Shadow City

by Francesca Flores

  Or maybe her plan was working … maybe he was beginning to trust her again.

  Without another word, they both stood and stepped into the hall, leaving the shocked group of Steels behind them. They walked fast then, soon reaching the rear end of the train where the cargo was stored.

  Silence fell in this part of the train. There were only a few passengers, mostly solo travelers reading newspapers or sleeping in their seats

  Before entering the third cargo car, Kohl held a finger to his lips. Then he slid open the door to the next car and waved her in. Shafts of light shone through the windows onto the dusty boxes strewn throughout this car.

  “Where are they keeping the rebels they’re smuggling in?” she asked.

  Kohl shrugged, his face fixed forward. “Probably posing as passengers. It’s good they’re not here, or we’d have a problem.”

  Then he pointed to a box, and Aina walked up to it, her pulse racing as she lifted the lid of the box.

  “Diamonds?” Kohl asked in confusion.

  Frowning, Aina lifted a handful of the translucent gems and let them slide through her fingers, clinking together as they landed. Then she exhaled softly.

  “Not diamonds. Rhinestones.”

  They both looked up, their breaths cutting short so the only sound was the rumble of the train beneath them.

  “The shipment’s fake,” she whispered, one hand already going to a knife. The Jackals wouldn’t leave a box of rhinestones on a train and do nothing else.

  The door to the next car slid open, and three people stepped through, each one raising a gun.

  19

  A bullet struck the wall next to Aina as she ducked and rolled behind the crate of rhinestones. Kohl shot back, striking one of the Jackals in the head. In the next breath, Aina stood from behind the crate and flung her knife into one of their throats. She leaped from behind the crate toward the last Jackal with another dagger in hand and, as he turned his gun on her, ducked and plunged her blade into his stomach.

  As he doubled over, she knocked his gun out of his hand and then pulled out the dagger. Blood cascaded down her arms.

  “Aina,” Kohl hissed, grabbing her by the elbow. “More are coming, from both directions.” She strained her ears to hear footsteps pounding toward them from the same compartment these Jackals had come from. Through the window to the compartment in the opposite direction, she could make out a line of people walking down the aisle toward them. Passengers gasped and jolted out of the way when they saw the Jackals were armed.

  Without wasting another moment, she and Kohl sped into the space between the train cars. Holding his arm out to stop Aina from going any farther, Kohl jerked his head toward the roof. Aina’s stomach plummeted at the thought of escaping from the Jackals on the roof, but they’d be trapped and heavily outnumbered below. Taking a deep breath, she followed, placing her hands on the rusty ladder fixed to the side of the train. As she climbed, she refused to look behind her to the rolling hills flashing past them. If she fell, there’d be no coming back from that.

  But right before she reached the roof, a grunt below made her look down. One of the Jackals had reached Kohl, but Kohl slammed his fist into the man’s jaw so hard, his head banged against the ladder, then Kohl shoved him off the side of the train. The man’s shout was lost in the wind.

  Kohl began climbing behind her, and a moment later, they both reached the train roof. She bent her knees to keep her balance. A fierce wind blew from the force of the train’s speed, nearly pushing her back. The wind had knocked the string out of her ponytail, leaving her hair to whip around her face. For a moment, she saw nothing but black hair and the flashing colors of the landscape speeding by.

  Then a hand grabbed her shoulder from behind. She slammed her head back into their nose and spun around to see a Jackal with a bloodied face. Grabbing him by the shoulders, she hurled him off the side of the train toward the rock-strewn hill. She skidded to a stop at the edge, heart in her throat.

  A hand latched around her arm and yanked her back to the center of the roof. Shaking it off, she lifted a knife and went into a defensive crouch, but then saw it was Kohl who’d pulled her back.

  He gestured to the opposite end of the roof. She followed, running and leaping onto the next compartment with her pulse pounding in her ears. They both turned to face the roof they’d come from, and exhilaration swept through her. Standing on the roof of the train as rolling hills sped past them, holding her ground with weapons in hand, diamonds in her pocket, and Kohl fighting at her side—she felt invincible.

  And then the train turned with a shriek of its wheels. A yelp left her throat as she slipped, and her hands scrabbled for purchase on the roof. It was thankfully flat, and she caught herself before sliding off the side. A few feet ahead of her, Kohl crouched to hold his balance. Panic flashed briefly through his eyes and then vanished, a murderous glare returning as he straightened to face the Jackals.

  The Jackals surged toward them from the next roof, the two remaining ones they’d seen in the storage car and three more following.

  Aina leapt to her feet as the Jackals jumped onto her compartment’s roof, a bullet striking the spot where she’d just been. She ducked from his next shot and rolled to the right, sliding her knife into the heart of another Jackal who’d jumped onto the roof.

  Another of the Jackals swung a hammer toward her head. Her scythe arced upward, catching it inches from her face. A gunshot sounded and the Jackal fell, bleeding from his head. Kohl stood a few feet away, turning his gun from that Jackal to the next.

  More footsteps pounded behind them. Thinking there might be more Jackals coming, Aina left Kohl to deal with the first ones. But then she saw Ryuu, Teo, Tannis, Raurie, and Lill racing across the roof toward them. Her heart sank briefly—Tannis, at least, would recognize Kohl in moments even with the mask he wore.

  She pivoted away from him, putting distance between them and hoping that she could lose him in the fray of the fight. If they thought he was here as an enemy, her work with him could remain a secret.

  More Jackals, and the fighters Bautix had hired from Kaiyan, hurtled onto the roof ahead; at least ten of them but too many to count. Bodies blurred together and all sound reduced to shouts, the sharp whistle of wind, gunshots, and metal clashing against metal; all that was left was to strike and survive. She slashed her knife through the throat of a Jackal who’d come up behind her. His blood spilled on the roof, making her steps slippery as she skirted around the side of the fighters. Gunshots sounded from every corner of the roof, but there was no way to tell where they were coming from before they fired. She didn’t even know if her friends were alive.

  More blood splattered the train roof, not only from the fighting, but from Raurie and Lill using blood magic to fight back. They stood apart from the rest, but the Jackals still came for them. Raurie held a diamond, her legs shaking as she stepped back to avoid an approaching Jackal with a knife raised to strike. She whispered another spell and the Jackal stumbled back, blood streaming out of his eyes and bubbling at his mouth. He collapsed a moment later, and Raurie stepped back, staring wide-eyed at the man she’d killed. One of the Kaiyanis fighters approached her from behind, but Tannis launched a throwing star into his throat before he could reach Raurie.

  Just then, a Jackal pivoted toward Aina with a knife. She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled his arm straight out, then slammed her boot behind his elbow. As he screamed, she spun him around and plunged her knife into his gut.

  As he dropped, a flash of red caught her eye, and there, at the edge of this roof, stood Kerys. The Jackal woman didn’t attack anyone, but stood at the head of the group, her eyes scanning them all as if searching for someone.

  Lill had stepped away from Raurie, closer to the fray, seemingly frozen in place as she stared at something ahead of her. Aina called out to her, but Lill didn’t react at all.

  “Lill!” Ryuu shouted, then lunged toward her at the same time a shot rang out.

&
nbsp; Lill screamed as they both rolled toward the edge of the train, but they stopped before they could fall off, and Ryuu lifted a pistol to fire at the Jackal who’d shot Lill. Blood continued to coat the roof of the train, but Aina could no longer tell whose it was.

  Aina turned to face the Jackals once more, her own fury pushing her forward now—she’d already lost the Dom. She wasn’t about to lose her friends too. Two Jackals approached her, cornering her at the very edge of the roof, one with a knife and the other with a gun. There wasn’t an easy way out … but neither of them knew she could use blood magic.

  She reached for a diamond and made a cut on her arm faster than the Jackals could realize what she was doing. As she lifted the diamond, she thought of all the people in the Stacks Bautix had sent the Jackals to kill—the lives he didn’t care about losing as long as they weren’t Steels.

  “Nagan inoke,” she whispered, and swept the diamond diagonally in front of herself. In an instant, deep cuts formed, ribbon-like, along their skin, starting from their shoulders, and down across their chests. Blood spilled from the cuts, down their torsos and legs—they trembled where they stood. Their eyes turned a deep red, blood filling them, and at the same time, Aina’s knees buckled.

  She fought to stay upright, even though her vision blurred and threatened to black out. It felt like small needles were pricking her skin. Finally, the men collapsed in puddles of their own blood, and her own side effects ebbed away. She tossed that diamond to the side and as she looked up, spotted Kohl slashing a knife across one Jackal’s throat and shooting another of the rebels in the head in the same breath. The fighting had mostly cleared out. Once those two men collapsed at Kohl’s feet, only a few more Jackals remained—she caught sight of a couple of them, including Kerys, disappearing down the ladder they’d all come from.

  Raurie and Ryuu had gathered around Lill, whose torso was covered in blood. Her face had gone pale, standing out starkly against her violet hair and freckles. Ryuu held an arm around Lill’s shoulders as Raurie fumbled a diamond in her hands, the healing spell already at her lips. When nothing happened and Lill’s eyes began to slide closed, Raurie thrust the diamond at Ryuu for him to try instead.

  Teo faced one of the last Jackals, his gun raised. But once he got rid of the Jackal, he would turn to see Aina standing across from Kohl.

  “Get out,” she said under her breath, stepping toward him and swinging one of her knives at his torso. If it looked like she were fighting him, maybe she could still keep her secrets. He sidestepped her with ease, blocked her next strike, and knocked her weapon out of her hand.

  She pivoted away, and as she did, caught sight of the last Jackal aiming a gun at her. A shot fired into his head a moment later and he dropped. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Kohl lowering his gun.

  The train bucked, a hard turn that made a yelp leave Aina’s throat as she scrabbled for purchase on the smooth brass roof. The wind slammed against her ears as she lay there, gritting her teeth with the effort it took to hold on.

  And then a shout caught Aina’s attention; a shout from someone she’d never heard cry out in her entire life.

  Spinning around, she didn’t see Kohl anywhere. But then he shouted again and the sound broke through her shock. She scrambled toward the edge of the train. He hung from the window below, his knuckles straining with the effort to hold himself up. The train sped along a bridge at least fifty feet above a winding, churning river filled with rocks.

  She reached down, and one of his hands wrapped around her wrist. Then he grabbed her other hand, and she held all his weight. Sweat dripped onto her forehead as she grounded herself on the roof to avoid slipping off and making them both tumble into the river below.

  His life was literally in her hands. Her mind went blank except the two choices in front of her: pull him up or let him fall. “Aina,” he said, his wide eyes meeting hers.

  It would be so easy. All she had to do was let go, and Kohl would plummet to his death. The scene was so similar to how she’d nearly killed him in the Tower last month that her breath caught. They were always in these positions of one almost killing the other and having a choice before them.

  His words from yesterday came back to her then: Once I take back the south, I’ll lift it above the rest. Her breath caught in her throat at the memory, but she shoved it aside.

  His hands slipped a little. “Aina!” he called again, his voice sharper against her ears than even the gusting wind.

  But he didn’t say please. He didn’t beg. He didn’t even try to tell her she needed him. All he did was say her name.

  He wasn’t pleading in the way she wanted him to, like he had at the Tower last month when she’d placed her knife under his heart. Then, he’d shown fear—she’d proven herself to him. But now? He considered Bautix the worse enemy, and she was just a nuisance. Her heart hardened. She hadn’t made him fear her enough yet.

  Only I get to kill him.

  Kohl tripping off a train wasn’t good enough. Simply letting go of his hands wasn’t good enough. Would anything ever be, though?

  She suddenly remembered when he’d sat across from her at a tavern and told her the place would be bombed if she didn’t leave with him right then. He’d dragged her out of it alive, for his own reasons, but still alive.

  Shoving all those confusing thoughts out of her head, she hauled Kohl over the side of the train. He collapsed next to her, taking deep gulps of air, as if he hadn’t expected to be breathing anymore. His mask had fallen off, lost somewhere in the wind, so his face was revealed.

  The click of a gun sounded behind her. Slowly, Aina turned.

  But it was Teo, and the gun wasn’t pointed at her. He aimed it at Kohl’s head.

  “Get away from her.”

  Ryuu had stood and moved next to Teo, alternating between glaring at Kohl and frowning at Aina. Her heart sank, and she tried to speak, but couldn’t get any words out to explain what she’d done. For a moment, Aina didn’t move—having no idea what to say, not even really understanding why she’d pulled Kohl up over the side.

  When Kohl didn’t move, Teo said, “The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because I want Aina to have the honor. But I have no problem with injuring you.”

  His finger touched the trigger as he aimed the gun at Kohl’s arm instead. Before he could do anything else, Aina placed herself between them.

  Raising her eyes to meet Teo’s, she said, “Don’t.”

  20

  Teo stared at her for a long moment, his eyes widening. She didn’t even blink as she stared back, willing him to understand, to forgive her.

  “You went back to him,” he finally said, his voice nearly lost on the wind.

  “No, Teo, I—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, Ryuu moved. He took Teo’s gun and, eyes blazing, fired.

  Aina ducked, but a sharp intake of breath behind her told her Kohl had been hit. He strode past her in one smooth movement and his fist flew at Ryuu’s face.

  Ryuu fell, one hand going to his jaw. Lunging to Ryuu’s side, Aina looked up as Kohl stood over them both.

  “You put up much more of a fight than your brother,” Kohl said, paying no mind to the bullet wound on his shoulder and the blood that leaked down his chest.

  “Get out of here,” Aina yelled, grabbing the gun Ryuu had dropped and standing to aim it at Kohl. “Leave.”

  Kohl turned to Aina with curiosity lighting his eyes. Now that she’d saved his life, did he see her as a coward? Weak? The word played over and over in her mind, infecting her with how true it might be. She lifted her chin, clearing her expression of any emotion, any hint of what she might be thinking.

  Let him think she’d saved him on purpose, that it was part of her plan. She wouldn’t let him realize that saving him had been a spur-of-the-moment decision she could hardly explain to herself.

  Without another word, he turned and left, his blood trailing a path down the roof of the train.

  As he
walked past her, Tannis shot a disgusted look at Kohl and said, “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but I’m trying not to hide my real feelings anymore.”

  Teo and Ryuu left soon after, neither of them sparing Aina a glance as they did. Raurie and Lill followed, and Ryuu stopped to help Lill walk. A smear of blood was left behind on the roof where Lill had been.

  The train barreled on toward Kosín and the air turned colder, making Aina shiver where she stood on the roof. The city grew closer in the distance, all bronze and gold in the midday sun and so different from the grassy landscapes around them. It seemed completely at odds with how bleak the day had become.

  Tannis approached her then, disappointment etched on her features as the wind pushed her blue hair in waves around her shoulder. But at least she didn’t look like she wanted to shove Aina off the side of the train.

  “Tannis, I—”

  “I lied to you last month about my work with Kohl,” Tannis said in a soft tone. “Though we weren’t running a business together then. I want to hear what your reasons are, but let’s join the others first.”

  They left together and moved down the ladder on the side of the train. The inside of the compartment was starkly calm and quiet after the roar of the wind above. The passengers in this compartment cast her an anxious glance, tensing when she entered the room. They’d already been moving to other seats, casting a wide berth between themselves and Lill, Raurie, Teo, Tannis, and Ryuu, who were all covered in blood to varying degrees.

  Aina scanned them quickly, checking for injuries. Teo was tying a makeshift bandage around his upper arm. Tannis, Raurie, and Ryuu had scratches and cuts, but nothing serious. The wound on Lill’s neck had already sealed over, but copious amounts of blood still coated her upper body. With Raurie and Ryuu helping her, Lill took shaky steps to a seat and lowered herself into it with shallow breaths.