MARKS - Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

I stare up at the rock’s ceiling, shrouded now in darkness and the silence of night. Snores and breathing keep my thoughts company. I rehearse the truth of today over and over in my head.

These people aren’t Lyrans.

But they have found Lyrans.

And are using Lyrans and spreading news of the King.

And using words to oppose him.

Ward explained it all to me. The press not only prints news from other Kingdoms - truths our King loves to keep us ignorant of. But it also contains words from Lyrans. Things the King can’t change.

“What kind of things are they writing?” I asked Ward.

Buried in the jumble of names and random sentences are Lyran prophecies. Nothing outright, because the King knows about these papers and any sentence too bold would stand out. There is no John Mavery’s shop will never burn down, for that would be too obvious. But there are smaller things. Gideon’s boat will cross the river tonight. Seemingly innocuous, but the truth was that Gideon was sent to spy on the prince of Faraday. A boat was his only way in or out. And surely it would be discovered and he would have no way to escape. But writing about the boat meant that he would.

And now we know the alliance with Faraday is a farce.

Not surprising.

Most suspect the King can’t conquer Faraday because of a Lyran’s words written when the war was in full swing. So he can’t conquer Faraday, but maybe doesn’t know that yet.

But if he’s trying for something under the pretense of an alliance, he must know about the words, and that he can’t take Faraday by force. So what is he planning?

My brain is a twisted mass of knots trying to figure it out.

I wonder how many Lyrans they’ve found, and if any of them know me. It wasn’t until the war that we clumped together in groups, trying to protect ourselves from the King and those in the Kingdom who thought him justified in using us as weapons in his arsenal.

I roll on my side and stare at Ward, my fingers clenched around my left forearm, as if even under my clothes and the cover of darkness my marks will show. I can’t let them. I am a weapon the King cannot get his hands on. And Ward doesn’t need me. He has his Lyrans, hidden in the city and in outlying farms; contacts Nolan and the other men visit to get their words. Everything is running well, and I can stay safe. Hidden.

I wake feeling like I’ve been dragged across the open land on my back. The morning lingers, and I stare at my workspace. I wipe down the table and clean out pots and consider doing it all again just to stay busy. Lunch comes and goes, and when I can take it no more, I wander down the tunnel where Nolan and Ward and other men are working. Those running the press only glance at me when I walk in. Ward is perched on a bench, and Nolan stands, intent on whatever is in front of him.

I peer over Nolan’s shoulder. It’s not one of their papers. Instead, the Lyran poem is printed in thick block letters.

Oh writer of fate

take heed with thy pen,

What once written down

not unwritten again.

Weight of words, their power you know -

Twice then skip once

Shall reap what you sow.

The deaths of seven

The saved lives of three -

The marks of each

forever on you will be.

Words passed down for generations; a sealing of my fate I’ve heard since infancy. I exhale and relax my facial features. No tells, Gretta. Don’t give anything away.

I peer up at Nolan. “What are you trying to find?”

"Something we’ve missed.”

 

“A missing line or stanza, you mean?”

“No,” Ward says. “We know this is all of it. We’re looking for a hidden meaning. Maybe part of it is a riddle. Maybe the Lyrans have more power than we know.”

But they don’t. Our limits are too strong. As well they should be. Saints above help us if we didn’t and a Lyran as evil as the King came to be aware of his power. I sit down beside Ward. “Tell me what you know.”

“Well, we know Lyrans have their power. We also suspect they have limits.”

No blasted kidding. I keep my eyes open and curious. “Like what?”

“They can only kill seven, and can save only three. And they have marks on their arms accounting for each.”

My fingers itch to skim over my forearm and I swallow the urge.

“They can’t undo what another has written,” Nolan says.

The nausea in my stomach swirls to life again. No, we can’t.

“Their words can’t be destroyed. And their real names have to be attached to it.”

With power comes ownership of its consequences. My mother’s voice echoes in my head, her voice urgent. I rub my forearm and force myself to breathe.

“What we can’t figure out is this line.” Ward points to it on the paper. Twice then skip once.

“It means the Lyran power skips a generation,” I tell him. “Twice - that means it shows up twice in succession. Then ‘skip once’ means it skips one generation before continuing.”

He stares at me wide-eyed. “How do you know that?”

I give him a small, oh-so-very-innocent smile as the lie slips from my tongue. “I knew a Lyran when I was young. She knew what the poem meant.”

Ward studies the paper with renewed fervor. The truth of those lines settles the anxiety that always seems to be lingering inside me. I love what they mean, and am thankful that should I ever have a child, she’d never have this power. They can’t breed my power through me, though if the King found a way to live forever, he’d lock me in a cell and have me raped and bred, and my daughter raped and bred to get what he’s looking for.

I think of my power: what I could do with my words and how I haven’t done anything with them. Not really. I’ve been too scared of being caught. Fear and dread send words out my mouth before my mind can stop them. “Are any of the people here Lyran?”

“No,” Ward says. “It’s too dangerous. If the King figures out a way to find Lryans, they’d find us.”

Horror washes over me, a shower of shame I take way too often. “How often do you get these papers out?” I ask.

Ward looks not to me, but to Nolan, who nods his head. Ward turns to me. “About every six to eight weeks. It takes time to get all the words together and get them printed.”

“And do you do it to help Lyrans or to fight the King?”

His large frame bends over the words of my people, but his face in front of mine is intent and earnest. “Is there a difference?”

There is. I wonder why Ward can’t see it. “You use the Lyrans for the power they give you.” There is bite to my words that I cannot temper. Is he just like everyone else, wanting to use us?

Ward’s eyes darken, a brown so deep I don’t know the word for the color. “My parents were Lyran sympathizers because they thought no person should be used as a weapon. They were discovered hiding Lyrans in our cellar, and killed.”

I hug my knees to my chest, my heart weeping inside me. Poor Ward.

"I’ll fight the King until the day I die,” he says, “and do what I can to protect them.”

 

Them. Lyrans. His family. So many Ward feels responsible for. He doesn’t have to save everyone.

Maybe no one’s ever told him that. I open my mouth, then shut it, turning my words instead to myself.

I study Ward’s hands. Hands forced to do whatever the King wills. Ward goes to work every day, never knowing what he’ll be made to do, or what will happen if he refuses. He maintains his cover not just to save his own skin. But to save his family. His friends.

To save me.

Ward turns his attention back to the poem, and shame settles over me like a blanket. All I’ve done is hidden away, while every day he walks right through the doors of our enemy’s house.