The Marked Girl Read Free Page A

room.
    â€œEmme,” Cedric whispered.
    â€œTake one wrong breath, and your sister will pay,” the wrath holding on to Cedric said.
    Though Emmeline was only two years younger than Cedric, she looked small and childlike in the wrath’s grip. The sight of the creature’s dirty claws on her thin arm brought up such a sudden rage in Cedric that the edges of his eyesight blurred red and black. He forced himself to focus. How was it possible these monsters had invaded the castle? His whole life, Cedric had been trained to fight off the threat of the wraths and keep the creatures outside the borders of the realm’s towns and villages. Never once had a wrath stepped so much as a foot within the main city’s walls. That they had somehow invaded not just the city, but the castle itself, was unthinkable.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Cedric asked, trying his best to make his tone sound commanding and imperial, like his father’s.
    Emme whimpered, and Cedric looked over to see the second wrath gripping her neck with its taloned hand.
    Cedric jerked toward her, but the first wrath put a knife to his throat.
    â€œWant to speak again?”
    Cedric shook his head once, his shoulders clenched tight with anger. The wrath dragged Cedric through his room, keeping his arms pinned behind his back. It pushed him into the hallway, directly behind the wrath that half held, half carried his sister. The stone halls were quiet and dark, their smooth walls impassive to the plight of the young prince and princess being dragged past them in their nightclothes. The wrath holding Emme continued to jerk her arm roughly, as if reminding Cedric not to struggle against his own captor.
    As they reached the main corridor of the castle, Cedric cast a glance toward the giant wooden doors on the far side of the room, in front of which two long, bulky shapes lay in heaps on the ground. The guards.
    â€œYou do not know what you have done,” Cedric said. “When my father catches you, the punishment—”
    Cedric stopped talking when he heard his captor laugh. Actually laugh.
    â€œYour father already waits for you in the dungeons,” the wrath said. Its craggy face stretched into what was either a hideous grimace or an attempt at a cruel smile. “Do not worry that he is being mistreated, Highness. He was given the largest cell, after all.”
    From the opposite side of the corridor, Cedric watched a series of figures emerge from the shadows. Another wrath appeared, its twisted horns catching the flickering light from thetorches on the wall. The wrath was dragging behind it Katerina Esson and Merek Harcourt, both in town with their parents for the annual peacekeeping summit.
    Katerina’s teeth clenched as the wrath pulled her by the arms. She wasn’t making its job any easier, but was digging in her heels and trying to wrench her arms free as she was dragged over the stone floor. Her proud, sometimes haughty family stood as wards of the large northern holdings, and she had been betrothed to Cedric since her birth. Watching her struggle now, Cedric couldn’t help but think of when he first saw Katerina—his Kat—enter the palace three days earlier, surrounded by ambassadors. She’d grown significantly since he’d seen her last, and her customary twin plaits that he used to pull on to tease her had been combed out to fall around her shoulders in a gentle wave. Now Kat’s dark hair was a loose, messy tangle that flew about as she tried to yank her arm from the wrath’s grip.
    If only she had a weapon in her hands, Cedric knew the wrath that held her would not be smiling.
    Behind Kat, Merek was being ushered along much more smoothly by another wrath. The youngest son of the king’s cousin, a duke, Merek had always been better at cutting with words than with swords.
    Cedric was thankful to see both of the nobles unharmed, and prayed that their parents were still alive as well.