Chapter Text
Sometimes Beau thinks her Mark is the only reason that her parents kept her when she was born. Marks were rare and highly coveted, particularly among those looking to climb the social ladder. Having a child with a Soulmate Mark meant that you got to parade them around to all the nobility and elites whose children also had Marks and, even if they weren’t a match, there were many connections and business deals to be made. She may have been a disappointment in literally every other regard but she had a Mark so maybe that could make up for it a little bit.
From the time she could walk she was dressed up in fine dresses and her mother would invite all manner of nobility and social elite to their house to compare their children’s Marks.
Her mother would make her stand in front of a room full of strangers and pull down the front of her dress to show off the deep, blood red Mark stamped on her collarbone. Beau had seen a lot of Marks over the years and she always thought that hers was the prettiest. There were dark boxy ones, all hard lines and straight edges, there were bright white ones made of overlapping circles, but she had the only red one that she’d ever seen. It was big, bigger than it really should have been honestly, shaped vaguely like a heart if you squinted at it but it was mostly free flowing lines that twirled and curled over each other.
She knew, subconsciously maybe, that they were looking for a Mark that matched hers but no one ever told her what it meant. No one ever told her who this matching Mark would be to her. She didn’t know that she had a soulmate somewhere in the world until she was eight and read it in a storybook.
“Mommy,” she called, banging on the door to her mother’s room. “Mommy!”
There was a groan from the other side and the door opened a moment later. “What,” her mother asked, looking put out. “What is it, Darling, Mommy’s busy.”
Beau held up the book and waved it around until her mother sighed and took it from her hand. “Is it true? I have a soulmate?”
Her mother chuckled and gave her a kind smile, bending down to look her in the eye. “Is that what this is about? Of course you have a soulmate, that’s what all these parties have been about, we’re trying to find him for you. Then, when you’re older, you can get married to him and live happily ever after. Who knows, maybe he’s a prince, maybe he’s heir to a vast wealth. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
Beau thought about that for a moment frowned. “But what if my soulmate isn’t either of those things? What if he’s poor? What if he’s not even human, Mommy?”
Her mother gave her that look that Beau knew meant she thought that Beau was kidding. “Then we’ll find you another suitable husband, Darling. Don’t worry.”
Beau felt rage start to fill her. “What? No, Mommy, no! I don’t want a suitable husband, I want my soulmate!”
Her mother sighed and moved to stand, calling down the hall. “Eugenia, could you come gather Beauregard? She’s throwing another tantram!” She shut the door.
Beau was fourteen when she made up her mind. She was in her room, staring out the window as the carriages arrived through the gate. It would be less than an hour now until she was expected downstairs to greet their guests. The fourth party of the year and her mother was running out of Marked suitors. Before long she’d be giving up on finding a Match and would be trying to sell Beau off to the highest bidder with a suitable son.
Beau looked over her shoulder at the fireplace across the room and the iron poker that was sitting in the fire and turning bright with heat. She took a deep breath and pushed off the wall, walking towards the fireplace. She picked up the wooden end of the poker and it was softly warm against her palm but she could feel the heat pouring off the pointed end. She took a deep breath and looked down at the Mark on her collarbone again. For the last time.
“I belong to me,” she whispered, running the tips of her fingers over it. “I’ll find you, with or without this thing,” she promised the woman on the other side of the Mark, because she had known for at least the last year that the person waiting for her was going to be a woman. “I’ll find you but to do that I need to be free of this. I belong to me. I belong to-”
She pressed the flat of the hot end of the poker to the Mark before she could talk herself out of it. She knew that she screamed because a few weeks later, one of the shopkeepers in town said he had heard her from his house, but she didn’t remember screaming.
Her mother spent the next several months trying to find a cleric or doctor or witch who could heal the Mark. The clerics healed the burn as best they could. She spent all of those first few days with their family priest of Erathis and he would dump as much healing magic as he could into her. By the time he was done, the deep burn looked like it was a decade old but it was still a burn scar. The Mark that had once been there had become an unrecognizable red blob on her skin.
When the priest told her parents that the Mark would never go back to the way it had been and that they would never be able to prove a viable Match with it, Beau smiled. That was the first time her father hit her.
She was pretty sure that that had been the breaking point, for both her and for her father. She’d dropped everything that they had tried to force her to be and rebelled with everything she had. And her father responded in kind, installing new and tougher measures to keep her in line. He hired a couple mages to come in and cast spell after spell around her room to keep her trapped inside after dark but it had only taken her one afternoon to figure out a way around them. He tried buying an amulet that would track her movements but she just lead the man he’d hired to drag her back home on a wild goose chase around the entire town all night.
She was pretty sure that he used her stealing of the wine as an excuse. He’d been planning this for a long time and all he needed was a reason.
There was a cleric in the carriage when they pushed her inside and shut the door. He was a kindly older man in blue robes, similar to those that the monks who’d dragged her here had been wearing but a different style for a different profession.
“Welcome, Sister,” he said. “I know it’s confusing now but everything will be better once we get to the Reserve. Come, let me heal your bruises.” Beau didn’t move but she also didn’t stop him when he reached over to touch her face. “They got you good on the cheek here. Does it hurt?”
Beau shrugged. “It wasn’t the monks who did that one.”
Understanding dawned on his face but he set about healing the worst of her wounds. When he finished he gave her a reassuring smile. “You’ve had a lonely life, child. But I hope you’ll find a home at Cobalt. Maybe even a family.”
Beau sighed. “No offence, buddy, but I’ve had a family and I ain’t too fucking impressed. I’m my own home now. I don’t need anyone else and I sure as fuck don’t need Cobalt.”
He gently moved away the collar of her cotton shirt to heal a bruise that disappeared underneath but paused when he saw the top of her burn scar. He looked up to meet her eyes and she didn’t stop him when he started pulling it down little by little until he could see almost half of the scar. He hummed thoughtfully and let the shirt go so that it bounced back to cover it once more. “But maybe we will need you. Did you do that yourself?”
Beau nodded and rubbed her scar through the shirt. Sometimes she dreamed of the woman with her Match. She’d be beautiful and kind and loving and funny and free as the wind. But then she’d remember that she had no proof. She’d burned her only proof away. Would her Match believe her? Would she be able to look at the burned remains of Beau’s Mark and imagine that it used to look like her own? Or would she send her away and keep waiting for a Matching Mark that would never come? Maybe her Match would believe her but would be angry that she’d taken their destiny into her own hands and burned it away. Maybe she’d find her and lose her all in one day. She hoped her soulmate would be able to understand. She had to believe that there was at least one person out in the world who would understand.
“I belong to me. My life is mine and no one else’s.”
She’d said it partially to remind herself but he smiled at her anyway. “Yes, child, it certainly is. And I, for one, cannot wait to see what you do with it.”