Carrier of the Mark Read online

  “The Sidhe is the spirit guide of the Marked,” Adam answered. “He watches over us. He guided you to us.” He raised his eyebrows. “Looks like a monk with a long gray beard.”

  “The monk is the Sidhe?” I gasped.

  “You’ve seen him?” Adam asked.

  I nodded. So the old monk was a spirit guide. It sort of made sense … at least, some kind of sense when spoken in the same breath as everything else I was hearing.

  My hand wandered up to my scar—no, I corrected myself, my Mark—and traced the faint pattern. “Was my mom Marked?”

  “No, but either she or your father must be of royal blood, a descendant of a Marked one,” Fionn replied.

  “So why me? Why did I get the Mark?”

  Fionn shook his head. “When or why the Mark comes to royal bloods of indirect descent, we’re really not sure. When the direct bloodline is broken suddenly, like in the case of their mother, the Sidhe makes his selection and guides the new Mark to the others.”

  “So I’m air,” I whispered quietly to myself.

  “Yes.” Áine smiled encouragingly.

  “What can I do?”

  “Air is a very powerful element,” Adam said softly. “You can pretty much do anything you want.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. You can manipulate air. You can move things with a single command. At full strength, and with training and experience, you’d be capable of controlling the air and anything existing in it.”

  “So you’ve known about me and my Mark all along?” I looked him straight in the eye.

  “No. At first we weren’t sure what you were. But then all of our powers started acting up and the fourth arc appeared on our Marks. Even then, we weren’t positive. But I was so drawn to you. My element knew you were the fourth before I did.”

  “Is it just the Mark that draws you to me?” I blurted out. Was what we had even real? Or was it just some weird mystical force at work?

  He studied my face and then shook his head. “It can’t be just the Mark. What I feel for you is real. It has to be. I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t. It would hurt when you were close and I could see you, but not touch you.” He looked sincere, but I could see the same fears in his eyes. I realized he was trying to convince himself as much as me.

  “So I made that tornado thing happen last night? How did I do it?”

  “Your power is deep within you, looking for an outlet. You have to tap into it to be able to release it,” Fionn said, standing up. “Fear or stress can trigger your power unwittingly. That is why we must act fast. If your power is starting to manifest, you must learn to control it. The Sidhe could have orchestrated your move to Kinsale years ago. There must be a reason why he waited until such a late stage in your development to bring you here. We just need to figure out what that reason is.”

  “So it was the Sidhe that got my dad the job at the yacht club?”

  Fionn nodded. “It must have been. There’s no other explanation. Listen, I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I have to get Rían on our side.”

  “Fionn, wait. What did you mean before when you said that this was a situation you’d hoped to avoid? Is it the same reason Rían is so against me?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  Fionn’s face softened. “Rían, Adam, and Áine are my life. I’d do anything to protect them. I’d hoped that the elements would not call on them. But it seems destiny has other plans. With the arrival of the fourth it looks like an alignment is necessary.”

  “Alignment? What is that?”

  “The true purpose of the Marked Ones. It’s a ritual that aligns the elements on Earth. It has to be performed on the Summer Solstice.”

  “But surely that’s a good thing?”

  “It should be, but I don’t like the dangers it presents to my family. It’s selfish, really. I should be thinking of the greater good.” Fionn smiled gently and walked outside to find Rian.

  I turned to Adam. “Dangers?”

  “Let’s talk more about that when Fionn comes back. First things first: Are you okay?”

  “I think so. But … I really don’t feel like I have any power in me.”

  “Oh, you do; I’ve seen it.”

  “Last night?”

  “Not just then. You use your power all the time. You just don’t notice. I’ve been watching you … stalker style, even when I couldn’t see you.”

  “He even had me hounding you,” Áine interjected. “As you surely have guessed by now…”

  “The crow!” I looked at her in astonishment. “He was watching me.”

  “Not so sly, huh?” She laughed and held out her hand, looking toward the window. A moment later my crow flew in and landed on her arm. “He’s actually a rook. This is Randel,” she introduced us. “Randel,” she said, addressing the bird, “you already know Megan.” He bowed his head toward me in recognition and then jumped up onto her shoulder.

  “I had poor Randel and Áine working around the clock watching you,” Adam said softly.

  “Which, by the way, you owe me big-time for,” Áine said to him.

  “I know, I know, name it.” He sighed.

  “Oh, don’t worry; I will! But right now I’m going to go help Fionn with Rían; he’s really worked up.” Áine started to head out, but I said her name and she turned back to face me.

  I took a deep breath. “So you’re telling me you can speak to Randel, and that he can speak to you?”

  “I can speak to and understand all animals, and I have a few other earthly tricks up my sleeve too.” She winked at me.

  “My head’s fried at the moment,” I muttered wearily, “but remind me to ask you about them some other time.”

  “Sure, we have the rest of our lives. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you have joined our family. Finally, I’m not the only freaky Carrier of the Mark; it takes the pressure right off. Perhaps Adam here will oblige…”

  “Get out of here,” Adam told her lightheartedly, throwing a cushion in her direction. She easily ducked out of the way and danced from the room.

  Adam turned to me. “Want to go for a walk?” He stood and pulled me up into his arms.

  “Yes. I just … I need some time to sort it all out in my head.” I stood there in his arms quietly for a moment.

  “Come on, let’s go for that walk. I know a place that will make you feel much better,” he said. He grabbed my jacket and wrapped it around me. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We climbed into his car and drove in silence until we got to James Fort, an old ruin set on a grassy headland. Then we set off on foot. The grass was long and damp. It soaked my jeans a dark blue around my feet, but I barely felt it. The fresh sea breeze hitting my face felt so good, blowing away the fears and the panic. The raw beauty of this place made the magic seem almost believable.

  Adam took my hand and held it firmly. We walked in silence until we came to the abandoned ruins of the fort. Only the ancient exterior walls of the original structure remained. Thick battlements with huge arched windows overlooked the water, facing a sister fort on the other side of the harbor.

  Adam lifted me up into one of these windows and tucked me in on one side, with my back to the curving stone frame. Then he pulled himself up and sat on the other side, so we were face-to-face, our boots touching. It had started to rain lightly, but we were well sheltered in the wall. Adam raised his arm and pointed over to the other fort across the water.

  “Have you been to Charles Fort?”

  “No. I’ve been meaning to since I got here, but never quite got around to it.” I gazed around the crumbling walls of James Fort, with trees growing out of walls and floors blanketed with brambles and grass. “This place is like the poor relation to her rather fine sister over there,” I said, eyeing the well-preserved walls and manicured grass of the other fort.

  “Yes, but I prefer the real thing. This place has sat here undisturbed all these years. It feels alive. The other fort has been restored
for the tourists. It’s lost its soul.”

  I could see his point. It was comfortable here, deserted; the only sound was the rain hitting the leaves and the damp earth, and the waves breaking on the rocks far below us. I wrapped my arms around my knees and hugged them to me.

  “I love this place. It feels so like Newgrange,” he murmured softly.

  “What’s Newgrange?”

  “It’s a temple in the Boyne Valley, in Meath, built for the Marked Ones, back in the beginning. It was perfectly positioned for the winter solstice and, of course, the alignment. It’s never been used by us, since there has never been a successful alignment, but the tourists and archeologists get a kick out of the winter illumination. There’s a magical serenity to the place. I get that same feeling here. Do you sense it?”

  “I think I do. Everything seems to make sense here.” I paused. “Isn’t there some sort of ghost story attached to this place?”

  “Not here. The White Lady haunts Charles Fort. Her husband was killed on her wedding day, so she jumped to her death, mourning her lost love, and now she walks the battlements each night.”

  “Well, that’s cheerful.”

  “Ah, yes, these stories usually are.” He smiled over at me. “Would you like to hang out and see if she appears?”

  “I think I’ve had my fill of the supernatural for one day.”

  “I guess you have. How are you feeling now?”

  “Weird and … a little scared.” I looked up at him. “And happy, actually. I feel like I could take on the world when I’m with you.” I got up onto all fours and crawled over to him and he took me in his arms.

  “Try not to feel too overwhelmed,” he said into my hair as he hugged me tight. The warmth from his body gave me goose bumps and sent shivers down my spine.

  “You should know,” he began softly, “that if this is all too much for you, if you don’t want this, you don’t have to accept the Mark. If you don’t evoke the element before the summer solstice, it will skip you and move on to the next generation.” He paused, and let his words sink in. “I wouldn’t blame you. I wonder what any of us would have done, given the choice.”

  “Is that what Rían meant about my time running out?” I asked, trying to remember the details of the conversation.

  “Yeah. But you don’t have to worry about that right now.” He rocked me back and forth. “Let’s see if we can spot the White Lady.” He put on a ghoulish laugh.

  I snuggled in closer to him. I don’t know how long we sat there, but the sun was on the other side of the battlements when he nudged me awake.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said softly in my ear. “Fionn called. It looks like Rían’s been talked down. We’d better get back.”

  Eleven

  THE ORDER OF THE MARK

  When we got back to the house they were waiting for us in a sitting room off the main hall. Two threadbare sofas faced each other in the center. Fionn sat on one with his elbows on his knees and his hands cradling his face. Beside him, Rían slouched into the corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Áine came in behind us and shut the door. She walked past Rían and curled up in an armchair by the ornate fireplace.

  “Megan, welcome back,” Fionn said as we walked into the room and sat on the couch opposite him and Rían. “I want to apologize for our reactions earlier. You are, of course, very welcome in this family, and from now on, you will be thought of as one of us.” His pleading eyes met mine. “Can you accept our apologies?”

  “Um … sure,” I said. “We were all under a lot of pressure.”

  He smiled. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

  The warmth of this smile caught me off guard. I had turned this man into a hard military type in my head; I now struggled to unravel my opinion of him.

  “I’ve been in contact with the Dublin Order—” Fionn started.

  “What? I thought we were going to keep them out of this until we’d assessed the situation,” Adam interrupted with an irritated edge to his voice.

  “It’s time to act, Adam,” Fionn said. “It’s obvious from what we’ve seen that Megan is ready.”

  “What am I ready for? And what is the Dublin Order?” I asked, looking from Fionn to Adam.

  “Megan,” Fionn began, “I’m a member of an ancient order, the Order of the Mark. We have been in existence for millennia and we exist for one reason: to hold and protect the secret of the Marked. We originated from a group of druids who came together in an attempt to guide the world out of the chaos it was left in after Danu went back to the realm of the gods. When the first three Marked Ones perished, the Order put the remaining Marked One into hiding to protect her from those who sought her power.

  “Her Sidhe—who was a mortal monk back then—died sometime later, leaving us alone to figure out the secrets of the Marked. The Order had to ensure the continuation of the bloodline, but for a long time they were not very successful. It turns out the Marked gene is recessive. Pairings rarely produced Marked children. The Order managed to maintain one or two Marked over time, but it was hit-and-miss. Then some children who were descended from royal Marked blood started growing Marks in their teens. The Order could not understand what was happening until the children spoke of an old monk who appeared to them. It soon became clear that the Sidhe was continuing his calling from the spirit realm.

  “So the elements were maintained, but in order to perform elemental alignment, the Order needed four elements fully evoked at the same time. The strength required of the four elements to connect and balance Earth is substantial. A failed alignment is more harmful to Earth’s delicate balance than no alignment at all.”

  “I still don’t really understand how that’s possible…” I said, but Fionn smiled at me, and the look in his eyes made me realize that this was another question that he would be able to answer later.

  “The royal blood spread out across the world,” Fionn continued. “There was no way of knowing which royal bloodline the Sidhe would activate and when and if he would at all. It was rare for the Sidhe to activate the royal bloods, and they were always male, which didn’t help. The Order needed Carriers. So the Order abandoned the royal bloods and concentrated on the children of the direct lines, hoping to aid the creation of new Marked Ones. They sought out neutral gene carriers as matches for the Marked Carriers, in order to allow the recessive Marked gene to pass to the next generation—”

  “Hang on,” I interrupted Fionn, feeling like my head was about to explode. “So royal bloods are descendants of Marked ones, but don’t bear the Mark.”

  Fionn nodded.

  “And they didn’t get the Mark because…?”

  “They were either born to an unmarked mother and Marked father or to a Marked mother and a father who did not carry the neutral gene,” Fionn finished for me.

  “So who carries the neutral gene, and how do you know?”

  “This isn’t all hard science, Megan; there is an element of magic here. Danu never thought her Tuatha de Danann would fail; she never intended for the line to continue. So she didn’t exactly leave a user manual. Through trial and error the Order discovered that it was a recessive gene, and that it only manifests in certain families, so the Order paired the female Carriers with partners from those lines. But getting the right combination does not guarantee Marked children. That’s what made the DeRís family special.”

  “You mean because all of the children were Marked?” I asked, looking around the room.

  “Because they had a Carrier of the Mark for a mother and a father who carried the neutral gene. So now Áine is a Carrier of the Mark and Adam and Rían are Marked royal bloods.” Fionn waited for me to continue.

  “Adam is water, Áine is earth, and Rían is Fire, so their mother must have been…”

  Fionn smiled sadly. “Air.”

  “Like me.” I swallowed nervously. “And you said the Sidhe only activated male royal bloods. What does that make me?”

  “It makes you unique,
” Adam said slowly.

  “First and foremost it makes you a Carrier of the Mark,” Fionn added. “It also makes you less detectable. Nobody would suspect you of being an activated element. I believe the Sidhe was trying to protect the fourth element by hiding it in a female.”

  “What does it need protecting from?”

  “The world is a very different place now,” Fionn said, rubbing his forehead. “Things have changed over the centuries, and the Order has been forced to retreat into a very secret world. Knowledge of the Marked tends to be handed down through families of the Order, all educated in their history and power. Order members are based around the world now, in small pockets, living normally in communities with families and jobs. We do stay in contact, but we meet only when necessary. Ireland is the ancestral home of the Mark. We have hidden chambers under Trinity College in Dublin. The three members of the Dublin Order watch over our archives and artifacts there.”

  “But the Order has an agenda. We don’t have many dealings with them,” Adam interjected.

  “What’s the agenda?” I asked.

  “Let me tell the story, Adam, please.” Fionn gave Adam a warning look. “As Adam says, the Order has an agenda, and quite rightly so. Its ultimate goal is to perform the alignment ritual. It is, after all, the very reason for your existence—and the reason that Danu created the Marked Ones in the first place.”

  “You said before that alignment was dangerous,” I said, thinking back to this morning.

  “Yes, the ritual itself is very draining. That’s why all four Marked Ones need to be at full strength in order to even attempt an alignment. They’ve attempted the ritual throughout the ages, sometimes with three elements, sometimes with elements at varying stages of development. They all failed, doing more harm than good—”

  “But what do you mean?” I interrupted. I wanted a straight answer here; my head was still swirling.

  Fionn gave me an apologetic look and went on. “I mean the attempted rituals threw off the balance in the world even more, sometimes at the expense of a Marked One. But quite honestly, even beyond the dangers of an alignment ritual, there are more immediate dangers that the Marked Ones face. There are those who want the powers of the elements.”