by Nick Martell
“I’d save you.”
“Oh, would you? You’d charge through the crowds and fight the Militia?”
“Obviously,” Jamal said as he flexed his muscles. “They’d have to send Ravens to slow me down.”
“Of course they would.”
“Don’t believe me? Just wait. If you’re ever in trouble, I’ll save you. That’s a promise. I’ll even bring Trey.”
I had a hard time containing my laughter. “Trey? Never. It would take nothing short of a war—where you were in trouble—to get him into the public eye.”
Jamal glanced at me. “I’d at least try. Maybe he’d agree if I begged.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
We made our way through the crowds and into the colosseum, which was a marvel of stone construction, taller than the walls that guarded the city and maintained as perfectly as the High Noble keeps. Some Archivists claimed it had been built before the Wolven Kings lost control of Hollow, but I had always doubted that. It didn’t show hundreds of years of wear and tear. If anything, it looked new.
Most of the crowd had gathered around the stage in the center of the colosseum. We went up the stairs toward the top instead. Sirash and his adoptive brother Arjay waved us over. Arjay had two loaves of bread and a bag of candied nuts in his hands.
“You two took your sweet time getting here. We were worried you’d miss it,” Sirash said as we sat down. “You forget the way?”
“Michael was late,” Jamal said.
Arjay snickered. “Nothing unusual, then.”
Sirash handed Jamal his own bag of candied nuts, to the boy’s excitement, and he and Arjay began to compare their bags. I gave Sirash a nod of thanks and he smiled in response. He knew from experience how important small luxuries were to those who had very little.
“What are the chances of us conning another noble before the Endless Waltz begins?” he asked.
“Minimal,” I said. “Though two Low Nobles are arriving today from the outskirts.”
“Do you know their names?”
I shook my head. “We’d have to be lucky to find them.”
“We’re rarely lucky.” A pause. “Winter is going to be rough this year. Especially if the supply caravans into Hollow get less frequent.”
“I’ll help when I can. I’m always around to nick wood from the nobility’s gardens.”
“Like you have a choice,” he said, nudging me with his shoulder. “Family looks after family.”
“Always.” A pause. Gwen’s suggestion had been at the back of my mind all morning. “Sirash, if I had the chance to help a lot of people, but it meant I had to compromise my beliefs, should I do it?”
“You just said a lot, and nothing, all at the same time.”
“I could earn a lot of money by working for a High Noble.”
“Which one?” he asked.
“Domet the Deranged.”
“Shit,” he said. “Do you want to get a drink later? That won’t be a quick conversation.”
“Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks, Sirash.”
Before I could steal some candied nuts from Jamal, my brother was climbing the stairs to the executioner’s block, dressed in black with a serrated great-sword in his hands. He had a list of names tattooed on his right arm, a record of all the nobles he had executed so someone would remember them. He had the names of his lower-class victims, peasants and merchants, on his back. I’d never seen it, but I suspected there was little unmarked skin left.
Lyon stood in front of the block, flanked by a monk from each church ready to record the rebel’s last words. He faced the crowd and let the point of his sword hover above the ground. As he looked down, the treason brand above his eyebrow was exposed for everyone to see, so there was no mistaking that the nobility had made a Kingman their puppet.
With my brother in place, his noble victim would arrive quickly. Sure enough, I heard vegetables and rocks splatting against flesh before I saw him. The crowds cleared a path for him and his escort as they pelted the rebel with everything they had.
To give him some credit, he didn’t scream or curse the crowd as some did. He only wept, softly and steadily, with every step he took. I got a better look at him once he reached the platform: similar in age to me, bruises plentiful under his loose rags, and eyes that had long since abandoned hope.
His female Scales escort chained him to the executioner’s block as my brother stepped forward, cleared his throat, and then said, “I am here on behalf of King Isaac to execute Low Noble Philip Grossman on charges of treason, smuggling, and improper handling of financial records. Low Noble Grossman, do you have anything to say?”
Low Noble Grossman tried to compose himself for a moment and then, in a strained voice, said, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. Tell my parents I didn’t do it. Tell them to remember me. Please. Please… I don’t want to be forgotten. God, be merciful. I don’t want to die. Please. Please…”
Lyon raised his sword above the noble’s neck. “You will not be forgotten. Your name will live on, even if your body does not.”
My brother was efficient—he had been executing people for years—and he severed the noble’s head in one clean strike.
There was a splatter of blood and a thump as the head dropped into the basket, followed by that lull of noise that always came after a death, before the crowd started hollering and cheering, Jamal one of the loudest.
Lyon cleaned his sword with careful, precise movements and dropped a rag over the basket to hide the head. He picked it up and was gone before the escort who had led the noble to the block had recovered from the shock of seeing an execution.
“Lot of blood this time,” Jamal said.
“There’s always a lot of blood,” Sirash stated.
“You’d think they’d find a less messy way to do it,” Arjay said.
“The blood is the least of today’s worries,” I said darkly, getting to my feet. With the excitement over, we joined the mob descending the stairs and began to leave the colosseum.
“You don’t think the rebels would be stupid enough to attack Hollow, do yah?” Jamal asked.
“How can they not?” I countered. “How many rebels do we execute or hang every week? A dozen? Two dozen? How long before we’ve killed so many they—”
I didn’t finish my sentence.
A man with the rebel’s symbol of the closed red fist painted onto his face and a sword in his hand emerged from the crowds. He cut down one of the monks in a fluid motion and shouted: “Long live David Kingman!”
The rebel closed his eyes and tilted his head back before exploding into a brilliant blue flame. I was frozen as I watched it happen, wondering why a Fabricator turned rebel, and hoping Jamal and Arjay were still behind me.
When his fire touched the stage, multiple explosions rocked the pristine colosseum and the twisted and broken streets of the Militia Quarter beyond. As we were blown back, the colosseum cracked and crumbled around us. The people trapped inside screamed desperate, pained wails as thick black smoke covered everything. Angelo had been right. The rebels had come to destroy this city, as they had Naverre. The last thing I remembered was being thrown by the blast, my face skidding across the shattered stones, wondering what death would be like.
FAMILY
My ancestors weren’t waiting for me in the afterlife, only darkness.
Had I been left in nothingness for the lies I had told and the dishonorable acts I had performed to survive? Was my father somewhere close by? If I had to be punished, could I at least be punished with family? It would make it easier. And maybe I could finally ask him why he had murdered Davey. I wanted to know. Simply so I could know if I idolized the wrong man.
My body hurt. And that confused me; I had always assumed there would be no pain in death.
It made sense everyone had been wrong about that. Who wanted to think death would bring more pain? Life is cruel enough. I hoped Jamal, Sirash, and Arjay were still alive. I hoped they were sa
fe. I was fine with dying if it meant they would live. At least then I could claim to be as selfless as my ancestors.
Someone was calling my name. How was someone calling to me when I was dead?
Michael. Michael.
I knew that voice. Was it my father? No. Different. Younger. Scared. Did they need me?
Michael. Wake up! Please!
My family still needed me.
I took a breath, and it burned.
NOBODY
I choked on the sharp smell of burnt hair, sulfur, and shit mixed together. I was sprawled out on the ground with clumps of sharp stone lodged into the side of my face. I twitched my fingers. Then my toes. And then flexed my muscles. Dull pain washed over my entire body as my vision blurred into focus.
There were dozens of bodies around me. Some were blackened with burns or had been blown apart, while others were bent at odd angles, as if they were trying to test how flexible they were. But the worst were the ones who still had their mouths open, having died screaming. Ash and dust dribbled out of their mouths like blood, and their eyes had been stained grey. I scrambled backwards, rolling away from my previous position.
I tried to focus on what I had woken up to, but the sheer carnage of everything around me was too much. I couldn’t stop shaking as I brushed the dust and rubble away, replacing it with a sticky streak of my own blood instead. I could still see it with my eyes closed as I tried to regulate my breathing and ease the pain in my head and think clearly again. I was hurt beyond anything I had felt before. The dull pain rocked my body when I tried to stand and sent me wobbling back against the stone pillar.
It was one of the few things that were still standing, most of the colosseum having collapsed in on itself after the explosion. I must’ve landed, or fallen, into the underground corridors beneath the colosseum. They had been condemned over a decade ago due to flooding, and with only scattered rays of light that came in through the cracks to guide my path, I doubted they had gotten safer since.
I had to find Sirash, Arjay, and Jamal. If there was anything I could be thankful for right now, it was that my executioner brother would be safe. He never lingered after the executions, preferring to get some distance between him and the bloodthirsty crowd in case they ever turned their attention from dead rebels to former nobles. We had always shared that fear.
But the others had been caught in the explosion, too. They should have been down here with me, surrounded by bodies, ash, and rubble.
They wouldn’t have left me behind. They weren’t like that.
Unless the blackened bodies I saw were them.
I did what I had to. I searched all the bodies around me, wading through… through what remained of these people, wondering if I would come across a charred stuffed dragon or the body of one of my friends first.
* * *
I spat what I could onto my hands in a foolish attempt to clean them. It didn’t work, but it calmed my stomach down after what I had done. My friends hadn’t been among the bodies where I woke up, so I continued my search, screaming out their names as I did. The broken corridors were veiled in a thin layer of dust and crushed rocks, and everything smelled like garbage left out in the hot summer sun for a week.
I examined each and every body that littered the ground, hoping for survivors. Some were hunched over against walls and broken columns, an outline of ash around them, and some were simply lying on the ground like dolls scattered across a child’s bedroom floor. Then there were others who were in their final moments. I stayed with them until they passed, most too far gone for me to do anything but hold their hand and hear their last words. I made sure I left them in the most respectful positions possible. Selfishly, I was filled with relief every time I found out they weren’t Sirash, Arjay, or Jamal, and yet struck with a numb grief that I couldn’t do more to help them. It made me feel like a hypocrite.
Since I had woken up, I hadn’t seen anyone else as lively as me. Only the departed and soon-to-be. How had Hollow survived the Gunpowder War if the enemy was capable of this level of destruction? Could any of us survive when the entire rebel army decided to attack Hollow? If they hadn’t already.
“You there! Stop!”
I turned toward the voice and saw the female escort from the execution striding toward me. She was as coated in mud and ash as I was, strands of her hair stuck to the dried blood on her neck, her electric-blue eyes stark against the grime. Judging from her expression, I must’ve looked as lost as I felt.
“State your name.”
Everything sounded muffled. I opened my mouth wide and my ears popped. It felt as if someone had stabbed me in the forehead. I nearly puked.
The woman repeated her orders.
“Michael,” I said, and nothing more.
“Michael what?”
I gestured at the devastation around us. “Why does that matter?”
“Either comply or I’ll arrest you.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, and she didn’t appreciate it. “What’re you going to charge me with? Treason? For not telling you my last name? Do you see what’s happened? We need to work together. Who cares who I am?”
“Are you Michael Kingman?”
It would have been easy to lie to her. If she was asking, she clearly didn’t see my brand. Maybe all the grime and blood and dirt was obscuring it. I could have said a hundred different names and been a hundred different people. Yet, after what I had heard that rebel shout—whose name he had used as a rallying cry for this war—there was only one person I wanted to be. Even if I should have been anyone else. I would not be ashamed of who I was. Even if the world told me I should be.
One rotten apple didn’t mean the entire tree had to be cut down.
I clawed at my neck until whatever was there flaked off and revealed what was underneath. Then, so there was no mistake, I turned so she could see the crown brand. “Whether you believe me or not, I didn’t help the rebels do this. I was just here to watch my brother perform that noble execution. Then I got separated from my friends because of the explosion. Have you seen any survivors?”
Astonishingly, she backed down. “There aren’t many. They’re gathered up there.” The woman pointed to the ceiling above us. Which, from where I was standing, looked as if it would collapse onto us at any moment. I was even less reassured by the water that dripped down from it.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “We’re trapped down here. Some unstable parts of the colosseum caved in and blocked off the exit everyone else used.”
“And you threatened to arrest me?”
“There’s a different way out, but I’ll need your help.”
“Maybe start with that part next time.”
“I just wanted to know who I was working with.”
Without giving me time to ask her name, the woman with electric-blue eyes turned her back on me and walked over toward a pillar that had fallen at a drunken angle. There was a pool of water around one end, while the other pointed toward a hole in the rubble that was allowing daylight to shine through. It was the first unobstructed glimpse of the sky I’d seen since the collapse.
“What do we need to do?” I asked.
“Do you see the opening above the column? Launch me up there, then I’ll pull you up.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’ll barely support my weight, let alone both of ours. And how do I know once I lift you up you won’t just leave me behind?”
It was her turn to laugh. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”
I didn’t have any other option. Thus, once I had mentally prepared myself, I began to climb on the fallen pillar. It wobbled and creaked with every step I took on it. As I neared the crumbling end I watched as chunks of it fell away and into the water below, and it was an effort to look up at the opening overhead. I could get her up there, but I doubted there would be much time, if any, for her to pull me up. I’d have to jump, grab her hand, and hope for the best.
“
Ready!” I shouted down to her.
Like a messenger before a long run, she shook out her legs and stretched her arms, backed up a little, and then sprinted toward the pillar. I braced myself as she reached the other end as she leaped… and then, as if carried by the wind, she floated through the air. With one light step on the column that nearly sent me into the water, she rose even higher.
It was as if she was flying.
I knew what I had to do. I cupped my hands together, ready for her foot, and pushed her up toward the ledge the best I could. Her chest hit the lip of the hole, hard, and I thought she’d slip and fall into the water. But after a moment’s winded struggle, she swung her hips and pulled herself up and over.
She vanished as the pillar beneath me continued to wobble.
She left me. I knew I couldn’t trust Scales. Not after I told her the truth. I’d have to—
Then she was back. Lying flat over the edge, she reached down to pull me up. It was easy, and soon I was at her side again.
“You didn’t tell me you were a Wind Fabricator. No regular person could have jumped like that,” I said.
“You didn’t need to know,” she replied, rolling away from the edge to stand in front of me. “All I needed from you was a boost.”
“Thank you for not leaving me behind.”
The woman didn’t respond at first, giving me a sideways glance instead. “Don’t thank me. I did leave you for a moment there. Good luck finding your friends.”
The Scales woman left me sitting near the opening, confused.
* * *
It was much more stable up here than in the corridors beneath, aside from the massive holes in the floor. But they were easy enough to avoid, and I was able to find my way out of the collapsed section and into daylight.
For a city that had been founded with such promise, it was hard for me to stomach how far it had fallen when I gazed upon the destruction.
The colosseum was in ruins. Half still stood while the other half had collapsed into the ground, as if sucked in by a sinkhole. There was a huge crater where the platform and the densest part of the crowd had been. The stage itself had been blown in half, burnt and torn pieces of cloth caught against pieces of wood. It was the only sign people had been here at all. In the heart of the blast, the dead had been burned so badly they had formed a weird grey-and-black construct. Carrion crows picked at it with a quiet efficiency.