The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two by Gail Z. Martin

scar on his abdomen where he had been run through with a sword, a wound that would have been fatal without the magic of both Carina and Tris Drayke. High on his chest a discolored line of skin was the reminder of an assassin’s poisoned dagger. And just below that, the mark of the Sacred Lady was branded onto his skin, a reminder of a vow sworn to Istra, the Dark Lady. Dozens of other scars from fights too numerous to mention covered his arms, hands, chest, and back. With his shirt on, Jonmarc Vahanian was a handsome man with dark brown eyes, shoulder-length brown hair, and a wicked, lopsided grin. Shirtless, he knew that people saw only the scars.
    “Some of those are because of Alcion, aren’t they?” Gethin’s voice was quiet, and in it, Jonmarc heard a mix of shame and fascination.
    “Yeah. A lot of them, actually. Especially the burn on my shoulder. Too bad for Alcion, the barn he locked me inand set on fire didn’t actually kill me.” The screams of the other villagers who weren’t so lucky still haunted his dreams.
    “My father regards you as a great hero,” Gethin said, and Jonmarc heard honest regard in the prince’s voice. “He saw you fight a magicked monster at King Drayke’s wedding. He told me that you fight in the Eastmark style as well as any of our best warriors. I didn’t believe him.” The young man had the grace to look rueful as he glanced down at the fresh sword cuts on his arm and chest. “I do now.”
    Jonmarc drew a cup of water from a bucket near the wall and handed it to Gethin. Then he dug two strips of cloth out of a box and began to bind up the prince’s wounds. “You fight well,” Jonmarc replied, choosing to ignore the compliments rather than search for words to acknowledge them. “You’re salle trained, but you’ve seen some battle, haven’t you?”
    Gethin’s chagrin at being bested wasn’t easily mollified, but he nodded. “Some. I was sent to the army at fourteen, and went on my first campaign against raiders at sixteen. I’ve been out a few times since then. It’s all the campaigning there’s been—until now.” He managed to brighten. “Although if I have to lose in the salle, it’s no shame to lose to you, of all people.” He sighed. “You could have hamstrung me with that move, couldn’t you?”
    Jonmarc chuckled. “It’s a street move that I like to use on all the young princes I end up having to train right before we go into battle against overwhelmingly bad odds.”
    Gethin frowned. “You do a lot of this sort of thing?” His Markian accent made his words clipped and gave his vowels a strange turn. The accent stood out, even in Principality’s polyglot mix of peoples.
    “Actually, only once before. An old mercenary friend of mine helped three young noblemen escape with their lives from Jared the Usurper. One of them, a prince who was your age at the time, wasn’t fortunate enough to have even your battle experience. I will say, he improved quite a bit by the time it counted.”
    Gethin gave him a dry smile. “Might that unlucky prince have been Martris Drayke?”
    Jonmarc nodded. “Tris was as green as grass back then when it came to real fighting. Not his fault: Margolan hadn’t been to war in a generation, and his salle training had been mostly for sparring, not for real battle. I’ll tell you what I told them: My ‘technique’ was learned one street fight at a time, which is the only way I know how to teach anyone. Oh, and did I mention—there are no rules.”
    Gethin smiled widely. “We have a saying,” he began, and then lapsed into Markian with a look that dared Jonmarc to translate.
    “A scar at the hand of a master brings no shame,” Jonmarc interpreted dryly. “I know I speak Markian with a Borderlands accent, but when I was your age, I was a Principality merc hired into the Eastmark army and well on my way to becoming a senior officer. Until the court martial.”
    Gethin shouldered gingerly into his shirt, and Jonmarc