فصل هفدهم

SEVENTEEN

“Kill me.”

The words sear in my mouth, slashing past what must be a throat burned raw from screaming. I expect to taste blood—no, I expect nothing at all. I expect to be dead.

But as my senses return, I realize I am not stripped bare of flesh and bone. I am not even bleeding. I am whole, though I certainly don’t feel it. With a burst of willpower, I force open my eyes. But instead of Maven or his executioners, I’m met with familiar green eyes.

“Mare.”

Kilorn doesn’t give me a chance to catch my breath. His arms circle my shoulders, pressing me into his chest, back into darkness. I can’t help but flinch at the contact, remembering the feel of fire and lightning in my bones.

“It’s all right,” he murmurs. There’s something so soothing about the way he speaks, his voice deep and shuddering. And he refuses to let me go, even when I involuntarily shrink away. He knows what my heart wants, even if my frayed nerves can’t handle it. “It’s over, you’re all right. You’re back.” For a moment, I don’t move, curling my fingers into the folds of his old shirt. I focus on him, so I don’t have to feel myself shaking. “Back?” I whisper. “Back where?” “Let her breathe, Kilorn.”

Another hand, so warm it can only be Cal’s, takes my arm. He holds on tightly, the pressure careful and controlled, enough for me to focus on. It helps the rest of me swim out of the nightmare, fully returning to the real world. I lean back slowly, away from Kilorn, so I can see exactly what I’m waking up to.

We’re underground, judging by the damp, earthy smell, but this isn’t another one of Farley’s tunnels. We’re far out of Harbor Bay, if my electrical sense is any indication. I can’t feel a single pulse, meaning we must be well away from the city. This is a safe house, dug right into the ground, camouflaged by forest and design. Red-made, no doubt, probably used by the Scarlet Guard, and everything looks faintly pinkish. The walls and floor are packed dirt, and the slanting roof is sod, reinforced by rusted metal poles. There’s no decoration; in fact, there’s barely anything in here at all. A few sleeper sacks, my own included, ration packs, a switched-off lantern, and a few crates of supplies from the airjet are all I can see. My Stilts home was a palace compared to this, but I’m not complaining. I sigh in relief, happy to be out of danger and away from my blinding pain.

Kilorn and Cal let me blink around at the sparse room, allowing me to come to my own conclusions. They look haggard with worry, transformed into old men in the span of a few hours. I can’t help but stare at their dark-circled eyes and deep frowns, wondering what wounded them in this way. Then I remember. The light slanting in from the narrow windows is red-orange and the air has gone cold. Night is coming. The day is over. And we have lost. Wolliver Galt is dead, a newblood to Maven’s slaughter. Ada too, for all I know. I failed them both.

“Where’s the jet?” I ask, trying to stand. But they both reach out to stop me, keeping me firmly wrapped into my sleeper. They’re surprisingly gentle, as if one touch might break me apart.

Kilorn knows me best, and is the first to note my annoyance. He sits back on his heels, giving me some space. He glances at Cal before begrudgingly nodding his head, allowing the prince to explain.

“We couldn’t fly long with you in the . . . state you were in,” he says, averting his eyes from my face. “Got a few dozen miles before you set the jet off like an overloaded lightbulb, damn near fried the thing. We had to stagger our flights, and then set out on foot, hide in the woods until you were better.” “Sorry” is all I can think to say, but he waves it off.

“You opened your eyes, Mare. That’s all that matters to me,” Cal says.

A wave of exhaustion threatens to take me down, and I debate letting it. But then Cal’s touch moves from my arm, finding my neck. I jump at the sensation, turning to stare at him with wide, questioning eyes. But he focuses on my skin, on something there. His fingers trace strange, jagged, branching lines on my neck, reaching down my spine. I’m not the only one who notices.

“What is that?” Kilorn growls. His glare would make Queen Elara proud.

My hand joins Cal’s, feeling the peculiarity. Ragged streaks, big ones winding down the back of my neck. “I don’t know what it is.” “They look like—” Cal hesitates, running a finger down a particularly thick ridge. It shivers my insides. “Scars, Mare. Lightning scars.” I pull out of his touch as quickly as I can and force myself to my feet. To my surprise, I wobble on stupidly weak legs, and Kilorn is there to catch me. “Take it easy,” he chides, never letting go of my wrists.

“What happened in Harbor Bay? What did—what did Maven do to me? It was him, wasn’t it?” The image of a black crown burns in my mind, deep as a brand. And the new scars are just that. Brands. His marks on me. “He killed Wolliver and set a trap for us. And why do you look so pink?” Like always, Kilorn laughs at my anger. But the sound is hollow, forced, more for my benefit than his. “Your eye,” he says, brushing a finger over my left cheekbone. “You burst a vessel.” He’s right, I realize as I close one eye, then the other. The world is drastically different through the left, tinged red and pink by swirling clouds of what can only be blood. The pain of Maven’s torture did this too.

Cal doesn’t stand up with the rest of us, and instead leans back on his hands. I suspect he knows my knees are still shaking, and that I’ll drop back down soon enough. He has a way of knowing things like that, and it makes me so very angry.

“Yes, Maven slipped into Harbor Bay,” he answers, all business. “He didn’t make a fuss, so we wouldn’t know, and he went for the first newblood he could find.” I hiss at the memory. Wolliver was only eighteen, guilty of nothing but being born different. Guilty of being like me.

What could he have been? I wonder, mourning for the soldier we have lost. What ability did he wield?

“All Maven had to do was wait,” Cal continues, and a muscle in his cheek clenches. “They would’ve captured us all if not for Shade. He got us out, even with a concussion. It took a few jumps and too many close calls, but he came through.” I exhale slowly, relieved. “Is Farley all right? Shade?” I ask. Cal dips his head, nodding. “And I’m alive.” Kilorn’s grip tightens. “How, I don’t know.”

I raise a hand to my collarbone and the skin beneath my shirt twinges with pain. While the rest of my nightmare, the other horrors inflicted on my body, are gone, Maven’s brand is very real.

“It was painful, what it did to you?” Cal asks, causing Kilorn to sneer.

“Her first words in four days were ‘kill me,’ in case you’ve forgotten,” he snaps, though Cal doesn’t flinch. “Of course whatever that machine did was painful.” The clicking sound. “A machine?” I blanch, looking between the two young men. “Wait, four days? I’ve been out for that long?” Four days asleep. Four days of nothing. Panic chases away all my lingering thoughts of pain, shooting through my veins like icy water. How many died while I was trapped in my own head? How many hang from trees and statues now? “Please tell me you haven’t been babysitting me all this time. Please tell me you’ve been doing something.” Kilorn laughs. “I would consider keeping you alive a very big something.”

“I mean—”

“I know what you mean,” he retorts, finally putting a little distance between us.

With what little dignity I have left, I sit back down on the sleeper and fight the urge to grumble.

“No, Mare, we haven’t just been sitting around.” Kilorn turns to the wall, leaning against the packed earth so he can see out the window. “We’re doing quite a bit.” “They kept hunting.” It isn’t a question, but Kilorn nods anyways. “Even Nix?”

“The little bull comes in handy,” Cal says, touching the shadow of a bruise on his jaw. He knows Nix’s strength firsthand. “And he’s quite good at the convincing part. Ada too.” “Ada?” I say, surprised at the mention of what should be another newblood corpse. “Ada Wallace?” Cal nods. “After Crance slipped the Seaskulls, he got her out of Harbor Bay. Lifted her right from the governor’s mansion before Maven’s men stormed the place. They were waiting at the jet when we got there.” As happy as I am to hear of her survival, I can’t help but feel a sting of anger. “So you threw her right back to the wolves. Her and Nix both.” My fist clenches around the fuzzy warmth of my sleeper, trying to find some comfort. “Nix is a fisherman; Ada’s a housemaid. How could you put them in such terrible danger?” Cal lowers his eyes, shamed by my scolding. But Kilorn chuckles at the window, turning his face into the waning light of sunset. It bathes him in deep red, as if he’s been coated in blood. It’s just my wounded eye playing tricks, but still the sight gives me chills. His laughter, his usual dismissal of my fears, frighten me most of all.

Even now, the fish boy takes nothing seriously. He’ll laugh his way into his grave.

“Something funny to you?”

“You remember that duckling Gisa brought home?” he replies, catching us all off guard. “She was nine maybe, and took it from its mother. Tried to feed it soup—” He cuts himself off, trying to smother another chuckle. “You remember, don’t you, Mare?” Despite his smile, his eyes are hard and pressing, trying to make me understand.

“Kilorn,” I sigh. “We don’t have time for this.”

But he continues on undaunted, pacing. “It wasn’t long until the mother came. A few hours maybe, until she was circling around the bottom of the house, her other ducklings in tow. Made a real racket, all the quacking and squawking. Bree and Tramy tried to run it off, didn’t they?” I remember just as well as Kilorn does. Watching from the porch while my brothers threw rocks at the mother bird. She stood firm, calling to her lost child. And the duckling replied, squirming in Gisa’s arms. “Finally, you made Gisa give the little thing back. ‘You are not a duck, Gisa,’ you said. ‘You two don’t belong together.’ And then you gave the duckling back to its mother, and watched them all scramble away. Ducks in a row, back to the river.” “I’m waiting to hear a point in all this.”

“There is one,” Cal murmurs, his voice reverberating deep in his chest. He sounds almost surprised.

Kilorn’s eyes flicker to the prince, giving him the slightest nod of thanks. “Nix and Ada are not ducklings, and you are certainly not their mother. They can handle themselves.” Then he grins crookedly, falling back to his old jokes. “You, on the other hand, look a bit worse for the wear.” “Don’t I know it.” I try to smile for him, just a little, but something about smiling pulls the skin on my face, which in turn twists my neck and the new scars there. They ache when I speak, and smart terribly under any more strain. Another thing Maven has taken away. How happy it must make him, to think I can no longer smile without searing pain. “Farley and Shade are with them, at least?” The boys nod in unison, and I almost giggle at the sight. They are normally like opposites. Kilorn is lean where Cal is burly. Kilorn is golden-haired and green-eyed while Cal is dark with a gaze like living fire. But here, in the waning light, behind the film of blood clouding my gaze, they start to seem alike.

“Crance too,” Cal adds.

I blink, perplexed. “Crance? He’s here? He’s . . . with us?”

“Not like he had anywhere else to go,” Cal says.

“And you . . . you trust him?”

Kilorn leans against the wall, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “He saved Ada, and he’s helped bring back others in the past few days. Why shouldn’t we trust him? Because he’s a thief?” Like me. Like I was. “Point taken.” Even so, I can’t forget the high cost of misplaced faith. “But we can’t be sure, can we?” “You’re not sure of anyone,” Kilorn sighs, annoyed. He scuffs his shoe in the dirt, wanting to say more, knowing he shouldn’t.

“He’s out with Farley now. Not a bad scout,” Cal adds in support. Of Kilorn. I’m almost in shock.

“Are you two agreeing on something? What world am I waking up in?”

A true smile splits Cal’s face, as well as Kilorn’s.

“He’s not as bad as you make him out to be,” Kilorn says, nodding at the prince.

Cal laughs. A soft noise, tainted by all that came before. “Likewise.”

I prod at Cal’s shoulder, just to make sure he’s solid. “I guess I’m not dreaming.”

“Thank my colors, you’re not,” Cal murmurs, his smile gone again. He runs a hand along his jaw, scratching through a slim beard. He hasn’t shaved since Archeon, since the night he watched his father die. “Ada’s more useful than the outlaws, if you can believe it.” “I can.” A swirl of abilities flashes through my mind, each one more powerful than the last. “What does she do?” “Nothing I’ve ever seen before,” he admits. His bracelet crackles, throwing off sparks that soon turn into a twisting ball of flame. It idles in his hand a moment, never burning his sleeve, before he lazily tosses it to the small pit dug in the middle of the floor. The fire throws off heat and light, replacing the setting sun. “She’s smart, incredibly so. Remembers every word in every book in the governor’s library.” And just like that, my vision of another warrior is snuffed out. “Helpful,” I bite out. “I’ll be sure to ask her to tell us a story later on.” “Told you she wouldn’t get it,” Kilorn says.

But Cal presses on. “She has perfect memory, perfect intelligence. Every moment of every day, every face she’s ever seen, every word she’s ever overheard she remembers. Every medical journal or history book or map she’s ever read, she understands. The same goes for practical lessons, too.” As much as I’d prefer a storm wielder, I can understand the value of a person like this. If only Julian was here. He’d spend day and night studying Ada, trying to understand such a strange ability. “Practical lessons? You mean like Training?” Something like pride crosses Cal’s face. “I’m no instructor, but I’m doing what I can to teach her. She’s already a pretty decent shot. And she finished the Blackrun flight manual this morning.” A gasp escapes my lips. “She can fly the jet?”

Cal shrugs, lips curling into a smirk. “She flew the others to Cancorda, and should be back soon. But until then, you should rest.” “I’ve rested for four days. You rest,” I fire back, reaching over to shake his shoulder. He doesn’t budge under my admittedly weak shove. “You both look like the walking dead.” “Someone had to make sure you kept breathing.” Kilorn’s tone is light, and another might think him joking, but I know better. “Whatever Maven did to you can’t happen again.” The memory of white-hot pain is still too near for me. I can’t help but flinch at the thought of going through it once more. “I agree.” It sobers us all, the thought of what new power Maven holds. Even Kilorn, always twitching or pacing, is still. He glares out the window, at the wall of oncoming night. “Cal, you got any ideas in case she runs into that thing again?” “If I’m going to get a lecture, I might need some water,” I say, suddenly aware of my parched throat. Kilorn all but jumps from his place at the wall, eager to help. Leaving me alone with Cal, and the heat closing in.

“I think it was a sounder device. Modified, of course,” Cal says. His eyes stray back to my neck, to the lightning bolt scars marching up and down my spine. With shocking familiarity, he traces them again, as if they hold some clue. The intelligent part of me wants to push him away, to stop the fire prince from examining my brands, but exhaustion and need overrule any other thoughts. His touch is soothing, physically and emotionally. It’s proof that someone else is with me. I am not alone in the abyss anymore.

“We dabbled with sounders on the lakes a few years ago. They spit out radio waves, and wreaked havoc with the Lakelander ships. Made it impossible for them to communicate with each other, but it did the same to us. Everyone had to sail blind.” His fingers trail lower, following one gnarled branch of scar tissue across my shoulder blade. “I suppose this one throws off electrical waves, or static, in great magnitude. Enough to incapacitate you, to make you blind, and turn your lightning against you.” “They built it so quickly. It’s only been a few days since the Bowl of Bones,” I murmur back. Anything louder than a whisper might shatter this fragile peace.

Cal’s hand stills, his palm flat against my bare skin. “Maven turned against you long before the Bowl of Bones.” I know that now. I know it with every bleeding breath. Something releases in me, breaking, bending my back so I can bury my face in my hands. Whatever wall I put up to keep the memories out is steadily crumbling into dust. But I can’t let it bury me. I can’t let the mistakes I’ve made bury me. When Cal’s warmth wraps around me, his arms around my shoulders, his head tucked against my neck, I lean into him. I let him protect me, though we swore we wouldn’t do this back in the cells of Tuck. We are nothing more than distractions for each other, and distractions get you killed. But my hands close over his, our fingers lacing, until our bones are woven together. The fire is dying, flames reduced to embers. But Cal is still here. He will never leave me.

“What did he say to you?” he whispers.

I draw back a little, so he can see. With a shaking hand, I pull on the collar of my shirt, showing him what Maven did. His eyes widen when they land on the brand. A ragged M burned into my skin. For a long time, he stares, and I fear his anger might set me on fire again.

“He said he was a man of his word,” I tell him. The words are enough to draw his gaze away from my newest scar. “That he would always find me—and save me.” I bark out an empty laugh. The only person Maven has to save me from is himself.

With gentle hands, Cal pulls my shirt back into place, hiding his brother’s mark. “We knew that already. At least now we truly know why.” “Hmm?”

“Maven lies as easily as he breathes, and his mother holds his leash, but not his heart.” Cal’s eyes widen, imploring me to understand. “He’s hunting newbloods not to protect his throne but to hurt you. To find you. To make you come back to him.” His fist clenches on his thigh. “Maven wants you more than anything else on this earth.” Would that Maven were here now, so I could rip out his horrible, haunting eyes. “Well, he can’t have me.” I realize the consequences of this, and so does Cal.

“Not even if it stops the killing? Not for the newbloods?”

Tears bite my eyes. “I won’t go back. For anyone.”

I expect his judgment, but instead he smiles and ducks his head. Ashamed of his own reaction, as I am of mine.

“I thought we would lose you.” His words are deliberately chosen, carefully made. So I lean forward, putting a hand on his fist. It’s all the assurance he needs to press on. “I thought I was going to lose you. So many times.” “But I’m still here,” I say.

He takes my neck in his hands like he doesn’t believe me. I’m dimly reminded of Maven’s grip, but fight the urge to flinch. I don’t want Cal to pull away.

I have been running for so long. Since before all this even started. Even back in the Stilts, I was a runner. Avoiding my family, my fate, anything I didn’t want to feel. And I am still racing now. From those who would kill me—and those who would love me.

I want so badly to stop. I want to stand still without killing myself or someone else. But that is not possible. I must keep going, I must hurt myself to save myself, hurt others to save others. Hurt Kilorn, hurt Cal, hurt Shade and Farley and Nix and everyone stupid enough to follow me. I’m making them runners too.

“So we fight him.” Cal’s lips move closer, hot with each word. His grip tightens, like any second someone is going to come and take me from him. “That’s what we set out to do, so we do it. We build an army. And we kill him. Him and his mother both.” Killing a king will change nothing. Another will take his place. But it is a start. If we cannot outrun Maven, we must stop him cold. For the newbloods. For Cal. For me.

I am a weapon made of flesh, a sword covered in skin. I was born to kill a king, to end a reign of terror before it can truly begin. Fire and lightning raised Maven up, and fire and lightning will bring him down.

“I won’t let him hurt you again.”

His breath makes me shiver. A strange sensation, when surrounded with such blazing warmth. “I believe you,” I tell him, lying.

Because I am weak, I turn in his arms. Because I am weak, I press my lips to his, searching for something to make me stop running, to make me forget. We are both weak, it seems.

As his hands run over my skin, I feel a different sort of pain. Worse than Maven’s machine, deeper than my nerves. It aches like a hollow, like an empty weight. I am a sword, born of lightning, of this fire—and of Maven’s. One already betrayed me, and the other might leave at any moment. But I do not fear a broken heart. I do not fear pain.

I cling to Cal, Kilorn, Shade, to saving all the newbloods I can, because I am afraid of waking up to emptiness, to a place where my friends and family are gone and I am nothing but a single bolt of lightning in the blackness of a lonely storm.

If I am a sword, I am a sword made of glass, and I feel myself beginning to shatter.