C HAPTER

It was a delicate instrument, thin and artful, a slight curve in the handle, with one end weighted and shaped into a handgrip. The tip ended in a blackened needle point. Dariel knew what it was from the moment he laid eyes on it. He had spent the last few days studying crude maps of Ushen Brae's coastline, in exercising his body and explaining nautical concepts and terms to Tunnel and Skylene and the others who were to be his crew, but this last thing marked the final stage of preparation. After this, his mission began.

"So… you're serious about this? You want to tattoo me?"

Looking over the device, Mor narrowed her eyes. "Without markings you stand out like a freak among the People."

Dariel, head cocked, prepared to take exception to this.

Mor looked at him straight-faced, no trace of humor on her feline features. "Like a freak, I say. Or a degenerate. Others who see you will think you a child who has done nothing in his life. Unworthy. Without signs of belonging, nothing you say would change their opinion. Besides, that plain face of yours will forever announce your Akaran blood. It could be the death of you among the People."

"How about just drawing some spots or something? Stylus and ink. That sort of thing."

"It's been explained to you already, I'm sure. Should the divine children question you, any 'stylus and ink' work would be readily discovered. No, your fate has brought you here-just as mine brought me here. The tattoos must be real."

"Why do I think you'll enjoy doing it?" Dariel asked, smiling wryly.

"Because it hurts, you mean?" she asked, playfully innocent in a way Dariel had never seen before. "Dariel Akaran, when I wish to cause you pain, it won't be with this. I'll find a real tool for it. Believe me."

I don't doubt you, Dariel thought. I don't doubt you at all. I still have the marks from our first meeting, remember? As she spoke on, he had to tell himself to lower the edges of his grin. He should not be so pleased about this. The tattooing was going to hurt, and it was going to be permanent. What would Corinn think when she saw him again? If she ever saw him again… She would never understand or approve of something like this. It would seem an act of surrender, of lessening himself and his stature as an Acacian prince. She would expect him to command them all to do his bidding. The thought nearly made him laugh. He had, of course, commanded many people in various roles-both as an Akaran and as a Sea Isle raider-but this was different, perhaps in a way that Corinn would never understand.

Increasingly, the Known World seemed far, far away, not just in leagues but in its hold on his thoughts. Sitting and talking with Tunnel and Skylene and some of the others, caught up in the horror and largeness that was Ushen Brae, Dariel had to wrest his focus back to his homeland again and again. It was in danger, he knew, of attack from the Auldek. He remained vague on how great that threat was, but he tried to remember it and to think of Corinn and Mena and Wren and all his companions from his raiding days and the common people he had come to know and care for while working on his rebuilding projects. They mattered. And he had to get back to them.

"It will be your temporary pass," Mor said, "although the mark itself will not be temporary. You may still fail us, Prince Dariel, but I've been told to give you the time and freedom to be among us. It's a chance not to fail." After a pause, she added, "I hope you don't."

Dariel nodded. Never a skilled liar, it was the best he could do to express his resolve. In truth, he had accepted the mission Mor offered him for reasons of his own. Yes, he would be part of a small team sent to steal a Lothan Aklun boat, a soul vessel. One had been found tied up at the southern end of the warehouse district. The league had not yet noticed it, probably because a series of skerries-small, rocky islands-blocked the area from the open ocean. Dariel would prove he was the raider he claimed to have been. He would captain the vessel. He would pilot it south to a marsh area called Sumerled, where they would ground the boat and set fire to it, thereby denying it to the league and-even more important-freeing the souls that had been bound to power it.

Dariel had agreed to all of this readily enough. To himself, he swore that if he got the chance, he would flee in the cutter. He had no idea if he could really make the Lothan Aklun ship work, and he realized the People themselves knew so little about the sea that they assumed things about his knowledge that they shouldn't have. But so be it. He would try. He would pilot across the Gray Slopes in it if he had to or follow the coastline north and pick his way through the Ice Fields. He would work out the details later, but this might be his best chance at getting home. He had to grasp it if he could.

"What totem would you take?" Mor asked, sorting through the instruments on a small table.

"I will take what you feel I deserve," he said.

"I don't know what you deserve."

"If it was my choice I would wear the face of the Shivith. Spots, like yours."

"You jest," she said, glancing up at him.

"No." Dariel said. He knew it sounded strange, and he knew people would stare at him back in the Known World, but this he could answer truthfully. "I find the effect quite pleasing. I'm not ready for whiskers just yet, thanks. Some spots, though-if they look similar to yours-might be interesting. But, as I said, if that offends you, choose another totem. Or… someone else could do this."

Instead of looking at him, Mor closed her eyes and absorbed his choice within herself. "As you wish. And, no, I'll do it." She lifted the tattooing needle like a stylus in one hand and turned to face him, a tiny bowl of black ash ink pinched in the fingers of her other hand. "This will hurt, but pain is transitory. Only our legacy endures. Come, sit here before me. This will take a while."

Dariel did as she asked. She was right, of course. It did hurt. And it did take a long time. But every painful moment of it was tempered by the nearness of Mor's body, by the scent of her and the fleeting moments when her elbow or wrist, hip or breast brushed against him. He tried to remember Wren, but it was hard. When he pictured Wren's face, he saw it overlaid with tattoos, indistinguishable from Mor's. They were both from northern Candovia, after all. By the Giver, he could not tell them apart anymore.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as she worked, "about… the People not being able to have children. I didn't know. We should have asked. I'm so sorry we didn't. If we had, I swear to you things would have been different."

By the way she paused it was clear to Dariel that Mor was considering what he said. Her only answer, though, was to continue piercing his flesh.

"There," she eventually said. She picked up the bloodstained towel she had used throughout the procedure, wet it in some liquid, and used it to clean his face. Despite himself, Dariel flinched at each touch: the liquid stung. She stepped back from him, setting down the needle of torture and contemplating her work. She smiled.

"So you're amused?" he asked.

She laughed into the back of her hand, trying to squelch it. Holding up a mirror, she said, "Perhaps you should see yourself. See how you look, now and forever."

Dariel reached out and accepted the mirror. He turned it toward his face. He expected to see a stranger staring back at him. A beast, perhaps. Something strange and perhaps frightening. He expected-despite the curious anticipation he felt-to be frightened by what he saw and sickened by the permanence of it. He was not. In fact…

"What are you thinking, Akaran?" Mor asked.