Marked for Death

Chapter 47

“You will like it in Karrnath,” Te’oma said to Esprл across the single table in the tiny room, “for as long as we’re there. Of course, after the Mournland, I think anything would be an improvement.”

The girl glared up at the changeling but didn’t say a word. She’d been utterly silent since the two had slipped into Construct just before what passed for dawn in the Mournland, and it was starting to grate on Te’oma’s nerves.

“It’s a long trip not to say a word the entire way,” Te’oma said. There was still no response.

The changeling sighed and stood up. She knew she’d been fortunate to find this abandoned warforged shelter-it was too bare for her to think of it as a home-before any of the guards had spotted them, but she was already tired of being in the dim room. She’d spent time in jail cells that were roomier and more welcoming.

Warforged needed no rest, water, or food-three things Te’oma wanted badly, and she suspected Esprл did as well. The girl had dozed with her head on the table for a bit, but Te’oma was too wary of every sound she heard outside their borrowed quarters to let sleep take her. The constant tromping of the walkers’ feet beneath the city’s floor didn’t help any, although it lent the entire place a gentle sway that Te’oma thought might have been able to rock her to sleep under more pleasant circumstances.

The changeling started to pace the room. The place was so small that she had to turn around after every few steps.

“I’m thirsty,” Esprл said.

The sound startled the changeling, although she tried not to show it. She covered by leaning across the table at the girl and saying, “Ah! She speaks!”

Esprл ignored Te’oma’s sarcasm. “I’m hungry, too.”

The changeling sat down in the rough wooden chair across the unpolished table from Esprл. She looked at the walls and ceiling around her, fashioned from thin panels of wood painted with something the color of ash. A flimsy wardrobe stood in the corner, empty but for a pair of threadbare tabards. The only light in the room streamed in through a high window above the place’s sole door, which was made of the same material as the walls.

The utilitarianism of the warforged of Construct astonished Te’oma. As a changeling, appearances were vital to her. She spent much of her spare time studying the way others looked and behaved, how they spoke, and what they wore. It seemed to her that imitating a warforged would be a simple thing, as most of them seemed almost identical, various styles of interchangeable cogs in a long-defunct war machine-if only she could make her skin seem like metal.

Te’oma leaned across the table, looked into Esprл almond-shaped, blue eyes, and said, “Why don’t you do something about it?”

The girl sat up straight in her chair with an offended look on her face. “Isn’t that your job? You’re not much of a kidnapper.”

Te’oma stared at the girl for a moment with wide eyes, then threw back her head and laughed. “Believe it or not, I don’t kidnap many children,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of the protocol.”

“What do you usually do then?”

Te’oma stopped laughing. “What do you mean?”

She suspected the girl was just trying to get her off guard so she could attempt an escape, but Esprл had been silent for so long that Te’oma was willing to indulge her for a moment.

“What do you spend your time doing when you’re not kidnapping innocent children?”

Te’oma flashed the girl a savage smile. “Don’t play innocent with me,” she said, leaning closer across the table. “I know all about you.”

Esprл screwed her face up at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Te’oma stood and walked around the table like a hunting cat on the prowl. As she crept behind Esprл, she pulled the girl’s collar back and looked down her shirt at the dragonmark that lie hidden there.

“Hello, killer,” Te’oma said.

Esprл jumped as if the changeling had stabbed her. “Get away!”

Te’oma danced away, feigning fear. “Don’t kill me,” she said in a falsetto tone. “Just like all those people you killed in your dreams.”

All the color drained from Esprл’s face.

“That’s right,” Te’oma said as she moved to put the table between her and the girl again. “I know all about that. Your mind is an open book to me. It’s been an interesting read. A little short though.”

“Shut up,” Esprл said sullenly.

Te’oma leaned across the table again and leered into the girl’s eyes. “You might as well face up to it,” she said softly. “You are a killer. Just like me.”

“I am nothing like you,” Esprл said, her voice just a bit louder.

“Of course you are,” Te’oma pressed. “You come from a long line of killers. Your mother fought in the war. Do you think she had no blood on her hands?”

Esprл swallowed hard. The color returned to her face, but her eyes sank with barely suppressed rage.

“Your father was probably a killer, too,” Te’oma continued. “And Kandler. That man leaves a wake of blood behind him wherever he goes.”

“Shut up,” Esprл said through clenched teeth.

Te’oma softened her tone. She’d been using vinegar. Time for a little honey. “There’s no crime in killing. Birth, life, death… it is the way of the world.”

“I’m not like you.”

“Not yet, no,” Te’oma smiled. “The difference is you have no control. You kill without meaning to. Innocent and guilty alike, you’ve killed them.”

“I-” Tears welled in the girl’s eyes.

“It’s all right, Esprл,” Te’oma knelt beside the girl. “I know you didn’t mean to. It wasn’t your fault. But”-she put a bit more steel into her voice-“it won’t stop just because you don’t like it. You have to sleep sometime. If you don’t learn control…”

Te’oma didn’t complete the thought. Let the girl finish it herself.

“You just need time to grow. There’s a reason you bear that dragonmark, Esprл, when no one else has had it for over twenty-five hundred years.” Te’oma bent far enough over the table that she could have reached down to kiss Esprл on the nose, then she whispered at her. “You’re destined to be the greatest killer of all time.”

“That’s not true!” Esprл raged. The girl stood up and threw herself at the changeling.

Te’oma retreated back across the table, and Esprл’s hands missed her by scant inches. The changeling knocked over the chair behind her as she retreated to the far corner of the room. The girl followed her straight over the table, screaming in frustration as she went.

“Take it back!” Esprл roared. “It’s not true! Take it back!”

The girl lunged at Te’oma, and the changeling caught the girl’s arms by the wrists. “See!” the changeling said. “Do you see? Look at your hands!”

In the heat of her anger, Esprл glanced at her hands, which she had formed into talons to scratch out the changeling’s eyes, and she saw that they were glowing a malevolent red that oozed and flowed around her palms and fingers like living blood.

“That’s it!” Te’oma said triumphantly. She let go of Esprл’s wrists, and the girl reeled back from her and into the table. “That’s the power of the Mark of Death, to kill with but a touch, and you have it.”

Te’oma hadn’t been positive about Esprл’s dragonmark. She’d seen a drawing of the last known dragonmark of that kind, but the legends that swirled around the Mark of Death made anything about it hard to believe. Now she was sure. Te’oma breathed an inward sigh of relief. She’d taken a chance in provoking the girl, but she had needed to know if the girl was the one. If not, Te’oma didn’t see the point in hauling her all the way to Karrnath. Now that she knew she was right, all the challenges that lay before them would be worth it. And the rewards…

“I should kill you!” Esprл said, tears of rage rolling down her tender cheeks.

Te’oma grinned. “You know better than that. Like it or not, you need me.”

“I do not!”

“Look around you,” Te’oma said, swinging her arms wide. “You’re in the middle of the Mournland on a rolling city filled with hundreds of hostile warforged. Are you going to hike home on your own?”

The cold facts of her situation slashed through Esprл’s anger. The tears stopped flowing, and her color slowly returned to normal. The changeling had her just where she wanted her.

“Even if you somehow managed to get off Construct by yourself and make it to the border, do you think you could get through those mists alone? On foot?” Te’oma shook her head. “And what if you do make it back to that ramshackle slum you called a home? Will you go back to that life, killing townsfolk in your sleep? Killing is a fine art, and you may one day be its finest practitioner, but you must learn.”

“I don’t want to learn!” Esprл said. “I’ll never be like you. I hate you.”

“Fine. Hate me. But you know I speak the truth. You are a killer whether you like it or not. That dragonmark is part of you. Learn to control it, and you may choose to never kill again. Let it control you, and…”

“And what?” Esprл sniffed and wiped her tears away on her sleeve.

“You know what, girl,” Te’oma replied. “You’re not stupid. Just scared. And I don’t blame you. But you must learn to control your dragonmark, Esprл. Until you do, you are a danger to everyone you know and love. I can take you to people who will teach you to control your gift.”

“Why? What kind of people would know such a thing?”

Te’oma smiled. “There is a queen in the north, far in the north. She is a distant relative of yours, an elf of such great age and power that the old crone we met in the tower would cower before her. You weren’t raised among the elves, Esprл. You don’t know their ancient ways. You are of this queen’s family, and the queen protects her own.”