Revna unclipped her holster, pulling her pistol free.
A wave of heat seared their shoulders. There was no time to wonder if she could do this. Together they stumbled around a palanquin and came face-to-face with the wreckage of the searchlight.
A war beetle next to the searchlight had flipped onto its back, and its legs still twitched in its final throes. The warehouse to their right spouted flame, and a few men engaged in a futile attempt to freeze out the fire with cold spark.
They took refuge behind the smoldering jumble of metal and wire, and Revna leaned against a low sandbag wall. The smoke had thinned to a veil, and through it Revna could see the edge of the field. The Serpent was there, not two hundred meters away.
“They probably think we’re dead, and they’re too busy with the fire to look for our bodies,” Linné said. “But we haven’t got long.” She put her hands on Revna’s shoulders. “Are you sure you can fly it?”
Revna wiped sweat from the back of her neck. “I can fly anything. Just give me a clear shot.”
“Ha.” Linné favored her with a grim smile that faded as quickly as it came.
Men moved around the Serpent, checking the wings, the engine. “They’re getting ready to fly,” Revna said.
“Well, fuck.”
Revna couldn’t find it in herself to reprimand Linné.
The Serpent stretched out, scale upon scale of living steel hammered into plates the size of her torso. Its tail ended in a sharp point that looked nearly as dangerous as its slender maw. Each wing spanned as long as three men lying end to end, and spines gleamed on its back like starlight.
Linné crawled to peer around the corner of the antiaircraft. “Shit,” she said, and Revna couldn’t resist a quick look of her own. A man was walking around the plane. His eyes narrowed and he reached for his gun, starting forward.
Revna fumbled with her pistol, but Linné was quicker, whipping hers out and firing two shots. He crumpled. Revna couldn’t tear her eyes from the heap of limbs, the sudden lack where there had once been life. She’d have killed that man without even thinking. She hadn’t only because Linné had been faster.
Linné put her gun away again and looped Revna’s arm around her shoulders. “Someone will have heard that. Come on.”
Revna clung to Linné as they limped past the dead man. Revenge. I want revenge. And revenge was a line of Elda soldiers, facedown in the mud. But she thought of her family, engulfed by fire, and she could not be glad.
The Weave flashed and tangled in the aftermath of their battle with the Skyhorses, and the steel of the Serpent glittered in the firelight. They hobbled onto the field together, breaths hitching. “Eya,” a man shouted from the other side of the Serpent. Revna stumbled, trying to keep up as Linné broke into a jog. Her prosthetic slammed against her skin. She couldn’t keep her balance, and her gun tumbled out of her hand. No time to pick it up—she pushed forward, gritting her teeth.
More shouts sounded behind them. But they were almost there, the Serpent filled her vision, they were in the shadow of the wing—
Revna gripped the wing with one hand and pulled on the Weave with the other. She soared up to the hatch at the top, fumbling it open and falling in. Her legs smashed against the floor. The cockpit was huge and hollow, a cockpit for giants, with two seats at the dash and one behind.
Linné scrambled into the navigator’s seat beside her. The empty third seat must’ve been for a gunner. “Let’s go, let’s go.”
There was no cage to hook into Revna, just a slender tendril with two points like teeth, hanging next to her chair. Revna pulled her goggles down and reached for the flying gloves. She saw only empty space in front of her. God, God, God, how was she supposed to fly without them?
There was a hinge in the dashboard. She pried open the top and pulled out two thin mesh gloves, connected to the dash by a wire. This was it? She pulled them over her fingers. On the back of each hand was a small wing, stretching from thumb to pinky. The wings of the Serpent. A third glove had a tiny model head of the Serpent attached. She tossed it to Linné. “Find the feed.” They had to get off the ground before they got shot.
Linné shoved her hand into the throttle in front of her. “Found it. Get us in the air.” Without waiting for Revna’s order, she fired up.
The Serpent hummed as the living metal woke. The tendril of the pilot’s feed slithered under Revna’s sleeve and punctured her arm, sliding deep into the vein. A searing cold spread through her, and the Weave brightened as she hooked in to the living metal.
The Serpent could tell she wasn’t its usual master.
It was not pleased.
The metal itched against her skin, and the air inside the cockpit flashed warm. A sick feeling twisted in her belly, the feeling of wrongness, that she’d done something terrible and would pay the price in her own blood.
She pushed against the Serpent’s resistance, opening up to the Weave. But it moved too sluggishly. “A little more,” she said.
“I’m trying,” Linné bit back. Revna could feel Linné’s spark thundering into the Serpent. But whatever she gave, it wasn’t enough. Linné hit the dashboard with her gloved fist.
The Serpent’s sinuous head darted forward, and the cockpit lurched with it. Revna gripped the dashboard. “Don’t do that,” she said. Not yet, anyway.
A man sprinted from the edge of the field, a look of incandescent rage on his face. He brandished his pistol. A shot bounced off the nose of the plane and cracked the windscreen.
“Do something,” Linné said through gritted teeth. “You said you could fly anything.”
She should be able to fly the Serpent. She had everything she needed.
Except enough power.
The third seat. She craned her head to make sure. Yes, it had a feed, too, just behind her chair. This ship needed both a navigator and a gunner to give it spark.
They were, in Linné’s words, screwed.
“What are you looking—” Linné caught sight of the extra power duct, too. “Is that what I think it is?”
Revna nodded. Panic was starting to claw its way up her throat. A soldier ran toward the Serpent’s nose. Linné swung her gloved hand, and the Serpent’s head hit him with a wet thunk. He fell to the ground. Someone else grabbed a wing. More men appeared from the smoke with murder in their faces.
“You’d better deliver, firebird,” Linné muttered. She peeled the glove off and tossed it onto the dash. Then she leaned back, shoving her shoulder into the gap between their chairs.
“What are you doing?” Revna cried.
Linné closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Light gathered in her palms and spread in a shiver over her, illuminating her skin. It spread up her neck, to the roots of her hair. For a moment she looked like a god. Then she shoved her hand into the spare throttle, and the fire shot down into the engine.
The Serpent woke like a dream ending. Revna felt its landing gear dig into the ground. They bucked as its long body rippled. It launched into the air, and men fell away like ticks. Fire moved beneath Linné’s skin. She roared, bracing her back against the chair as her spark wound down the throttle.
The Weave pulsed around them, so bright it was nearly blinding, and Revna’s skin tingled with stolen power. They soared over the heads of the Elda and into the night sky, leaving the bewildered soldiers to curse and shout below.
Linné was dying. No military career, no saving the day, no Hero of the Union medal. But she didn’t care. She’d doubted Revna, and she’d betrayed Revna. Now she would get her pilot over the mountains and back into Union territory if it was the last thing she accomplished on Earth.
Her spark tore out of her. It churned through the engine and flashed out along the Weave, making the lines ripple and thicken, lingering for long seconds in her vision. She fixed a singular image in her mind: Revna, sitting in the mess, writing a letter to her family. Safe. She pushed, and the Serpent sped overland.
“God,” said Revna, leaning out to lo
ok at the world as they soared. The Serpent heaved, lashing them back and forth. Revna hissed as she forced her control. Her anger and wonder bled together, but Linné could barely feel it over the bold hate of the Serpent.
“You should watch your mouth,” Linné said. The words slurred on her tongue.
Revna barked a laugh. “You’re one to talk.”
Linné looked at her arms. Long ropes of spark undulated beneath her skin. Power flushed her veins as it drew out of her, filling her with an addictive heat. She was burning. Give her an Elda and she’d turn him to ash with a touch. She really was a firebird now. She’d be drunk on her own spark if she didn’t know it was killing her.
Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and the side of her face. Black started to dot her vision. “Keep going.” It was so hard to talk. “We have to get back to Tamara.” If they returned with the Serpent, they wouldn’t be in trouble. The Union would obsess over the technology, its renewed chance in the war. And everyone would leave Revna alone.
Revna concentrated on fighting the Serpent as it twisted against them. She hated Linné. She thought Linné hated her. And even though Linné didn’t care about the fight, about surviving, about getting some stupid medal, there was one thing she needed before she died.
“Revna?” Her voice was a whisper when she wanted to shout. She couldn’t pull back. The Serpent seethed, leeching spark. The world was turning gray. The taiga stretched below, crumpling in the dim outline of the Karavels ahead. They came ever closer, but not close enough. “I’m sorry.” Something wet slid down to her chin.
“Why are you sorry?” Revna said. Her voice grew louder and softer, as if she were on the other end of a malfunctioning radio. She was supposed to say, It’s okay. She was supposed to forgive Linné. “You can pull back a bit. We’re safe.” The Serpent’s head whipped back and forth, and Revna’s hands went rigid as she kept its wings steady. Concentrate. Fog closed in on Linné’s mind. “I’m sorry for trying to switch. I’m sorry for thinking you couldn’t…” She fought for the words, but they fled her. Why couldn’t Revna say it was okay? “I can’t—”
Die next to someone who hates me.
“Linné?”
Everything was far away—the anger, the sorrow. The pain of her spark, draining from her. And the Karavels still loomed before them. Linné tried to tell Revna to push for the mountains. But she whispered, “Don’t hate me,” instead. I don’t want to die like this.
I don’t want to die.
Revna leaned over, and the Serpent rolled with her. They tilted in the air until the clouds were a gray ocean beneath them. “Please,” Linné mumbled. “I’m sorry.”
Revna’s hand was hot against her forehead. “Linné, stop. You’re killing yourself.” She tugged at Linné’s forearm. But it was no use. The engine was greedy, and the Serpent wanted her to suffer.
“Saving you.” Linné’s head sagged against the back of her seat. It was getting too difficult to keep her eyes open.
“Not like this,” Revna said. Her hands closed around the gun at Linné’s waist and jerked it free. Revna pushed the barrel of the gun against the base of the gunner’s throttle.
An alarm flashed in Linné’s brain. She couldn’t do that, they had to get over the mountains—
The sound of the shot broke through her gray world. Everything turned white.
Revna wrenched them back on course as the wing of the Serpent lit up like the sun. Her left glove burned and she grabbed for the Weave. She hadn’t considered that her forced disconnect might set the aircraft on fire.
Then she saw planes darting around them like silverfish, flashing against the Weave as they fired. This time, the Serpent wasn’t trying to kill them—Skyhorses were.
Next to her Linné collapsed in her chair, heaving. Spark flushed back up her arm from the ruined gunner’s throttle. Revna could only hope it was enough to keep her alive. “Linné? Are you with me?”
Linné’s head bobbed. “You—” she murmured.
The night lit up as the Skyhorses fired again. The Serpent flopped in the air. Weave threads whipped around them. Revna gripped the edge of her seat as her legs slammed from side to side. She felt the decision, the clean disconnect of the burning wing from the rest of the plane, tumbling through the air to crash into the underbrush of the taiga. They began to spin.
Linné tried to push herself up in her seat, then collapsed back. Her face shone with sweat. “What did you do?”
Revna ignored her navigator and pulled with all she had. No good. The Serpent tilted toward the ground. Above them, Skyhorses circled and danced. She steered toward the slight indent in the snow that Linné had identified as the Ava River on their flight out.
“You shot me,” Linné accused, incredulous.
“I shot the plane,” Revna corrected her.
“Why?”
Was she serious? “You were about to die!”
“Now you’re going to die!”
“No, we’re going to land.” Again.
Linné looked from the Skyhorses to the ground. “In the river? Are you joking?”
Landing gear. Ignore your ungrateful navigator and get the landing gear down. The hatred of the Serpent cut through every command she tried to give. It was palpable in a way she’d never experienced from any other living metal. She gripped the Weave until the living steel gloves cut into her palms. The metal links seared her skin. The Serpent would obey her. And as they tumbled down, she pulled and pulled, and ignored Linné’s screams, and she prayed to any god, legal or illegal, that might be listening.
They hit the river with an impact that punched a hole in the ice and sent water cascading in waves. The windscreen cracked from the bottom up, bursting in and showering them with glass. The living metal screamed as they struck rocks, roots, and the riverbank, grinding against the earth until they came to their slow, final halt at a bend in the river.
Linné sagged against the dash. Her skin had a tint like ash, and when she pulled her hand from the gunner’s throttle, blood ran from beneath her sleeve.
Revna slid down in her chair, heart thundering. She couldn’t get enough air, no matter how she gulped it in. Her entire body shook.
It took her a moment to realize she was laughing.
She’d saved Linné. She’d saved them both. Twice. “We’re not dead.”
Linné looked at Revna. “You’re bleeding everywhere.”
“I’m fine.” Revna giggled. She was better than fine. It was a glorious night, and she’d lost her plane, and they were trapped in the taiga, and everyone thought they were dead.
Linné leaned forward and traced a slick line down Revna’s face. Dots of blood speckled her own cheeks, tiny cuts from the shattered glass of the windscreen. “It can’t be serious.” Revna laughed. Because tonight was a glorious night.
“Let me take a look.” Linné scooted to the edge of her seat. The Serpent rocked, ice clinking against its fuselage. Linné inspected Revna’s neck, wiping at a stinging cut under her ear. Then she probed her shoulders and chest, unzipping her jacket to check her shirt underneath. She felt her knees and her residual limbs, running her finger around the line where the prosthetics began. “You seem to be all right,” she admitted.
“Because tonight’s a glorious night,” Revna said.
It was a glorious night.
And they were trapped in the taiga.
And everyone thought they were dead.
18
THE MOTHERLAND IS CALLING
Glass lay scattered over the cockpit. The Serpent pinged as the dead metal cooled against the ice. They were alive.
Linné continued to check Revna. It was easier than thinking about how her own body felt like a bag of sand, or that the world was still a study in gray. It was easier than looking her pilot in the eye. Revna had been thinking about her. Not about getting home safe. Not about saving herself. And Linné had wanted her grounded.
Glass had ripped through Revna’s jacket, but her cuts looked s
uperficial. It seemed luck was with them. Revna still giggled, but Linné felt more like crying. If she’d been a better navigator—if she’d been stronger with her spark, more trusting of her pilot—would they even be here?
Wind blew in through the shattered windscreen. It would be warmer on solid ground, and they’d need to conserve heat as much as they could. Linné could be ashamed of herself later. “All right?” she asked Revna.
“Of course,” Revna said, as if she were stupid for even asking.
“Of course,” Linné muttered. She needed a cigarette. But when she patted her pockets, they were suspiciously flat. Her coat pockets were empty, too. It was apparently too much of a miracle to expect her cigarettes to survive a crash, a heist, and another crash.
All she could do instead was move, distract herself. The sky was clear above them—the Skyhorses must think them dead. She leaned forward to pry open the dash and liberated the compass and flare gun inside. The seat behind Revna looked empty, but next to that—a metal hatch, leading to the body of the plane. And it looked undamaged.
“Stay here,” she said. Revna snorted as if she’d told a joke. Maybe she had; where else was Revna supposed to go?
Come back safe, she thought. Revna was supposed to go home. They might have to make it to the other side of the river and over a mountain, but they would get home.
Linné crawled into the back. Her head still pounded and she wasn’t sure she could stand. The hatch door stuck, but when she levered it with her shoulder, it popped open and she fell through.
The space beyond was blacker than the night. Linné reached for her spark. Her palms flickered and her head spun, but her power hid from her. Or it’s gone. Maybe she’d used too much; maybe it would never return.
She gritted her teeth. I need you now. And even though it made her ears ring, she shoved until the faintest glow illuminated her palms. Her veins burned. Using the side of the hatch to steady herself, she pushed to her feet and took a tottering step.
We Rule the Night Page 25