The Griever's Mark (The Griever's Mark series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

wave that away. “I don’t care what you call him. And he has at least five other Drifters in his service, and that’s not including his son.”
    “A child,” scoffs Martel, the scar tugging down the left side of his face when he frowns.
    “Perhaps.” In truth, Prince Rood is fifteen, only two years younger than I am. “But you know the castle as well as I do.” I have never actually been inside it, but Martel doesn’t need to know that. “Come now. You know you’ll never breach it.”
    “I don’t have to breach it if Heborian comes out.”
    “And why would he do that?”
    Martel smiles, refusing to give anything more away, but it’s clear he has a plan. And he thinks it’s a good one.
    I remind him, “Heborian has never been seen outside the castle walls without a heavy guard and at least two of his fellow Drifters. Do you think yourself so lucky?”
    His lip curls, giving him an ugly expression that has nothing to do with his scar. “Luck is for cowards. And women. Men make plans.”
    I ignore his jab. “My employer would probably agree with you. He, too, makes plans. But he has something you don’t.”
    “And what is that?”
    I let part of my mind travel along my mooring and into the Drift. I tug at a thread of my energy, pull it through myself. I cast it around him, binding him as I bound the Warden. He gasps. I draw more of my energy and shape it into something familiar, something that fits perfectly and comfortably into my hand. The steel-encased butt of my spear rests on the floor near my foot. The smooth shaft stretches high above my head, where the notched blade gleams orange with firelight.
    Martel’s eyes bulge. “You’re a Drifter.” His voice is faint. Then fear flashes in his eyes. “One of Heborian’s?”
    I give him a moment to fear that possibility before I smile. “I work for someone much more powerful than Heborian.”
    His mind is clanking through possibilities, but he’s not getting there.
    “Someone who’d like to offer you a deal.” I let the last word fall like a stone.
    Everyone knows Belos’s most common title: the Dealmaker.
    Martel freezes, his eyes wide with fear. This doesn’t surprise me, and he’s wise to be frightened. He would be wise, in fact, to refuse. To accept a deal with Belos is to Leash oneself to him. Belos would have control of Martel, be able to take his mind and use his body, be able to kill him by absorbing his lifeforce through the Leash, thus adding to Belos’s own power. Martel would be as I am, a slave.
    But.
    Power can travel both ways along a Leash. I have seen Belos give a man enough strength to tear off another’s head with bare hands. I have seen him give a man the power of voice and will to raise an army. I have seen him give a man the power to drift. For the desperate, or the greedy, it’s tempting. The question, then, is whether Martel is desperate and greedy enough.
    “I will never give him my soul.”
    This is a common belief among humans, that the lifeforce Leashed to Belos is actually something more nebulous and precious, something no one has ever been able to define to my satisfaction: the soul. The word, as always, makes me uncomfortable.
    “Belos can make you invincible. And he can join himself and all his...resources...to your cause. Think about that, Martel. You’ll have everything you want.”
    Of course, there can be no actual guarantee of success. But Belos’s deals tend to work out well for people. At first.
    Martel is shaking his head. His voice is weak and frightened when he says, “Please let me go.”
    I suspect he fears that Belos will Leash him against his will. It’s true that he could, that he’s done it before, but Belos prefers to make deals. Oh, it’s not out of any sense of decency, of course. It’s simply more useful, and easier, to have willing subjects. To constantly control the mind of another is, as Belos once said, “Too much bother, unless it’s necessary.”
    I load my voice with