Fatemarked (The Fatemarked Epic, #1)

by David Estes

Sometimes there are those who must die in order for there to be peace. The Western Oracle

Her legs were sore, too, but that was from climbing the tower steps—all one-thousand-and-twenty-two of them. By the time she had reached the top, she’d been wheezing like a hog forced to run laps

around its stall. The thought only gave her a fierce craving for bacon.

Yes, she thought. I am. I am the Dread King’s daughter. And I am dreadful.

Her mother had never spoken to her like this. Never looked at her with such…what was that look? Sadness? Caring? Something else, something more? She could almost mistake the look for love. Almost.

She stared at herself in the mirrors for a long time, and for the first time in many years, she saw someone else. Someone different. Maybe someone better.

Roan was getting pretty tired of waking up feeling like he’d been in a war. Then again, the alternative—not waking up at all—was far worse.

Then again, Roan knew he probably didn’t smell much better; unfortunately, his lifemark could heal wounds but not body odor.

she looked right at him, the last dying rays of the eastern sun illuminating her face. In the faux light, her eyes were as golden as the petals of the lumia, a desert flower that grew only in the south’s arid climate. The lumia was lovely to look at, but when its petals were ground into a paste it became a deadly poison if ingested.

“It’s not that she hates you,” the prince said, and, based on the prince’s tone, Roan knew immediately his question wasn’t being taken seriously. “It’s that she can’t stand to bear your ugliness for more than a spare moment.”

And now a strange but beautiful woman I’ve never truly met hates me simply because I grew up in Calypso. No wonder the war will never end… Still… “She shouldn’t hate me just because of where I’m from. I had no choice in the matter.”

“I will burn myself if you will do the same,” Roan said. Gwendolyn blinked. Behind Roan, Prince Gareth chuckled. “This should be entertaining,” he said.

For one quarter of one moment, Roan wondered whether this was a place where he could be happy, where he wouldn’t have to hide his true self anymore. Where his gift could help rather than hurt those around him.

Insulting royalty in Calypso would earn you a quick trip to the fighting pits if you were lucky; if you weren’t so fortunate, you’d be given the opportunity to have your head separated from your neck.

They were never going to let him leave.

Leave? Impossible. For one, he had his sister to care for. For another, she was the bloody heir to the queenship, at least until her younger brother married. Her father wouldn’t rest until he’d hunted Grease down and dismembered him with a blunt paring knife.

He was incapable of crying. After all, how could Death cry?

And he would miss Rhea. Deeply. No matter what he tried to convince himself of, she was more than some conquest, more than a thrill. In another life, she could’ve been special to him. She is special to me.

Besides Beorn Stonesledge, the king was the most enormous man Roan had ever seen, making his nickname almost seem insufficient to describe his size.

Gwendolyn’s lip curled into a smile as she watched his blood stop rushing out, his skin growing together until it was whole once more. Gareth said, “Molten ore. You really are full of surprises, jester.”

What kind of weapon is that anyway?” “An effective one,” he grunted. She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t argue with that—she’d seen what it could do. “Does it have a name?” “Morningstar,” he said. “At least that was the name the woman who gave it to me called it.” “What woman?” “No matter. That was a lifetime ago. I was still just a scared little boy.”

“I missed with the arrow on purpose, you were already senseless before I beat you, and my sword stroke was a mere flesh wound.” Roan gaped. “A flesh wound? I felt your blade go through my back.”

But how did you know I could heal a grievous wound? You could’ve given me a scratch and proved the same thing.” She grinned, cat-like in the gloom. “I didn’t know. I wanted to give you sufficient motivation to use your gift. Also, it was more fun that way, wasn’t it?”

The white-furred monster was twice the size of Tarin, although Annise couldn’t help but notice they had a similar disposition.

She grunted and twisted into another fall as graceful as a one-legged woman learning to dance the Northern Jaunt.

“My real name isn’t Grease Jolly,” he said. “It’s Grey. Grey Arris.”

When the images faded away, his eyes flashed open. He knew where he would be called next. Raider’s Pass. And there would be blood.

The deathmark and lifemark are the greater of the fatemarks, while the rest are lesser. But that does not diminish their importance, as all who bear marks shall have a role to play in what is to come. The Western Oracle

Gwendolyn had apologized for dumping him out of her hammock. Roan was surprised, considering she’d never apologized before, not even after she’d stabbed him in the gut. Women are strange and unpredictable,

She extended a hand, palm down, and the animal nuzzled its muscular head against it, purring. “He’s not the enemy,” she said to the wildcat. Roan noticed she didn’t say “friend.” Still, he would take “not the enemy” under the circumstances. “What is it?” he asked. “An ore cat.

The king craned his neck to look over. “Ho, Roan Born-of-Dust. How are you enjoying the ride?” Well, Your Highness, first your son knocked me from my horse. Then a playful ore cat named Sasha attempted to eat my head. “Very much, Your Highness,” he said. The king smiled broadly, as if reading the unspoken truth directly from his mind. “I heard you met Sasha.”

“I am human—I want what I cannot have, and I have no interest in that which is mine.”

“Why do you defend me? Because we knew each other once?” “No,” Tarin said. “Because we know each other now. Because I see the snowstorms in your eyes. Because you were worth it then and you still are, my Queen of the North.”

The words were meant to injure, but Roan felt nothing but numbness. He knew he could tell her he thought he would die if he saved her, and yet he did it anyway, but did that make him a hero? No, he knew. It made him tired. It made him human. But not a hero. He would never tell her the truth,

Realization pressed in on all sides. The only way to make his mother’s sacrifice worthwhile was for him to live the life he was always meant to. A life that mattered.

But it was he, not I, who was a hero that day. He who had a choice, and still he risked his life for the sake of another.”

Night had fallen over the north, the stars and dueling moons shrouded by clouds pregnant with unreleased snow. It was a typical northern night.

“We cannot count on the kindness of strangers here,” he said. “Why not?” “Kindness left this city years ago,” Tarin said. “War does that to a place.”

“It’s not what you start with, it’s what you do with what you’ve been given,” Gwen said.

Proper, she thought now. She hated that word, more so because it always seemed to follow her around like a chaperone. Don’t cheer too loud at the melee, princess, it wouldn’t be proper. Don’t eat too much or too fast or too loudly, it’s not proper. Don’t fight with the boys or play Snow Wars or do anything that could possibly be construed as fun, it’s just not proper. “You can take your proper and shove it up your—”

Roan looked up, blinking away the tears in his eyes before they froze on his cheeks. So many dead. Lives ended too soon. For what purpose? To what end? If my fate is to be here, to witness this, Roan thought, it is a cruel fate.

There was no mistaking the similarity in appearance: the man who thought he was the king was his brother.

He’d seen it in her eyes, a miasma of emotions, each trying to gain advantage: regret, hope, sorrow, love, anger. Anger, yes. That he understood. Sorrow and regret, too, perhaps. Hope? Love? Those were foreign to him, as impossibly distant as the shores of the Burning Sea.

It would heal, eventually, which was more than he could say about the invisible tears in the fabric of his mind.

But heroes are not born, they are grown. Each choice is a drop of water, each experience a ray of sunlight. They grow, day by day, until they are the tallest tree in the forest, willing to protect all who live under their shadow.”

All he could do was put one foot in front of the other, and continue walking toward something he couldn’t quite explain. A destiny? A future? Whatever it was, it felt better than standing still.

Tarin dropped the bloody knife. A voice inside him was crying for him to walk away, to admit defeat, to return to Castle Hill and his parents and Annise and his old life. But that voice was weak now, barely audible, naught but a whisper of wind in his ears. There was no going back, no returning. Not ever.

To his surprise he was not scared. There wasn’t room inside him for both the monster and fear.

They hate me, he thought. But not as much as I hate myself. The bloodlust was gone, stripped away the moment that last foe fell, leaving only a huge empty cavern in his chest, cold and dark and… Alone.

Sabria wondered who this woman was, why she hated her so much. Was it just because she was from the west? And if so, what kind of world were they living in, where your place of birth dictated who your enemies were?