling over steel.

Cedric struggled against the creature and looked to his left, where another bulky wrath blocked the entire frame of the doorway. The creature held tightly to a slight figure. She stood still, her white nightgown the only bright thing in the dim room.

“Emme,” Cedric whispered.

“Take one wrong breath, and your sister will pay,” the wrath holding on to Cedric said.

Though Emmeline was only two years younger than Cedric, she looked small and childlike in the wrath's grip. The sight of the creature's dirty claws on her thin arm brought up such a sudden rage in Cedric that the edges of his eyesight blurred red and black. He forced himself to focus. How was it possible these monsters had invaded the castle? His whole life, Cedric had been trained to fight off the threat of the wraths and keep the creatures outside the borders of the realm's towns and villages. Never once had a wrath stepped so much as a foot within the main city's walls. That they had somehow invaded not just the city, but the castle itself, was unthinkable.

“What do you want?” Cedric asked, trying his best to make his tone sound commanding and imperial, like his father's.

Emme whimpered, and Cedric looked over to see the second wrath gripping her neck with its taloned hand.

Cedric jerked toward her, but the first wrath put a knife to his throat.

“Want to speak again?”

Cedric shook his head once, his shoulders clenched tight with anger. The wrath dragged Cedric through his room, keeping his arms pinned behind his back. It pushed him into the hallway, directly behind the wrath that half held, half carried his sister. The stone halls were quiet and dark, their smooth walls impassive to the plight of the young prince and princess being dragged past them in their nightclothes. The wrath holding Emme continued to jerk her arm roughly, as if reminding Cedric not to struggle against his own captor.

As they reached the main corridor of the castle, Cedric cast a glance toward the giant wooden doors on the far side of the room, in front of which two long, bulky shapes lay in heaps on the ground. The guards.

“You do not know what you have done,” Cedric said. “When my father catches you, the punishment—”

Cedric stopped talking when he heard his captor laugh. Actually laugh.

“Your father already waits for you in the dungeons,” the wrath said. Its craggy face stretched into what was either a hideous grimace or an attempt at a cruel smile. “Do not worry that he is being mistreated, Highness. He was given the largest cell, after all.”

From the opposite side of the corridor, Cedric watched a series of figures emerge from the shadows. Another wrath appeared, its twisted horns catching the flickering light from the
torches on the wall. The wrath was dragging behind it Katerina Esson and Merek Harcourt, both in town with their parents for the annual peacekeeping summit.

Katerina's teeth clenched as the wrath pulled her by the arms. She wasn't making its job any easier, but was digging in her heels and trying to wrench her arms free as she was dragged over the stone floor. Her proud, sometimes haughty family stood as wards of the large northern holdings, and she had been betrothed to Cedric since her birth. Watching her struggle now, Cedric couldn't help but think of when he first saw Katerina—his Kat—enter the palace three days earlier, surrounded by ambassadors. She'd grown significantly since he'd seen her last, and her customary twin plaits that he used to pull on to tease her had been combed out to fall around her shoulders in a gentle wave. Now Kat's dark hair was a loose, messy tangle that flew about as she tried to yank her arm from the wrath's grip.

If only she had a weapon in her hands, Cedric knew the wrath that held her would not be smiling.

Behind Kat, Merek was being ushered along much more smoothly by another wrath. The youngest son of the king's cousin, a duke, Merek had always been better at cutting with words than with swords.

Cedric was thankful to see both of the nobles unharmed, and prayed that their parents were still alive as well. His eyes met Kat's as the two groups converged in the hall. She scanned the space just as Cedric had. They were evenly matched—four of them versus four wraths. Not great odds, but not terrible, either. Kat cocked one eyebrow up and smiled.

“This is the last of them,” one of the wraths said to the creature who was still gripping Cedric's arm. “Take them to the dungeons.”

“Wait,” Cedric said to the wrath that held him. “What if I have something to offer you instead? Something incredibly powerful.”

The wrath made a grunting noise that might be construed as a laugh. “What might that be?”

In response, Cedric aimed his knee upward and connected solidly with the wrath's middle. Before the wrath could rebound, Cedric spun slightly, extended his leg and kicked it, hard. The creature doubled over, and its grip on Cedric loosened. Cedric drove his elbow into its neck, forcing it to the floor. He took the creature's knife and tossed it to Kat, who caught it with her free hand. She sunk the knife into her captor's side and twisted out of its grasp, so quick that her nightgown looked like a white blur against the backdrop of shadows and stone. She was sparring with the wrath that held Merek before her captor even hit the floor.

Cedric spun quickly to the wrath that held his younger sister. It tightened its hold around her throat as Cedric approached and Emme's blue eyes bulged slightly. Her mouth opened, but only a small, gasping sound emerged.

“Stop, or I choke the life from her body,” the wrath growled.

Cedric put his open hands up. The wrath's black, bulging eyes flicked between Cedric and Kat. It didn't even notice as Emme lifted up her own hand, raking her fingernails violently down the creature's arm. The wrath howled, and in that instant,
Kat came up behind it and slashed across its shoulder. A spurt of blackish blood flowed from the wound. Howling in pain, the creature released Emme, who crumpled to the ground, gasping for air.

While the wrath clutched at its shoulder, Kat lunged forward again, plunging the knife into its neck. The creature clutched uselessly at its throat as it slumped to the ground, joining the other three fallen wraths.

“Something incredibly powerful?” Merek turned to Cedric and raised one eyebrow, which transformed his thin face into its usual expression of mild disdain.

Cedric looked to the wrath lying at his feet, then gave his own leg a light pat.

“I was referring to my high kick.” He grinned. “Was that not clear?”

Merek rolled his eyes and bent down to take the knife from his fallen captor's hand. His nose wrinkled as he got closer to the creature.

“This one actually tried to
bite
me,” he said.

“They will not stay down long,” Kat said, brushing strands of dark hair out of her eyes. She left behind a dark streak of blood on her forehead.

Cedric glanced down at the wraths as their blood leaked onto the stone floor. The creatures could only be killed with silver, which was why all Guardian blades were made with the substance. But these knives belonged to the wraths and were made only of common metal. Sharp, but common. The wraths' wounds would heal in a matter of moments, and they would
rise again. The one near Emme's feet was already starting to stir. She made a slight noise in her throat and moved away from it. Cedric took the creature's knife from its hand and stabbed it again for good measure.

“We should get out of here,” Merek said, pointing toward the corridor's main doors. “Before more of them come.”

“No,” Cedric said. “First we find my father.” He started running down the hallway toward the dungeons and didn't look back to see if the others would follow.

He knew they would.

When they neared the entrance to the dungeons, Cedric stopped. He motioned for the others to be quiet and then poked his head around the corner of the entryway.

Another wrath stood there in the hallway, holding a large sword. Its posture was relaxed, as though it didn't expect any trouble.

With one hand, Cedric gripped the handle of his borrowed knife. With the other, he reached under the collar of his nightshirt and pulled a golden chain from around his neck. On it sat a betrothal ring, one he'd worn since he was a child. He shot a look of apology to Kat, who wore its twin, before tossing the ring to the ground on the other side of the entryway. Cedric held his breath as the ring clattered against the stones.

“Who's there?” The wrath's footsteps echoed as it made its way nearer. As the creature approached the entryway, head turned toward the ring, Cedric ran up from the other direction and thrust the knife up under its ribs. He saw its head whip around and its coal-black eyes widen in surprise before it fell to
the ground in a bulky heap.

Cedric threw the bloodied knife to the ground and picked up the fallen wrath's sword, as well as his betrothal ring. He signaled the others, and the group moved into the dark hallway. From the main corridor, Cedric could hear shouts and yells. The original wrath guards were waking up.

The stone walkway tilted downward, and the air grew colder as they moved closer to the dungeons. Finally, the dark bars of the cells came into view.

The first person Cedric saw was his father. The man was well over six feet tall, with arms thick as the massive rafters that ran across the dungeon ceiling. He was the kind of king that men wrote songs about—and Cedric would know, as he'd been forced to listen to most of them. But now, King James swayed unsteadily on his feet, his left leg twisted at an awkward angle. Dried blood covered the left side of his pale face and matted his beard.

“What are you doing here?” the king rasped.

“We got away from the wraths—”

“And you did not get your sister to safety immediately?”

Cedric tried to swallow the flicker of disappointment that ignited at his father's harsh words. “I'm freeing you,” he said.

The other royal children moved to their own parents' cells, and Cedric heard a chorus of relief and fear as hands clutched hands through the bars. Emme reached out for their mother, who was held in the same cell as the king. Emme's long hair—the same deep brown color as Cedric's—swung forward as she leaned her forehead against the bars of the cell.

“Where are the keys?” Cedric asked.

King James met his eye. “Malquin has them.”

Cedric shook his head, confused.

Malquin wasn't a wrath, but a man. He'd been known to haunt the city's bars and sometimes disrupt royal events spouting drunken nonsense. He was a nuisance, but considered mostly harmless, and a few years before he'd packed up and left the city altogether to make his own way in the wilderness. Cedric could barely even remember what he looked like.

“He led the wraths here,” the king continued. “He calls himself their leader.”

Cedric struggled to wrap his mind around his father's words. Malquin? Leader of the wraths? It was so . . . nonsensical. But then again, so was a wrath invasion of the castle.

“Where is Malquin now?” Cedric asked. He looked down at the thick metal padlock that hung from the cell door. The steel sword he clutched was no match for it.

“You have to run,” the king said. “Leave us, and go.”

Cedric shook his head. “No.”

The queen pulled away from Emme and turned to Cedric. Tears tracked down her bone-white cheeks. “You must. Take your sister and the others. Get free of here. Get help.”

Cedric looked back toward the entrance of the dungeons.

“You cannot go that way. Hundreds of wraths surround the palace,” the king said.

Emme let out a small cry. “Hundreds?”

“But . . . how did we not notice them approach the city? How did they get in?” Cedric asked.

The king shook his head. “By the time we saw them coming, it was too late. They have infiltrated the whole city. We did not even have time to take up defensive posts before they overtook the castle. I have never seen so many in one place before, so organized, so armed . . .”

“We can fight them,” Cedric said. He gripped the hilt of the unfamiliar sword in his hand and forced himself to meet his father's gaze.

“You cannot,” the king responded. His tone was certain and harsh, and Cedric tried not to feel the sting of it. “There is another way out,” the king continued. “The portal.”

Cedric shook his head, uncomprehending. The rest of the jailed royals all stared at the king.

“But that is madness,” said Lord Esson, Kat's father. “No one knows for sure where the portal leads. And the rumors . . .”

Cedric knew as well as anyone what rumors surrounded the portal. It had been found just outside the palace grounds some twenty years earlier, at the beginning of his father's rule. Many believed it led to the hellish ancient world of their people's origin, though there was no way to prove that claim. No one who entered the portal had ever returned.