Matt Forbeck - Marked for Death

“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.”

“This is it,” said Burch.

The quartet stood before a door that looked like most of the others they’d passed as they meandered through Construct, following Esprл’s scent. It was tall and gray, with a simple mechanical latch in its handle.

“Are you sure?” Kandler asked.

The shifter nodded. “Scents don’t lie.”

Burch put his ear to the door and listened for a moment. Kandler saw Xalt glancing nervously up and down the gangway that ran in front of the door.

“Someone’s moving inside,” Burch whispered. He glanced left and right. “No one’s watching.”

“Hit it,” said Kandler.

Kandler and Burch took two steps back. On three they lowered their shoulders and charged into the door. It gave way, and they plowed in.

“Quick!” Xalt said, pushing Sallah through the door. “I hear someone coming.” Once inside, he slammed the door shut again. It fit poorly on its frame now, but it still closed.

Kandler surveyed the room. It was furnished with simple but sturdy furniture. The walls were unadorned. There were no doors other than the one through which they’d come. A wardrobe stood in one corner, opposite a table and two bare chairs.

“Where is she?” Kandler whispered.

Burch sniffed at the air one last time. When he looked at Kandler, his eyes were back to normal. “Smells strong,” he said. “She has to be close.”

“B-Burch?” a little voice said.

“Esprл!” Kandler said. “Is that you?”

“Kandler!” Esprл said as she burst out of the wardrobe. She dashed into his arms and hugged him tight, silent tears rolling from her eyes.

The justicar pulled the girl away from him for a second and used his hand to brush her hair back from her face. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Did she hurt you?”

Esprл shook her head as she gasped through her sobs of relief. “She left me here, and when I heard you outside I didn’t know who it was. I hid in the wardrobe.”

Kandler swept the girl up into his arms and held her tight. “It’s all right now. Don’t worry.”

Esprл sunk her face into Kandler’s shoulder and wept. He held her and rocked her back and forth as he thought about the things he’d like to do to the changeling who had put his daughter through so much.

Sallah put a hand on Kandler’s back. “I don’t want to break up this happy reunion,” she said, “but we need to get out of here. The changeling could come back at any moment.”