“Why not? Who are they?”
She shakes her head, tugging again. “Not here.”
Naturally, I want to stop, to stare at the soldier until he realizes who and what I am. But that is a foolish, childish need. I must maintain my mask, must seem the poor girl broken by the world. I let Gisa lead on and away.
“The Colonel’s men,” she whispers as soon as we’re out of earshot. “They came down with him from the north.”
The north. “Lakelanders?” I reply, almost gasping in surprise. She nods, stoic.
Now the uniforms, the color of a cold lake, make sense. They are soldiers of another army, another king, but they’re here, with us. Norta has been at war with the Lakelands for a century, fighting over land, food, and glory. The kings of fire against the kings of winter, with both red and silver blood in between. But the dawn, it seems, is coming for them all.
“The Colonel’s a Lakelander. After what happened in Archeon”—her face pains, though she doesn’t know the half of my ordeal there—“he came to ‘sort things out,’ according to Tramy.”
There’s something wrong here, tugging at my brain like Gisa tugging on my sleeve. “Who is the Colonel, Gisa?”
It takes me a moment to realize we’ve reached the mess, a flat building just like the barracks. The din of breakfast echoes behind the doors, but we don’t pass through. Even though the smell of food makes my stomach rumble, I wait for Gisa’s answer.
“The man with the bloody eye,” she finally says, pointing to her own face. “He’s taken over.”
Command. Shade whispered the word back on the mersive, but I didn’t think much of it. Is this what he meant? Is the Colonel who he was trying to warn me about? After his sinister treatment of Cal last night, I have to think so. And to know such a man is in charge of this island, and everyone on it, is no particular comfort.
“So Farley’s out of a job.”
She shrugs. “Captain Farley failed. He didn’t like that.”
Then he’ll hate me.
She reaches for the door, one small hand outstretched. The other has healed better than I thought it would, with only her fourth and fifth fingers still oddly twisted, curled inward. Bones gone wrong, in punishment for trusting her sister in a time long ago.
“Gisa, where did they take Cal?” My voice is so low I’m afraid she doesn’t hear me. But then her hand stills.
“They talked about him last night, when you went to sleep. Kilorn didn’t know, but Tramy, he went to see him. To watch.”
A sharp pain shoots through my heart. “Watch what?”
“He said just questions for now. Nothing that would hurt.”
Deep inside, I scowl. I can think of many questions that would hurt Cal more than any wound. “Where?” I ask again, putting a bit of steel in my voice, speaking like a Silver-born princess should.
“Barracks One,” she whispers. “I heard them say Barracks One.”
As she opens the door to the mess, I look past her, to the line of barracks marching toward the trees. Their numbers are clearly painted, black against sun-bleached concrete: 2, 3, 4 . . .
A sudden chill runs down my spine.
There is no Barracks 1.
SIX
Most of the food is bland, gray porridge and lukewarm water. Only the fish is good, cod taken straight from the sea. It bites of salt and ocean, just like the air. Kilorn marvels at the fish, idly wondering what kind of nets the Guard uses. We’re in a net, you idiot, I want to shout, but the mess is no place for such words. There are Lakelanders in here as well, stoic in their dark blue. While the red-uniformed Guardsmen eat with the rest of the refugees, the Lakelanders never sit, constantly on the prowl. They remind me of Security officers, and I feel a familiar chill. Tuck is not so different from Archeon. Different factions vie for control, with me right in the middle. And Kilorn, my friend, my oldest friend, might not believe this is dangerous. Or worse, he could understand—and not care.
My silence persists, broken only by steady bites of fish. They’re watching me closely, as instructed. Mom, Dad, Kilorn, Gisa, all pretending not to stare, and failing. The boys are gone, still at Shade’s bedside. Like me, they thought him dead, and are making up for lost time.
“So how did you get here?” The words stick in my mouth, but I force them out. Better I ask the questions before they start in on me.
“Boat,” Dad says gruffly around a slurp of porridge. He chuckles at his joke, pleased with himself. I smile a little, for his sake.
Mom nudges him, clucking her tongue in exasperation. “You know what she means, Daniel.”
“I’m not stupid.” He grumbles, shoveling back another spoonful. “Two days ago, round midnight, Shade popped up on the porch. I mean actually popped.” He gestures with his hands, snapping his fingers. “You know about that, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Near gave us all a heart attack, what with the popping and him being, well, alive.”
“I can imagine,” I murmur, remembering my own reaction to seeing Shade again. I thought us both dead, in some place far beyond this madness. But like me, Shade had merely become someone—something—else to survive.
Dad continues, on a roll now, literally. His chair rocks back and forth on squeaky wheels, moving with his wild gestures. “Well, after your mom stopped crying over him, he got down to it. Started throwing stuff in a bag, useless stuff. The porch flag, the pictures, your letter box. Didn’t make no sense, really, but it’s hard to ask anything of a son come back to life. When he said we had to leave, now, right now, I could tell he wasn’t joking. So we did.”
“What about the curfew?” The Measures are still sharp in my head, nails in my skin. How could I forget them, when I was forced to announce them myself? “You could’ve been killed!”
“We had Shade and his . . . his . . .” Dad struggles for the right word, gesturing again.
Gisa rolls her eyes, bored with our father’s antics. “He calls it jumping, remember?”
“That’s it.” He nods. “Shade jumped us past the patrols and into the woods. From there, we went to the river and a boat. Cargo’s still allowed to travel at night, you see, so we ended up sitting in a crate of apples for who knows how long.”
Mom cringes at the memory. “Rotten apples,” she adds. Gisa giggles a little. Dad almost smiles. For a moment, the gray porridge is Mom’s bad stew, the concrete walls become rough-hewn wood, and it’s the Barrows at dinner. It’s home again, and I’m just Mare.
I let the seconds tick by, listening and smiling. Mom jabbers about nothing so I don’t have to speak, letting me eat in quiet peace. She even chases away the stares of the mess hall, meeting every eye that swings my way with a vicious glare I know firsthand. Gisa plays her part too, distracting Kilorn with news of the Stilts. He listens intently, and she bites her lip, pleased by his attention. I guess her little crush hasn’t gone away just yet. That leaves only Dad, glopping through his second bowl of porridge with abandon. He stares at me over the rim of his bowl, and I glimpse the man he was. Tall, strong, a proud soldier, a person I barely remember, so far from what he is now. But like me, like Shade, like the Guard, Dad is not the ruined, foolish thing he seems. Despite the chair, the missing leg, and the clicking contraption in his chest, he’s still seen more battles and survived longer than most. He lost the leg and lung only three months before a full discharge, after near twenty years of conscription. How many make it that far?
We seem weak because we want to. Perhaps those are not Shade’s words at all, but our father’s. Though I’ve only just come into my own strength, he’s been hiding his since he came home. I remember what he said last night, half-hidden in dreams. I know what it is to kill someone. I certainly don’t doubt it.
Strange, it’s the food that reminds me of Maven. Not the taste, but the act of eating itself. My last meal was at his side, in his father’s palace. We drank from crystal glasses and my fork had a pearl handle. We were surrounded by servants, but still very mu
ch alone. We couldn’t talk about the night to come, but I kept stealing glances at him, hoping I wouldn’t lose my nerve. He gave me such strength in that moment.
I believed he had chosen me, and my revolution. I believed Maven was my savior, a blessing. I believed in what he could help us do.
His eyes were so blue, full of a different kind of fire. A hungry flame, sharp and strangely cold, tinged with fear. I thought we were afraid together, for our cause, for each other. I was so wrong.
Slowly, I push the plate of fish away, scraping the table. Enough.
The noise draws Kilorn’s eye like an alarm, and he swings back around to face me.
“All done?” he asks, glancing at my half-eaten breakfast.
In response, I stand up, and he jumps to his feet along with me. Like a dog following commands. But not mine. “Can we go to the infirmary?”
Can, we. The words are carefully chosen, a smoke screen to make him forget who and what I am now.
He nods, grinning. “Shade’s doing better by the second. Well, Barrows, care for a trip?” he adds with a glance toward the closest thing he has to a family.
My eyes widen. I need to speak to Shade, to find out where Cal is and what the Colonel plans for him. As much as I missed my family, they’ll only get in the way. Luckily, Dad understands. His hand moves swiftly beneath the table, stopping Mom before she can speak, communicating without words. She shifts, adopting an apologetic smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “We’ll come along later, I think,” she says, meaning much more than those few words. “About time for a battery change, isn’t it?”
“Bugger,” Dad grumbles loudly, tossing his spoon into his bowl of muck.
Gisa’s eyes flicker to mine, reading what I need. Time, space, an opportunity to start untangling this mess. “I’ve got more banners to sort out,” she sighs. “You lot go through them pretty fast.”
Kilorn shrugs off the good-natured jab with a laugh and a crooked smile, like he’s done a thousand times. “Suit yourselves. It’s this way, Mare.”
Condescending as it may be, I let him lead me through the mess. I’m careful to make a show of it, playing up a limp, keeping my eyes downcast. I fight the urge to stare back at everyone watching, the Guardsmen, the Lakelanders, even the refugees. My time in the dead king’s court serves me just as well on a military base, where once again I must hide who I am. Then I pretended to be Silver, unflinching, unafraid, a pillar of strength and power called Mareena. But that girl would be right next to Cal, confined in the missing Barracks 1. So I must be Red again, a girl named Mare Barrow, a girl no one should fear or suspect, reliant on a Red boy and not herself.
Dad and Shade’s warning has never been so clear.
“Leg still bothering you?”
I’m so focused on faking the limp, I barely hear Kilorn’s concern. “It’s nothing,” I finally respond, pressing my lips into a thin line of forced pain. “I’ve had worse.”
“Jumping off Ernie Wick’s porch comes to mind.” His eyes glitter at the memory.
I broke my leg that day, and spent months in a plaster cast that cost both of us half our savings. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“I believe you chose to do it.”
“I was dared.”
“Now who would’ve done such a thing?”
He laughs outright, pushing us both through a set of double doors. The hallway on the other side is obviously a new addition. The paint still looks wet in places. And overhead, the lights flicker. Bad wiring, I know instantly, feeling the places where the electricity frays and splits. But one cord of power remains unbroken, flowing down the passage to the left. To my chagrin, Kilorn takes us right.
“What’s that?” I ask, gesturing the opposite way.
He doesn’t lie. “I don’t know.”
The Tuck infirmary isn’t so grim as the medical station on the mersive. The high, narrow windows are thrown open, flooding the chamber with fresh air and sunlight. White shifts shuttle back and forth between patients, their bandages blissfully clean of red blood. Soft conversation, a few dry coughs, even a sneeze fill the room. Not a single yelp of pain or crack of bone interrupts the gentle noise. No one is dying here. Or they have simply died already.
Shade isn’t hard to find, and this time, he isn’t pretending to sleep. His leg is still elevated, held up by a more professional sling, and his shoulder bandage is fresh. He angles to the right, facing the bed next to him with a stoic expression. Who he’s addressing, I can’t tell yet. A curtain surrounds the bed on two sides, hiding the occupant from the rest of the infirmary. As we approach, Shade’s mouth moves quickly, whispering words I can’t decipher.
He stops short at the sight of me, and it feels like a betrayal.
“You just missed the brutes,” he calls out, adjusting himself so there’s room for me on the bed. A nurse moves to help, but Shade waves him off with a bruised hand.
The brutes, his old nickname for our brothers. Shade grew up small, and was often Bree’s punching bag. Tramy was kinder, but always followed in Bree’s lumbering footsteps. Eventually Shade grew smart and quick enough to evade them both, and taught me to do the same. I don’t doubt he sent them from his bedside, allowing him enough privacy to talk with me—and whoever it is behind the curtain.
“Good, they’re on my nerves already,” I reply with a good-natured smile.
To outsiders, we look like jawing siblings. But Shade knows better, his eyes darkening as I reach the foot of his bed. He notes my forced limp and nods infinitesimally. I mirror the action. I got your message, Shade, loud and clear.
Before I can even hint at asking him about Cal, another voice cuts me off. I grit my teeth at the sound of her, willing myself to keep calm.
“How do you like Tuck, lightning girl?” Farley says from the secluded bed next to Shade. She swings her legs over the side, facing me fully, with both hands clenched in her bedsheets. Pain streaks across her pretty face ruined by a scar.
The question is easy to dodge. “I’m still deciding.”
“And the Colonel? How do you like him?” she continues, dropping her voice. Her eyes are guarded, unreadable. There’s no telling what she wants to hear. So I shrug, busying myself with arranging Shade’s blankets instead.
Something like a smile twists her lips. “He makes quite a first impression. Needs to prove he’s in control with every breath, especially next to people like you two.”
I round Shade’s bed in an instant, planting myself between Farley and my brother. In my desperation, I forget to limp. “Is that why he took Cal away?” The words come sharp and fast. “Can’t have a warrior like him running around, making him look bad?”
She lowers her eyes, as if ashamed. “No,” she murmurs. It sounds like an apology, but for what, I don’t know yet. “That’s not why he took the prince.”
Fear blossoms in my chest. “Then why? What has he done?”
She doesn’t get the chance to tell me.
A strange quiet descends on the infirmary, the nurses, my heart, and Farley’s words. Her curtains hide the door from us, but I hear the stomp of boots marching in quick time. No one speaks, though a few soldiers salute from their beds as the boots close in. I can see them through the gap between the curtain and floor. Black leather, caked in wet sand, and getting closer by the second. Even Farley shivers at the sight, digging her nails into the bed. Kilorn draws closer, half concealing me with his bulk, while Shade does his best to sit up.
Though this is a medical ward filled with Red wounded and my so-called allies, a little piece of me calls to the lightning. Electricity flares in my blood, close enough to reach for if I need it.
The Colonel rounds the curtain, his red eye fixed in a constant glare. To my surprise, it lands on Farley, forsaking me for the moment. His escorts, Lakelanders by their uniforms, look like pale, grim versions of my brother Bree. Hewn of muscle, tall as trees, and obedient. They flank the Colonel in practiced motion, taking up positions at the end of Shade’s and Farley
’s beds. The Colonel himself stands in between, boxing in Kilorn and me. Proving he’s in control.
“Hiding, Captain?” the Colonel says, fingering the curtain around Farley’s bed. She bristles at the name and the insinuation. When he tsks aloud, she visibly cringes. “You’re smart enough to know an audience won’t protect you.”
“I tried to do all you’ve asked, the difficult and the impossible,” she fires back. Her hands quiver in the blankets, but with rage, not fear. “You left me a hundred soldiers to overthrow Norta, an entire country. What did you expect, Colonel?”
“I expected you to return with more than twenty-six of them.” The retort lands hard. “I expected you to be smarter than a seventeen-year-old princeling. I expected you to protect your soldiers, not throw them to a den of Silver wolves. I expected much and more from you, Diana, much and more than what you gave.”
Diana. The name is his killing blow. Her real name.
Her shivers of rage turn to shame, reducing Farley to a hollow shell. She stares at her feet, fixating on the floor below. I know her look well, the look of a shattered soul. If you speak, if you move, you’ll collapse. Already, she’s starting to crumble, leveled by the Colonel, his words, and her own name.
“I convinced her, Colonel.”
Part of me wishes my voice would shake, to make this man think I fear him. But I’ve faced worse than a soldier with a bloody eye and a bad temper. Much, much worse.
Gently, I push Kilorn to the side, moving forward.
“I vouched for Maven and his plan. If not for me, your men and women would be alive. Their blood is on my hands, not hers.”
To my surprise, the Colonel only chuckles at my outburst. “Not everything revolves around you, Miss Barrow. The world does not rise and fall at your command.”
That’s not what I meant. It sounds foolish, even in my own head.
“These mistakes are her own and no one else’s,” he continues, turning back to face Farley. “I strip you of your command, Diana. Do you challenge this?”
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