I almost scream. We escape one noose only to find another.
“Look at me, please.”
Maven shifts, obstructing my view of the scene beyond. But I will not give him the satisfaction of my gaze. I won’t look at him, for my own sake. Instead, I focus on the clicking sound, the one no one else seems to hear. It stabs with every passing second.
He grabs my jaw and yanks, forcing me to face him. “So stubborn.” He tuts. “One of your most intriguing qualities. Along with this,” he adds, drawing a finger through the red blood on my cheek.
Click.
His grip tightens, sending a firework of pain through my jawbone. The clicking makes everything hurt more, hurt deeper. Reluctantly, I meet familiar blue eyes and a pointed, pale face. To my horror, he is exactly as I remember him. Quiet, unassuming, a haunted boy. He is not the Maven of my nightmarish memories, a ghost of blood and shadows. He is real again. I recognize the determination in his eyes. I saw it on the deck of his father’s boat, as we sailed downriver to Archeon, leaving the world in our wake. He kissed my lips then and promised that no one would hurt me.
“I said I would find you.”
Click.
His hand moves from my jaw to my throat, squeezing. Enough to keep me silent, but not enough to stop me from breathing. His touch burns. I gasp, unable to summon enough air to scream.
Maven. You’re hurting me. Maven, stop.
He is not his mother. He cannot read my thoughts. My vision spots again, darkening. Pinpoints of black swim before my eyes, expanding and contracting with every awful click.
“And I said I would save you.”
I expect his grip to tighten. Instead, it remains constant. And his free hand reaches for my collarbone, one blazing palm against my skin. He is scorching me, branding me. I try to scream again, and barely get out a whimper.
“I am a man of my word.” He tips his head again. “When I want to be.”
Click. Click. Click.
My heart tries to match the rhythm, beating at a frenzy I won’t survive, threatening to explode.
“Stop—” I manage to choke out, one hand reaching into thin air, wishing for my brother. But it is Maven who takes my hand in his, and that burns too. Every inch of me burns.
“That’s enough,” I think I hear him say, but not to me. “I said enough!”
His eyes seem to bleed, the last bright spots in my darkening world. Pale blue, streaking across my vision, drawing jagged lines of painful ice. They surround me, caging me. I feel nothing but the burn.
That’s the last thing I remember before a white flash of light and sound splits my brain apart. And my entire world is pain.
It’s too much of everything, and strangely nothing at all. No bullets, no knives, no fists or fire or strangling green vines. This is not a weapon I’ve ever faced before—because it’s my own. Lightning, electricity, sparks, an overload beyond even my limits. I called up a storm once before in the Bowl of Bones, and it exhausted me. But this, whatever Maven has done, is killing me. Pulling me apart, nerve by nerve, splintering bone and ripping muscle. I am being obliterated inside my own skin.
Suddenly I realize—Is this what they felt? The ones I killed? Is this what it feels like to die by lightning?
Control. It’s what Julian always told me. Control it. But this is too much. I am a dam trying to hold back an entire ocean. Even if I could stop what this is, I can’t find a way past my own exploding pain. I can’t reach out. I can’t move. I’m trapped within myself, screaming behind my teeth. I will be dead soon. And at least this will end. But it doesn’t. The pain stretches on in a constant assault on every sense. Pulsing but never ebbing, changing but never stopping. White spots, brighter than the sun, dance across my vision, until an explosion of red squeezes them out. I try to blink it away, to control something in myself, but nothing seems to happen. I wouldn’t know if it did.
My skin must be gone by now, scorched away by the surging bolts. Perhaps I’ll be given the mercy of bleeding to death. That will be quicker than this white abyss.
Kill me. The words repeat, over and over. It’s the only thing I can say, the only thing I want now. All thoughts of newbloods and Maven, my brother and Cal and Kilorn are gone entirely. Even the faces that haunt me, the faces of the dead, have disappeared. Funny, now that I’m dying, my ghosts decide to leave.
I wish they would come back.
I wish I didn’t have to die alone.
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 bet
ter.”
“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.”
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