‘Get back, Warden,’ I called.
He didn’t. I turned fully to face him, grasped my revolver, and took aim at his chest, stopping him. The tang of metal seeped down my throat.
‘Don’t try to stop me. I mean it – I will put a bullet in your heart.’ My voice shook. ‘And I don’t care if it doesn’t kill you. It will give me enough time.’
‘You cannot stop this, Paige,’ Warden said. ‘No matter what you do.’
I jerked the gun higher. ‘One more step.’
‘Nashira will not let you go once you are in her clutches.’ As he spoke, I could have sworn I heard . . . some echo of emotion, of fear, in the very depths of his voice – I might have thought it was on the verge of breaking, if he hadn’t been a Rephaite. If he had been human. ‘She will chain you in the darkness, and she will drain the life and hope from you. Your screams will be her music.’ He held out a hand, his eyes blazing. ‘Paige.’
Something in the way he said my name almost disarmed me.
‘Please,’ he said.
I stepped away from him. ‘I have to.’
‘If you expect me to stand and watch you hand yourself to the Sargas, you will have to empty that gun into me,’ he said softer. ‘Do it.’
Blood ribboned from my chin to the hollow of my throat. Slowly, I drew back the hammer.
‘Shoot, Paige.’
My lips trembled. I steeled myself. A bullet would only slow him down; it wouldn’t kill him.
It didn’t matter.
I lowered the gun, and Warden nodded, just slightly – but I didn’t go to him. Instead, I pulled off the necklace he had given me, the one that had protected me from the poltergeist at the scrimmage – a Ranthen heirloom – and threw it towards him.
Then I ran.
The golden cord throbbed as I sprinted away from him, moving faster than I ever had, a stitch gnawing into one side of my waist. Warden came straight after me. Just as his footsteps caught up, I threw myself headlong into the welter, ducking under arms, shoving past shoulders and hips with all my strength, crawling between legs when there was no other way through. I was more agile than any Rephaite, and even with his talent for blending in, it would take him time to whittle a path through this nightmare without creating another swell of panic.
He didn’t understand. He couldn’t see what I was going to do.
There were too many people around me. Gasping for breath, I wrenched up my revolver and fired.
Although the soldiers were close, mine was the first gunfire this street had heard tonight. Screams and pleas were offered up like prayers. My palms pushed against sweat-soaked backs. I forced my way through, suffocated by the heat, crying ‘move’ into the storm of human voices. When I fired again, the weight of bodies tilted. Suddenly there was a path to the front – and just like that, I found myself on the transmission screens.
The cameras were tracking me: the woman with the gun, the violent protestor. Flashes blinded me, stripping people to nothing but silhouettes, searing rings of white on to my eyelids. Faces were contorted, monstrous in their fear.
‘I’M PAIGE MAHONEY! DO YOU HEAR ME?’ I shouted. ‘I AM PAIGE MAHONEY! I’M THE ONE YOU WANT!’
The golden cord rang like a bell. The first gas shell soared towards us and ruptured.
‘STOP!’
Cobalt mist swirled from the cracked egg of metal. Howls of agony ripped through the din as the blue hand clawed towards us. It bruised the night air, stinking of peroxide and decaying blossoms, a smell that made bile well in my gorge. I tore the cravat from my face, letting it flutter to the ground, and threw down my hood.
My hair flew around my face as I broke through the front of the crowd and thrust up my arms before the burning Guildhall, clenching my hands into fists.
‘I AM PAIGE MAHONEY!’
This time, I heard myself. Rain drenched my clothes, dripped from my hair.
Smoke drifted, dream-like, between the people and the soldiers, and everything grew still; all screaming ceased, all cries ebbed away. The chemical reek poisoned my senses. Dull pain pounded at the base of my skull as silence descended. The commandants kept their weapons pointed at us.
And there was Vance astride her horse, leading them. Her eyes locked on to mine. Beside her, Tjäder raised a hand, and one soldier dismounted.
This had to work.
It had to, or everything would end.
The commandant was little more than a silhouette. A helmet gleamed in the light of the inferno. There was burning red where eyes should be, and a gas mask covering the rest. I was shaking uncontrollably, but I didn’t lower my arms. I was small and I was endless. I was hope and I was fading.
I would not show fear.
The soldier lifted his rifle against his shoulder. In the crowd, someone cried ‘no’.
It was too late to go back. My heartbeat slowed. I stared down the barrel. I would not show fear.
I thought of my father and my grandparents. My cousin.
I would not show fear.
I thought of Jaxon Hall, wherever he was. Perhaps he’d raise a glass to his Pale Dreamer.
I thought of Nick and Eliza, Maria and Warden. There was no way for them not to see.
I would not show fear.
The soldier levelled his rifle at my heart. My arms dropped to my sides, and my palms turned outward. One last breath blanched the air.
A great wave washed around your feet, and dark wings lifted you away.
Interlude
The Moth and the Madman;
or, the Sad Calamities of War
by Mister Didion Waite, Esq.
O, Readers of Scion, you may well have heard
of a legend’ry Figure of good Written Word –
his Title, White Binder, his Name, Jaxon Hall –
who answers no Summons and suffers no Fool.
Ah! the Mime-Lord almighty of old MONMOUTH STREET
was the Picture of Poise from his Hair to his Feet!
Observe his good Humour, behold his long Stride,
so spotless a Man must be all LONDON’s Pride!
But would it surprise you to learn, faithful Reader,
why just such a Fellow could not be our Leader?
One ruinous Year, this Wordsmith decided
that all Voyant-kind should be cruelly divided.
Some called him a Genius! Some called him mad,
some whispered his Writing was terribly bad
(and verily, Didion Waite’s was far better,
superior down to each amorous Letter) –
but all seemed to love him, and after those Trials,
he ruled, drenched in Absinthe, from sweet SEVEN DIALS.
O, and even as Binder sought seven great Seals,
he grew deaf to his Gutterlings’ wretched appeals!
When cruel, od’rous Hector was found with no Head,
this good Mime-Lord fin’lly sprang up from his Bed.
He danced in the ROSE RING and fought for the Crown
and his Enemies great and small were cut down.
But close to the End, with a Victory certain,
a daring young Challenger swept through the Curtain!
And lo, who was she, but Black Moth arising,
and O, but her Face was most dev’lish surprising!
The famous Pale Dreamer, the White Binder’s heir,
the Dreamwalker Traitor, a scand’lous Affair!
She struck down her Master with Spirit and Blade,
but to spare us from Bloodshed, her own Hand she stayed.
And to wondering Ears, this Brogue told a Tale
of the Anchor’s Façade and what lies ’yond Death’s Veil.
Monsters stood at her side! Voyants cried Underqueen!
and they called her the Thaumaturge never yet seen.
’Twas on that fair Evening, with Freedom our Lust,
that the Might of THE MIME ORDER rose from the Dust.
The Binder, incensed, to the ARCHON set forth,
and the Dreamwalker Queen took her Voice to the North.
And O, what a Spectacle! O what a Show!
Alas for the Unnaturals! Where now shall we go?
For two hundred Years we have fumbled like Fools –
we have feathered our Nests and woven our Spools!
Shall we hide in the Night, where Dread will soon find us
or stand against Doom with the ÆTHER behind us?
Alas, when the Dreamwalker gave up her Throne,
her Subjects were stranded in Darkness alone,
and whispered that Weaver should bring them her head –
but now, when we need her, our young Queen is dead.
PART III
Death and the Maiden
20
Tomb
If this was the æther, it was different from how I remembered it.
Pain radiated from a damaged place. I was a child in a red, red field. Nick called to me across a sea of flowers, but the poppies were too tall and I couldn’t find my way to him.
There was the spirit among the petals, reaching for my arm, whispering a message I couldn’t understand. When I held out my hand to her, it was Warden who took it. I was a woman, the pale rider, the shadow that brought death. The night showered my hair with starlight. He danced with me as he had once before, his skin too hot on mine. I wanted him beside me, around me, within me. So I reached for him, but his teeth tore out my heart.
He ebbed away. The amaranth had grown in my mind, too. As I bled, Eliza Renton spun in a green dress beneath a tower. Lightning lashed its highest turret, and a golden crown fell to the earth and shattered.
The tower loomed in a not-too-distant future, obscuring the sun. And somewhere, Jaxon Hall was laughing.
Each exhalation echoed through my skull, into the emptiness. I had thought this was the æther, but I felt the millstone of my body, smelled the sweat on living skin. There was sand on my teeth, paper on my lips.
Blood thundered in my ears. I had no memory of where I was, what I was doing here, what I had been doing before.
Just below my breastbone was a second heartbeat – thick, grey, deep within my body. It sharpened as I tried to sit up, only to find that I couldn’t. The only sound I could produce was a rasp. In a panic, I arched my back and pulled my arms forward, grinding my wrists against bracelets of metal. I was . . . chained. My hands were chained . . .
She will chain you in the darkness, and she will drain the life and hope from you. I shivered as I remembered his voice, his hand outstretched, offering me safety. Your screams will be her music.
White light scorched the backs of my eyes. I sensed the ancient dreamscape before I heard the footsteps.
‘XX-59-40.’ The æther quaked around me. I knew that voice; it dripped with an arrogance no mortal could attain. ‘The blood-sovereign welcomes you to the Westminster Archon.’
The Archon.
When my eyes adjusted to the light, I recognised the Rephaite –a male with the pale hair of the Chertan family. At once, my spirit leaped from my fragile dreamscape and slammed against the layers of armour on his mind, but I didn’t last long before I stopped trying. Red lightning flashed between my temples, drawing a weak groan from my throat.
‘I would not advise that. You have only just emerged from a coma.’
‘Suhail,’ I croaked.
‘Yes, 40. We meet again. And this time,’ he said, ‘you have no concubine to protect you.’
A drop of water fell on to my nose, making me blink. I wore a black shift, cut off just above the knee. My wrists and ankles were chained to a smooth board. Another bead of water splashed on to my forehead, dripping from the metal pail suspended above me.
Waterboard. My chest began to heave.
‘The Grand Commander has asked me to inform you that your pathetic rebellion amounted to nothing,’ Suhail Chertan said, speaking over my gasps. ‘And to tell you this, also: your friends are all dead. If you had surrendered earlier, they would be alive.’
I couldn’t listen. It wasn’t true. It could not be true. I lifted my head as much as I could.
‘Don’t think you’ve won, Rephaite scum,’ I whispered. ‘While we speak, your home is rotting. And so will you, when you have to slink back to the hell you belong in.’
‘Your prejudice against Rephaim surprises me, given your lust for the concubine. Or should I say,’ Suhail purred, ‘flesh-traitor.’ Water trickled into my hair. ‘The blood-sovereign has forbidden me from causing any enduring damage to your body or aura, but . . . there are ways to inflict pain.’
He paced around me. I writhed against my chains, but the first round of struggling had already exhausted me.
‘No need to be frightened, Underqueen. After all, you are the ruler of this citadel. Nothing can touch you.’
I hated myself for shaking so violently.
‘Let us begin with an easy question,’ Suhail said. ‘Where is my old friend, the flesh-traitor?’
We like to think we’re brave, but in the end, we’re only human. My hands became fists. People break bones trying to get off the waterboard.
‘I will ask you once more. Where is Arcturus Mesarthim?’
‘Try your best,’ I said.
His gloved hand reached for a lever. ‘You sound thirsty.’ Suhail loomed over me, blocking out the light. ‘Perhaps the Underqueen would care for a drink. To celebrate her short-lived reign.’
The board tipped backward. Gently, almost reverently, he covered my face with a cloth.
Suhail extinguished the lights as he left. I was limp on the board, drenched and shuddering and covered in vomit, unable to so much as lift a finger. My shift and hair were soaked with freezing water. As soon as his footsteps could no longer be heard, I dissolved into rasping sobs.
He had asked me many questions. About the Ranthen and their plans. About what I’d been doing in the Lowlands. Who had helped me get to Manchester. Where the Mime Order had hidden. What I knew of Senshield. He asked if someone in the Archon was helping me. He asked how many of the other Bone Season survivors were alive, and where they were. Endless questions.
I had said nothing, betrayed nothing. But he would be back tomorrow, and the next day. And the next. I had expected torture, and I had expected to be able to withstand it, but I hadn’t expected to be so weak that I couldn’t use my gift at all, not even to give myself a moment of relief from the pain in my body. The coma must have corroded it – it had certainly left my dreamscape paper-thin.
Sleep called to me. I kept my eyes open, telling myself to focus, to concentrate. I couldn’t have much time before they executed me. A few days, at most.
Step one: survive the torture.
Suhail soon came back with his questions. Even after the first time, I wasn’t prepared for the ice-cold liquid to flood my mouth and knife its way into my stomach. For the fear that made me fight my chains until my wrists were raw. For the gargling screams I couldn’t control, even when Suhail told me I was a yellow-jacket, even when I knew that screaming would crack open the sluice-gates in my throat. For my body to retort with bouts of vomit. I had drowned on dry land over and over, a dying fish flopping on a slab.
Suhail became nothing but the hand that poured. He told me to forget my name. I was not Paige here. I was 40. Why had I not learned the first time? Sometimes he would touch my forehead with a sublimed baton, which had the same effect on my spirit as a cattle prod. As I cried out, the deluge came again. He whispered to me that this interrogation would do no harm, that there would be no physical destruction to my body, but I didn’t believe it. All my ribs felt splintered; my stomach was bloated with water; my throat seared from the acid in it. Whenever he left, I fought to keep my eyes open.
Staying alive was physically strenuous. Breathing was no longer a reflex, but an effort.
But I had to live. If I didn’t live for just a little longer, everything I had done to get here – all of it would be for nothing.
Day and night were now wat
er and silence. There was no food. Just water. When my bladder was full, I had no choice but to let the warmth seep out of me. I was a vessel of water, nothing more. When he returned, Suhail reminded me of what a sordid animal I was.
I hoped, every minute, that the others wouldn’t try to save me. Nick might be foolish enough. They had faced odds almost as daunting when they had got me out of the colony, but there was no way they could infiltrate a maximum-security fortress like the Archon. Whenever Suhail tired of tormenting me, I visualised how they might attempt a rescue. The scenarios I envisioned always ended in a spray of blood. I pictured Nick dead on the marble floor, a bullet through his temple, never smiling again. Warden chained and brutalised in a room like this one, held in a permanent state of torture, denied even the mercy of death to escape it. Eliza on the Lychgate, like my father.
The next night, or day, Suhail fed on my aura as he worked. A Rephaite hadn’t fed on me in a long time. Blind panic made me haul against my fetters until the muscles of my neck and shoulders burst into flame. The double blow to my system left me so weak that once it was over, I could hardly cough out what had worked its way into my lungs. When Suhail took the cloth off my face, his eyes were the red of a moribund fire.
‘Do you truly have nothing to say, 40?’ he said. ‘You were rather more vocal in the penal colony.’
I used the last of the water in my mouth to spit at him. His hand strapped my cheek. Pain staggered up my face, and my head seemed to vibrate with the force of the impact.
‘What a great pity,’ he said, ‘that the blood-sovereign wants you unspoiled.’
A second blow knocked me out.
When I woke, I was face down in a cell. Concrete floor, blank walls, and no light.
Suhail had really done a number on me this time. I could feel that I was badly bruised around my left eye, and my cheek was hot and swollen.
A cup of water sat beside the cot. It took me a long time to drag myself across the concrete and pick it up, and longer still to lift it to my lips. The first sip made me gag. I tried again. And again. Dipping my upper lip into the glass, I let the water soften the broken skin. Then more. Just the tip of my tongue. I retched into my arm. My throat closed in anticipation of the flood.
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