Marked by Death (Necromancer #1) - Kaje Harper Page 0,11

a commanding voice. “Settle down.”

“Fuck you. Do you know what it’s like? For months, I’ve thought I was going crazy. I thought— They talk to me. They moan and cry and call for things and curse.” Darien pressed his head between his hands till his knuckles went white. “Get them out of me!”

“It’s not that simple.”

“But you can do it?”

“Yes.” But not without risk. He’d never tried to strip this many ghosts from one person. “With the right preparation and time and not all at once.”

“Oh.” Darien slumped, but he didn’t seem dispirited. “You said yes. You can. I— I’m not crazy. I don’t have to live with them forever.” He stared at his arm. “Someday these’ll just be tattoos.”

Silas said, “They’re spirit marks. Death marks. On someone with minimal power, they’d look like a smudge, a bruise. That clarity? That’s a sign of how much raw talent you have. But either way, they go when the ghost goes.”

“Go.” Darien’s lips curved weirdly and he giggled. “Begone, foul marks. Get you gone. Shoo. Scram. Beat it.” He smacked the boat tattoo and laughed again, and the end of the laugh twisted, wrenched from his throat, becoming a sob. He clapped his hands over his face, but couldn’t muffle the sounds he was making.

Silas started to reach for him, but pulled his hand back. This was all his fault. His pride and his ineptitude and even his strength, which had all came together at the worst possible moment. And then his carelessness, to have never followed up. He’d assumed the local Guildmaster had sent someone who’d taken young Darien under his wing and set him on his path. He’d patted himself on the back for protecting the kid from a demon, and expected to meet him as a fellow practitioner one day. And all that time…

Darien’s thin shoulders shook. Grimalkin stood up, gave Silas a narrow glare, and then paced over to sit down against Darien’s bowed back. His purr rose in a rumble.

Silas wished he could be comforting too, but he was terrible at things like that. Even when Darien had been small, Silas was quick with a first-aid kit, or a bicycle pump, or a repair of something broken, but not emotional stuff. Not that Darien had ever cried much, even as a little kid. And never like this. The sobs that shook him now resounded with a man’s deep, uncontrollable breaking open of some well of pain that Silas wished he could fix. A pain that Silas had caused. The awareness kept him frozen, sitting there pleating the fabric of his robe between his fingers, until Darien’s noises ebbed and stopped.

“Sorry.” Darien’s voice was hoarse, still behind his raised hands. “That was—”

“Natural,” Silas assured him. “I’m sure it’s been a horribly long five months.”

“And twelve days.” Darien sounded stronger. He dragged his hands down his face. “Not that I was counting. You really can get these things out of my head?”

“Really,” Silas promised recklessly. He’d find a way to pull all those spirits loose and leave Darien intact. He had to.

“When can we start?”

“Tomorrow. In the daylight.”

Grimalkin stood up and stretched. “After breakfast. And I expect some extra tuna for being stepped on by your oafish feet.”

“I am sorry,” Darien told him. “But I don’t have any tuna.”

“I do, and I doubt it was your fault,” Silas reassured him. He was going to point out that Grim had almost certainly gotten in his way on purpose, but a green-eyed glare from the cat made him swallow the words. “Anyhow, we all need sleep and then food, before we try anything difficult.” His head still ached from the power he’d spent that evening, coming when he’d already been drained to the bone.

He stood and extended a hand down to Darien. “Can you get up? Carefully. That was quite a knock on the head you took.”

Darien eyed his hand for several heartbeats before taking it. Silas closed his grip on Darien’s slim fingers and had a dizzying rush of déjà vu. Somewhere in time and space, he’d held, or would hold, those fingers just this way, his power seeking across the barrier of skin, echoed by something inside Darien—

“Um?” Darien stared at their clasped hands, where Silas was rather obviously not giving him a boost.

“Sorry. Had a thought. Up you come, then, slowly.” He hauled Darien up and caught his arm to steady him with a firm grip on one elbow, thin and bony through the sweater.

“I think I’m okay.”