The Drone Who Claimed the Marshal novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Contract

The claim law beats the Duke's contract in public. In the car the Marshal's fever flares and Linus takes his hand; the Empress summons them at dawn.

"Does it?" Marshal Roark said.

He did not let go of Linus's wrist.

Duke Cormac Lorne came down the aisle with a slate in his hand, unhurried, and every camera in the Hall followed him.

"Perrin Garrow signed him over this morning," the Duke said. "I have the seal and the registrar's stamp. I paid twelve thousand crowns, Marshal. I only want what's mine."

His voice was gentle, and he sounded sorry to be a bother.

Linus held out his free hand. "May I read it?"

The Duke hesitated for half a breath, then passed him the slate.

Linus read it once, slowly, while forty thousand people waited.

Zane had read a hundred contracts like it, in rooms where men smiled while they handed them over.

"This is a guardian's contract," Linus said. "It sells my labor to the House of Lorne. Perrin signed as my guardian."

"Yes," the Duke said. "That is all it says."

"Then it says nothing about a claim."

Linus turned to face the Hall, because the cameras were there and the cameras were the point.

"A guardian can sell a drone's labor. He can't sell a drone's claim. And my claim has been under a steel band for seven years."

The announcer went white.

An old woman in the registrar's grey robe rose from the first tier with a book under her arm.

"Hiding a lit mark from the Claiming is a crime under the Hall Statutes," she said in a thin, carrying voice. "Any contract made while a mark was hidden is void."

The noise that rolled through the Hall was low, and it was happy.

Perrin made a small sound at the foot of the stage.

"I was protecting him," he said. "He's soft, they would have taken him. Lin, you know I only wanted you safe."

Linus looked at his foster brother and found nothing in this body to say to him.

The Duke closed his eyes for a moment.

"Then I have been deceived as well," he said sadly. "Perrin, how could you do this to me? I gave you a fair price in good faith."

Two guards in Hall grey took Perrin by the arms.

"Lin," Perrin said as they led him off. "I did it for us."

Linus unwound the gold-trimmed scarf from his neck and held it out.

"You'll want this back, Duke."

The Duke took it. He was still smiling, and the smile stayed exactly where it was a moment too long.

"My congratulations, Marshal," he said. "I will send a wedding gift."

"Do," Marshal Roark said.

It was the first word he had said to the Duke, and it had no warmth in it at all.

Then the Marshal turned and walked Linus out through the side doors, one hand still wrapped around his wrist.

Cameras followed them to the very edge of the courtyard.

The Marshal's car was black and long, with its windows dark, and a driver in grey held the door.

Marshal Roark kept his grip until Linus was inside and the door had shut.

Then he let go, and sat down hard on the far seat.

It took less than a minute.

Black plates climbed out of his collar, up the side of his throat and over his cheekbone, and his breath came out through his teeth.

His left glove was blazing now. Gold poured out of every seam and lit the roof of the car.

"Don't," the Marshal said, hoarse, when Linus moved. "It takes the hand of anyone who touches me while it's burning."

Linus had been a soldier in another life, and a soldier knew when an order was only fear.

He took the Marshal's bare right hand in both of his.

The plates stopped.

For a moment nothing moved in the car. Then they sank, one after another, back under the skin of his jaw and neck, and the gold in his left glove went down to a faint line.

The Marshal let out a long unsteady breath and stared at their joined hands.

"Seven years," he said.

"Seven years of what?"

"Nobody has touched me in seven years without losing skin. Doctors. My own adjutant." His eyes lifted. They were pale, with gold in them, and very tired. "You held me twice. How did you do that?"

"I didn't do anything," Linus said. "I held your hand."

"Yes," the Marshal said. "That's what I'm asking about."

He did not take his hand back, and Linus did not let go.

Outside, the cameras were still shouting through the glass. Inside, the car was warm, and quiet, and smelled of cold metal and rain.

Linus thought of the Ore Works and how close it had been.

He thought of a man in a front-row seat who had never once come to the last day of the Claiming, and had come to this one.

The comm panel in the door chimed.

The driver glanced back, then read the line aloud in a flat voice.

"A summons from the throne, Marshal. Dawn tomorrow, at the palace. The Empress asks that you bring the drone."

The Marshal's grip tightened around Linus's fingers.

"In seven years," he said, very low, "she has never once asked to see a drone."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend