فصل بیست و ششم

TWENTY-SIX

Blind cameras can protect us for only so long—and that time has apparently run out. It starts with explosions back in the corridor. I hear Ketha screaming with every blast, frightened by what she’s done and what she continues to do to flesh and bone. Each ragged cry shocks through the cell block, stilling the already slow newbloods.

“Keep moving!” Farley barks. Her manic energy is gone, replaced by stern authority. “Follow Ada, follow Ada!” She herds them like sheep, bodily pulling many of them up the stairs. Shade is more helpful, jumping the oldest and sickest up from the lowest levels, though it disorients most of them. Kilorn keeps them from stumbling off the catwalk, his long limbs coming in handy.

Ada waves her arms, directing the newbloods to the door next to her. It has a big, black C on it. “With me,” she shouts. Her eyes flicker over everything and everyone, counting. I have to push many of them toward her, though they’re inexplicably drawn to me. At least the little girl gets the message. She toddles over to Ada and clings to her leg, trying to hide from the noise. Everything echoes horribly in the block, transformed into beast-like howls by the concrete walls and metal plating. Gunshots ring out next, followed by Nix’s unmistakable laughter. But he won’t be laughing long, if this assault keeps up.

Now comes the part I dread the most, the part I fought hardest against. But Cal was clear—we must split up. Cover more ground, free more prisoners, and, most important, get them out safely. So I move through the throng of newbloods, fighting the tide, with Cameron next to me. She tosses the key over her shoulder, and Kilorn catches it deftly. He watches us go, not daring to blink. This might be the last time he ever sees me, and we both know it.

Cal follows behind me. I feel his warmth from yards away. He burns the catwalk behind us, letting it melt, cutting us off from the others. When we reach the opposite door, the one marked “COMMAND,” Cameron gets to work on the switch panel. I can do nothing but stare, glancing between Kilorn and my brother, memorizing their faces. Ketha, Nix, and Darmian run back into the block, sprinting from the onslaught they can no longer hold back. Bullets follow, pinging off metal and Nix’s flesh. Again, the world slows, and I wish it would stop entirely. I wish Jon were here, to tell me what to do, to tell me I made the right choices. To tell me who dies.

A hot, almost scalding hand takes my cheek, forcibly turning me away from the rest. “Focus,” Cal says, glaring into my eyes. “Mare, you’re going to have to forget them right now. Trust what you’re doing.” I can barely nod. I can barely speak. “Yes.”

Behind us, the cell block empties. Ahead, the switch sparks. The door slides open.

Cal pushes us both through, and I land hard on another tile floor. My body reacts before my mind can, and lightning sparks to life all around me. It shatters my thoughts of Kilorn and Shade, until all that remains are the command center across the hall and what I must do.

Just like Cameron said, it’s a triangular room of impenetrable, rippled diamondglass, filled with control panels, monitoring screens, six bustling soldiers, and the same metal doors as the cells. Three in all, one set in each wall. I run to the first, expecting it to open, expecting the command soldiers inside to rise to the occasion. To my surprise, they keep to their chairs and stations, watching me with wide, fearful eyes. I bang one fist on the door, enjoying the pain that shoots through my hand. “Open up!” I scream, like that can do anything. Instead, the soldier closest to me flinches, jumping back from the wall. He too has a captain’s badge.

“Don’t!” he commands, holding out a hand to still his fellow officers.

Overhead, a siren screams to life.

“If that’s the way they want it,” Cal mutters, moving to the other door.

A slam makes me jump, and I turn to see great granite blocks slide into place, replacing the metal door we just came through. Cameron smirks at the control panel, even patting it fondly. “That should buy us a few minutes.” She gets to her feet, knees cracking. Her face sours at the sight of the command center. “Bleeding fools are scared,” she growls, and makes a very rude hand gesture more suited to the alleys of the Stilts. “Can we reach them through the glass?” In reply, I turn my gaze on the monitoring screens. They explode in rapid succession, showering the soldiers in a spray of sparks and broken glass. The siren screeches to a low whine, then cuts out. Every piece of metal inside the command room jumps with electricity, frying like eggs in a pan, making the soldiers cluster in the center of the room. One of them collapses, clutching his head in a gesture I now recognize. His body rocks in time with Cameron’s clenching fist, fighting wave after wave of suffocating ability. Blood drips from his ears, nose, and mouth. It isn’t long before he chokes on it.

“Cameron!” Cal barks, but she pretends not to hear him.

“Julian Jacos!” I shout, banging on the glass again. “Sara Skonos! Where are they?”

Another soldier drops, howling.

“Cameron!”

She shows no signs of stopping. Not that she should. These people imprisoned her, tortured her, starved her, and would have killed her. Revenge is her right.

My own lightning intensifies, bouncing inside the glass box, forcing the soldiers to cower from its purple-white wrath. Each bolt crackles and spits, blasting closer and closer to their flesh.

“Mare, stop it—” Cal continues shouting, but I barely hear him.

“Julian Jacos! Sara Sko—”

The captain, now scrambling across the floor, throws himself at the wall in front of me. “Block G!” he screams, slapping his palm on the glass a few inches from my face. “They’re in Block G! Through that door!” “That’s it, come on!” Cal growls. Inside the command module, the captain’s eyes flicker to his fallen prince.

Cameron laughs, high and clear. “You want to leave them alive? Do you know what they’ve done to us? To everyone here, your Silvers included?” “Please, please, we were following orders, the king’s orders—” the captain pleads, ducking to avoid another arc of lightning. Behind him, Cameron’s second victim curls into himself, succumbing to her silence. Tears cling to his lashes in crystal drops. “Your Highness, I beg for mercy, your mercy—” I think of the little girl in the cells. Her eyes were bloodshot, and I could feel her ribs through her clothes. I think of Gisa and her broken hand. The bled baby in Templyn. Innocent children. I think of everything that’s happened to me since this fateful summer, when a dead fisherman began all this trouble. No, it wasn’t his fault. It was theirs. Their laws, their conscription, their doom for every single one of us. They did this. They have brought this ending upon themselves. Even now, when it is Cameron and me destroying them, they beg for Cal’s mercy. They beg to a Silver king, and spit upon Red queens.

I see the prince through the rippled glass. It distorts his face, and he looks so much like Maven. “Mare,” Cal whispers, if only to himself.

But his whispers cannot stop me now. I feel something new inside myself, familiar but strange. A power that comes not from blood but choice. From who I have become, and not what I was born as. I turn from Cal’s warped image. I know I look just as twisted.

I bare my teeth in a snarl.

“Lightning has no mercy.”

Once, I watched my brothers burn ants with a bit of glass. This is similar—and worse.

While the individually sealed cell blocks make it difficult, almost impossible, for prisoners to escape, they also make it that much harder for the guards to communicate with each other. Confusion is as effective as lightning or flame. Guards are loath to leave their posts, especially with rumors of the king around, and we find four buzzing magnetrons arguing in Block G.

“You heard the siren, something’s wrong—”

“Probably a drill, showing off for the little king—”

“I can’t get command on the radio.”

“You heard them before, cameras are malfunctioning, the radios are going too. Might be the queen messing around again, bloody witch.” I spear a bolt through one of them to get their attention. “Wrong witch.”

Before the metal catwalk can drop beneath me, I grab onto the bars to the left of the door, holding fast. Cal goes to the right, and the bars turn red beneath his flaming touch, melting straight through. Cameron stays in the doorway, a light sheen of sweat across her brow, but she shows no signs of slowing down. One of the magnetrons topples from his retracting perch, clutching his head as he falls three levels to the concrete floor. It knocks him out cold. Two left.

A hailstorm of jagged metal screams at me, each piece a tiny dagger meant to kill. Before they can, I let go, sliding down the bars, until my feet hit the slight ledge of the cell below. “Cal, a little help!” I shout, dodging another blast. I answer it with my own, but the magnetron dips, stepping into what should be midair. Instead, his metal moves with him, allowing him to seemingly run through the open atrium.

To my chagrin, Cal ignores me, and pries away the melted bar of the cell. His back spikes with flame, protecting himself from any weapon the other magnetron can throw at him. I can barely see him through the twists of fire, but I see enough. He’s horribly angry, and it’s no mystery why. He hates me for killing those Silvers—for doing what he can’t. I never thought I’d see the day when Cal, the soldier, the warrior, would fear to act. Now he focuses on opening as many cells as he can, ignoring my pleas for help, forcing me to fight alone.

“Cameron, drop him!” I yell, glancing up at my unlikely ally.

“With pleasure,” she snarls, extending a hand to the magnetron attacking me. He stumbles, but doesn’t fall. She’s weakening.

I scramble along the cells, toes almost slipping, fingers straining with every passing second. I’m a runner, not a climber, and I almost can’t fight this way. Almost. A sharp, diamond-shaped razor grazes my cheek, opening a wound across my face. Another cuts my palm. When I grab the next bar, my grip is weak, slipping through my own blood. I fall the last six or seven feet, landing hard in the bowels of the block. For a second, I can’t breathe, and I open my eyes to see a gigantic spike whistling at my head. I roll, dodging the killing blow. Another and another rain down, and I have to zigzag across the floor to stay alive. “Cal!” I shout again, more angry than afraid.

The next spike melts before it reaches me, but the iron globs splatter too close, burning across my back. A scream escapes me as the fabric of my suit melts into my scars. It’s nearly the worst pain I’ve ever felt, second only to the sounder and the excruciating coma that followed. My knees slam into the ground, sending jolts of agony up my legs.

Pain, it seems, is another one of my triggers.

The skylight high above us shatters, and a bolt of lightning explodes down to me. For a split second, it’s like a purple tree has grown up from the sublevel, branching and veining through the open atrium of Block G. It catches one of the magnetrons, and she doesn’t even have time to scream. The other, the last guard, is all but finished, reduced to cowering on his last sheet of metal, curled up against Cameron’s hammering will.

“Julian!” I shout once the air clears. “Sara!”

Cal jumps down at the other end of the floor, his hands cupped around his mouth. He refuses to look at me, searching the cells instead. “Uncle Julian!” he roars.

“I’ll just wait up here,” Cameron says, watching us from the open doorway at the top level. Her legs dangle. She even has the gall to whistle, eyeing the last magnetron as he moans.

Block G is just as dank as the newblood D, and, thanks to me, half-destroyed. A hole smokes in the center of the floor, the only remnants of my massive bolt. From what I can see, the bottom cells are almost pitch-black, but they’re all full. A few prisoners have stumbled to their bars, coming to look at the commotion. How many faces will I recognize? But they’re too drawn, too gaunt, their skin almost blue with fear, hunger, and cold. I doubt I’d recognize even Cal after a few weeks down here. I expected more for the Silvers, but I guess political prisoners are just as dangerous as secret, mutated ones.

“Here,” a voice croaks.

I nearly trip over a magnetron body, running even though the burns on my back protest with every step. Cal meets me there, his hands on fire, ready to melt the bars, to save his uncle, to make amends for some of his sins.

The man in the cell looks weak, as old and frail as his beloved books. His skin has gone white, his remaining hair thin, and the lines on his face have multiplied and deepened. I think he’s even missing teeth. But there’s no mistaking his familiar brown eyes and the spark of intelligence still burning deep inside. Julian.

I can’t get to him fast enough, and hover almost too close to the melting metal. Julian. Julian. Julian. My teacher, my friend. The first bar buckles and Cal wrenches it away, creating a space big enough for me to slip through. I barely notice the suffocating pressure of Silent Stone and focus instead on pulling Julian to his feet. He feels brittle, as if his bones might snap, and for a moment, I wonder if he’ll get out of this alive. Then his grip on me tightens and his brow furrows in concentration.

“Bring me to that guard,” he growls, betraying some of his old spirit. “And get Sara out.”

“Of course. We’re here for her too.” I put his arm over my shoulder, helping him walk. Though he’s much taller than me, he feels shockingly light. “We’re here for everyone.” When we get him outside the cell, Julian stumbles, but keeps his footing. “Cal,” he mutters, reaching for his nephew. He takes his face in his hands and studies the exiled prince like he would an old book. “Things were done, weren’t they?” “Yes, they were,” Cal growls. He doesn’t look my way.

The cells changed what Julian looks like, but not who he is. He nods in understanding, looking very solemn. It comforts Cal in no small way. “Such thoughts have no place here and now. But after.” “After,” Cal repeats. Finally, he turns his blazing eyes on me. I feel burned by them. “After.”

“Come, Mare, help me to that festering lump.” Julian points to the guard on the floor, unconscious but still living. “Let’s see if I’m not totally useless.” I do as I’m told, acting as Julian’s crutch as he limps to the fallen officer. Meanwhile, Cal gets to work on Sara’s cell, located across the floor from Julian. Within sight and earshot, but too far away to touch. Another small torture that they had to withstand.

I’ve seen Julian do this before, but never with such effort or pain. His fingers shake as he pries open one of the officer’s eyes, and he swallows many times, trying to call forth the voice that he needs. The song.

“It’s all right, Julian, we can find another way—”

“Another way will get us killed, Mare. Have I taught you nothing at all?”

Despite the situation, I have to smile. I fight the urge to hug him, and try to hide my grin.

Finally, Julian exhales, eyes half-shut. Veins stand out in his neck. Then his eyes snap open, wide and clear. “Wake,” he says in a voice more beautiful than sunset. Beneath us, the officer does as he’s told, his other eye drifting open. “Open the cells. All of them.” A twisting shriek echoes up and down the block as the bars of every single cell bow open in unison. “Build the stairs and walks. Connect everything.” Clang. Clang. Clang. Every shred of metal, the daggers, the electrocuted shards, even the melted drops, flatten and reform, banging together in succession. “Walk with us.” Julian’s voice quivers in the last order, but the magnetron obeys, if a little slowly.

“You’re lucky you came today, Mare,” Julian says as I help him straighten. “They walked us yesterday. We are not so weak as we usually are.” I debate telling Julian about Jon, his ability, his advice. Julian will love hearing about him. After, I tell myself. After.

For the first time, I have hope.

There will be an after.

Chaos descends on Corros. Gunfire echoes in every corridor, behind every door. The ragged band of Silvers follows us weakly, but a few have the strength to complain. I don’t trust them at all, and almost walk backward to keep watch. Many branch off, slipping around corners, eager to be rid of this place. Others go deeper into the prison, looking for revenge. A few stay with us, their eyes downcast, ashamed to follow the lightning girl. But still they follow. And they fight as best they can. It’s like dropping a stone in a still pond. The ripples start small, but they certainly grow. Each block falls more easily than the last, until the magnetrons inside must run from us. The Silvers kill more than I do, falling on their betrayers like hungry wolves. But even this cannot last. When a Lerolan oblivion blasts away a stone barrier, opening Block J to us, the debris falls not down—but up. And before I understand what’s happening, I’m being sucked into a whirlwind of smoke, shards, and unearthly whispers.

Cameron grabs at my hand, but she slips from my grasp, disappearing into what must be mist. A nymph. I can’t see anything but shadows and gloomy yellow light, each one like a distant, hazy sun. Before I can fall into such oblivion, I reach out, grabbing for anything. My cut hand closes on a cold, limp leg, stopping me with a bone-rattling jolt. “Cal!” I shout, but the howl swallows up my voice.

Grunting, I pull myself up the leg. It must belong to a corpse, because it isn’t moving. Cold fear tears at my mind, reaching with icy, sharp fingers. I almost let go, not wanting to see the face that belongs to this body. It could be anyone. It could be everyone.

It’s wrong to feel relieved, but I do. I don’t recognize the man tangled in the bars of his cell, one leg wrapped, the other still dangling. He’s certainly a prisoner, but I don’t know him, and I won’t mourn him. My back feels nearly split open by scars and burns, and for a second, I allow myself to lean back against the bars. The gravity in this block has shifted. Gareth is here, which means Kilorn, Shade, and Farley are not far behind. They’re supposed to be on the other side of the prison, emptying the far cell blocks—something has forced them in. Or trapped them entirely.

Before I can call out, I’m falling again, as the block seems to spin. But it’s not the cells that are moving. It’s gravity itself. “Gareth, stop!” I shout into the void. No one answers. At least, no one I want to hear.

Little lightning girl.

Her voice almost splits my skull in two.

Queen Elara.

This time, I wish for the sounder device. I wish for something to kill me, to give me the safety of death. I am still falling. Perhaps that will do it. Maybe I’ll die before she wriggles into my brain, and turns me loose on everything and everyone I care about. But I feel the tendrils in my mind, already taking hold. My fingers twitch at her command, and sparks jump between them. No. Please no.

I hit the other side of the block hard, probably breaking my arm, but I feel no pain. She takes it away.

With one last ragged scream, I do what I must, and use the last drops of my own free will to slip between the twisted bars beneath me, into the prison of Silent Stone. It shatters my ability—and hers. The sparks die, her control breaks, and blinding pain sears through my left arm and up into my shoulder. I laugh through my tears. How fitting. She built this prison to hurt me and the other newbloods. Now, it’s the only thing stopping her from doing just that.

Now, it is my last sanctuary.

From my place on the back wall of the cell—I guess it’s the floor now—I watch the mist dance. The gunfire slows, either because bullets are running low or it’s impossible to aim in such terrible visibility. A curling snake of flame blazes by, and I expect to see Cal follow, but his shape never appears. I call for him anyway. “Cal!” But my voice is weak. The Stone that saved me is taking hold. It presses like a weight against my neck.

She doesn’t take long to find me. Her boots edge the bars of my cage, and for a second, I think I must be hallucinating. This is not the glittering, glorious queen I remember. Gone are her dresses and jewels, replaced by a neat, navy-blue uniform with white detailing. Even her hair, usually perfectly curled and braided, has been slicked back into a simple bun. When I see gray at her temples, I laugh again.

“The first time we met, you were in a cell just like this,” she muses, stooping so she can see me better. “Bars did not stop me then, and they will not stop me now.” “Come in, then,” I tell her, spitting blood. Definitely missing a tooth.

“Still the same girl you were. I thought the world would change you, but instead”—she tips her head, smiling like a cat—“you changed a little bit of the world. If you give me your hand, you can change even more.” I can barely breathe through my laughter. “How stupid do you think I am?” Keep her talking. Keep her distracted. Someone will see her soon, someone must.

“Have it your way then,” she sighs, standing. She gestures to someone I can’t see. Guards, I realize, with a hollow, sinking resignation. Her hand reappears with a pistol, her finger already on the trigger. “I would have liked to be in your head once again. You have such lovely delusions.” A small victory, I think, shutting my eyes. She will never have the lightning, and she will never have me. A victory indeed.

Again, I feel myself falling.

But instead of the bullet, the bars smack against my face. I open my eyes in time to see Elara sailing away from me, the gun spilling from her hand, a look of terrible anger twisting her beautiful face. Her guards scatter with her, disappearing into the yellowed clouds. And someone grabs my good arm, pulling me to him.

“C’mon, Mare, I can’t get you through on my own,” Shade says, trying to ease me through the bars. Breathless, I squeeze, pulling as much of myself as I can through. I guess it’s enough, because suddenly the world shrinks, the mist disappears, and I open my eyes to see blinding, white tile.

I almost collapse with joy. When I see Sara sprinting toward me, her hands outstretched, with Kilorn and Julian on her heels, I really do. Someone else catches me, someone warm. He turns me on my side and I hiss when my arm catches a bit of the pressure.

“Arm first, then burns, then scars,” Cal says, all business. I can’t help but moan when Sara touches me, and a blissful numbing spreads through my arm. Something cool hits my back, healing the burns, which were certainly infected. But before the healing can spread to my ugly, gnarled scars, I’m pulled to my feet and out of Sara’s control.

The door at the end of the corridor explodes outward, broken apart by rapidly growing twists of tree trunk. The mist follows, spinning toward us at great speed. The shadows come last. I know who they belong to.

Cal throws a blast of fire at the oncoming branches, burning them back, but the charred embers simply join the roaring whirlwind. “Cameron?” I yell, craning my head to look for the one person who can stop Elara. But she’s nowhere to be found.

“She’s already out, now go,” Kilorn yells at me, pushing me ahead.

I know I’m what Elara wants. Not only for my ability but for my face. If she can control me, she can use me as a mouthpiece again, to lie to the country, to do as she says. That’s why I run faster than the others. I have always been the fast one. When I look back over my shoulder, I’m yards ahead, and what I see chills me.

Cal has to forcibly pull Julian along, not because he’s weak, but because he keeps trying to stop. He wants to face her. He wants to pit his voice against her mind, against her whispers. To avenge a dead sister, a wounded love, a broken and torn-apart pride. But Cal won’t lose the last piece of family he has left, and all but drags Julian away. Sara keeps close to Julian’s side, one hand in his, unable to scream in fear.

Then I turn the corner. And I hit something. No, someone.

Another woman, another person I never wanted to see again.

Ara, the Panther, the head of House Iral, glares at me with eyes black as coal. Her fingers are still tinged gray-blue by Silent Stone and her clothes are tattered rags. But her strength is already returning, evidenced by the pure steel in her gaze. No way around but through. I raise my lightning to kill her, another one who knew I was different all along.

She reacts before I can, grabbing my shoulders with agility no human should possess. But instead of breaking my neck or slitting my throat, she tosses me sideways, and something ruffles my hair. A curved, spinning blade, sharp as a razor, big as a dinner plate, flies past my face, centimeters from my nose. I hit the ground, gasping in shock, clutching at the head I almost lost. And above me, Ara Iral stands her ground, dodging every blade that sails over us. They’re coming from the opposite end of the hall, where another person from the past stands, forming metal disks from the plates of his familiar scale armor.

“Didn’t your father ever teach you respect for your elders?” Ara crows at Ptolemus, stepping neatly under another blade. The next one she pulls out of the air, and tosses it back at him. An impressive but useless trick, as he waves it off with a curled smirk. “Well, Red, aren’t you going to do something?” she adds, toeing my leg.

I stare at her, stunned for a moment. Then I clamber to my feet, forcing myself to stand. A little bit of my terror disappears. “With pleasure, my lady.” At the end of the corridor, Ptolemus’s grin widens. “Now to finish what my sister started in the arena,” he growls.

“What your sister ran from,” I call back, directing a bolt at his head. He throws himself sideways, against the wall, and in the time it takes him to recover, Ara closes the distance between them and leaps, kicking off the tile wall. Using the momentum, she breaks Ptolemus’s jaw with her elbow.

I follow and, judging by the pounding footsteps behind me, I’m not the only one.

Fire and lightning. Mist and wind. Metal rain, curling darkness, explosions like tiny stars. And bullets, always bullets, close behind. We move forward through the battle storm, praying for an end to this prison, following the map we all did our best to memorize. It should be here, no here, no here. In the mist and shadows, it’s easy to get lost. And then there’s Gareth, always spinning the bounds of gravity, sometimes doing more harm than good. When we finally find the entrance hall, the room with red and silver and black doors, I’m bruised all over again, and my strength is fading fast. I don’t even want to think about the others, Julian and Sara, who could barely walk earlier. We need to get in the open. To the sky. To the lightning that can save us all.

Outside, the sun has risen. Ara and Ptolemus continue their visceral dance as the Wash looms, a gray haze on the horizon. I only have eyes for the Blackrun and the other jet idling on the runway. A crowd swarms around the crafts, newblood and Silver alike, boarding everything within reach. Some disappear into the fields, hoping to escape on foot.

“Shade, get him to the jet,” I yell, grabbing Cal by the collar as we run. Before he can protest, Shade does as instructed, and jumps him a hundred yards away. I can always count on Shade to understand; Cal is one of our only two pilots. He cannot die here, not when we’re so close to getting away. We need him to fly, and fly well. A split second later, Shade returns, wrapping his arms around Julian and Sara. They disappear with him, and I breathe a small sigh of relief.

I call on everything I have left, down to the deepness of my bones. It makes me slow, makes me weak, taking my will, and turning it into something stronger. To my delight, the sky darkens.

Kilorn stops next to me, his rifle tucked against his shoulder. He shoots with precision, picking off our pursuers one by one. Many men step in front of the queen, protecting her, whether by their own volition or hers. She’ll be within range soon, of both my ability—and her own. I have only one chance.

It happens in slow motion. I glance at the two Silvers locked in battle between me and the jets. A long, thin blade, like a giant needle, cuts through Ara’s neck, spilling a silver fountain. Ptolemus spins with the momentum, directing it through her, at me. I move to duck, expecting what I think is the worst.

I can’t possibly see what’s coming.

Only one person could. Jon. He walked away from all this. He let this happen. He didn’t want to warn us. He didn’t care.

Shade appears in front of me, intending to take me away from all this. Instead, he gets a cruel, gleaming needle through his heart. He doesn’t realize what’s happening. He doesn’t feel any pain. He dies before his knees hit the ground.

I don’t remember anything else until we’re in the air. My face runs with tears but I can’t wipe them away. I stare at my hands, painted in both colors of blood.