Shadow City

by Francesca Flores

  And it was impossible to escape your shadow.

  For once, that seemed not like a drawback or a fatal flaw, not like something she had to run away from. For once, it seemed like the most comforting thing in the world, because it was suddenly painfully obvious that there was no such thing as safety to fight for in the first place.

  “We’ll go back to Kosín now,” she said, a new plan forming in her scattered thoughts. “There’s something I need to do.”

  34

  “A train is scheduled to leave soon,” Ryuu said, glancing at his watch and then through the trees in the direction of the station.

  “Let’s go, then.” Aina stood and began leading the way out of the forest. The closer they got to the edge of the trees, the harder it was to hold at bay her memories of what had happened on that ship. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she would see.

  Night had truly fallen and the lights of the train were fireflies in the distance. Voices reached them from here, people boarding the train and pointing at the fire. The smoke unfurling into the air blocked out the stars, ash building thickly in a way that made her throat itch. The boat had mostly sunk.

  She felt a pull toward it, a part of her that wanted to run onto the ship and find Teo. But it was too late—he was sinking into the water, and she’d never see him again. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t blink them away. She kept her eyes on the ship, not wanting to lose sight of it until it was truly gone.

  “Is this the last train of the night?” Aina asked as they walked across the dark swathes of grass with the wind at their backs.

  “There are a few more,” said Ryuu, but then he grimaced. “If they don’t shut down the station because of the fire.”

  “We can’t wait around for the next one,” she said. “Who knows what Kohl and Bautix are doing while we’re gone?”

  There was still a chance that if Tannis and Mirran got here, they could make the trade-off, sending the Kaiyanis prisoners back to their country and bringing the Kaiyanis soldiers to the city to fight—if they had survived. But she banished that thought as quickly as it came—she didn’t even know what had happened to Raurie and Lill. There were so many things that could have gone wrong, but if she started thinking all of them were dead, she didn’t know how she’d do what needed to be done once she returned to the city.

  A horn sounded from the train. With a quick glance at each other, she and Ryuu began running, the wind spurring them onward.

  The train began to pull away from the platform as they were thirty feet off. As they ran, she pointed to the back of the train, where a sliding door was open with the barest hint of light peeking through.

  “There’s always another way in,” she shouted to Ryuu, her voice almost lost in the rushing wind and the creak of the train wheels.

  Her adrenaline raced as they sprinted across the grass. The train was still moving slowly, and while she’d never considered jumping onto a moving one before … if they reached it in time, there was nothing to do but try.

  If they failed to get back to the city in time, Bautix would win and the city would be lost. Kohl would take the south. He said he cared about the south, but he’d also said that about her, and he never ceased to find ways to hurt her if she didn’t do exactly what he wanted. If the south fell into his hands, she didn’t know how long it would last.

  They began running along the tracks at around the halfway point of the train. It started picking up speed, and Ryuu shouted that they were close. Glancing over her shoulder, Aina saw the open door of the last compartment outlined in the red moon’s light. She ran faster, and in seconds, it was in front of her and she leaped.

  She strained her muscles to hold on to the ladder at the side of the compartment, her shoulders aching with the sudden pull. As wind whipped her hair out of her eyes, Ryuu landed next to her, his teeth gritted as he fought to hold on.

  A second later, Aina was yanked inside by a burly arm around her waist. A knife went to her throat at the same time that the wind stopped roaring in her ears.

  “One hundred kors,” grunted the man holding her as another thug yanked Ryuu inside and did the same.

  Aina nearly laughed. This was the least threatening knife-to-the-throat experience she’d had in months. She reached into her pocket for the money and tossed it on the floor.

  The man dropped her and she brushed off her clothes, her pulse racing with the exhilaration of the race to the train, the jump onto it. But as she peered out of the door toward the ports and the still-burning boat at the far-off pier, the exhilaration vanished. She was doing what Teo wanted, going back to the city, surviving, fighting for all the people like him who’d never really had a chance to change their own destinies … but it was by leaving him behind. A lump built in the back of her throat, emotion threatening to well up—she clenched one hand around the rusted door to stop herself from leaping off the train.

  She watched it all disappear with Ryuu next to her. Their shadows chased them, stretching long on the grass as the train sped away.

  When they stepped off the train an hour later, a storm reigned over Kosín. The sky flashed black and silver with lightning and thick dark clouds. Aina breathed in the fresh scent. Most people hated when it stormed so ferociously—she definitely had as a child when she’d slept on the streets—but now, she loved the rain. It chased away the fires threatening to consume them all; it reduced the tinge of pollution in the air and the grit on the streets; it was a sign that all the bad things might be washed away.

  Everyone paused on the platform, as if they weren’t sure whether continuing onward was the best option. Ryuu frowned, peering ahead through the small group of passengers that had disembarked the train and then stopped in their tracks. She felt it too; the square ahead, with King Verrain’s statue in the center of it, was crowded as usual, but with an eerie pall of silence and fear over the people gathered there. When the lightning flashed, a stack of smoke unfurling from a building a block away caught her eye. The crackling sound of a fire nearby reached her when the next rumble of thunder died down. They’d had no idea what state the city would be in now that they’d come back, but the next shrill scream that broke the night gave her a hint.

  A group of Diamond Guards had gathered in the center of the square on a platform, with the crowd surrounding them. Between rumbles of thunder as she and Ryuu traversed the square, Aina caught snatches of what they were saying. “All who choose to fight for our freedom will be compensated,” one of the men shouted, his hands cupping his mouth to project his voice. His partner handed a rifle to a man in the crowd.

  “For Bautix? They think they’re fighting for a hero.” Aina scoffed. “But he’d just as soon kill them all if they helped him get what he wants.”

  Ryuu shook his head slowly as they turned a corner and the square disappeared from view. “It’s easy for him to convince them they’d be safest following him, that the city is only in war when he’s not in charge.”

  “When you have nothing, all you want is something real,” Aina said, in such a low voice she didn’t know if he heard her. As they reached the next intersection, the sounds of screams and the crackle of fire growing louder the deeper they walked into the city, they both slowed.

  “I should go,” Ryuu said, his gaze trailing east toward the mines. “I need to check that the safe house is secure. Where are you headed?”

  “Home,” she said, briefly meeting his eyes. For the first time, she wished she didn’t have to face her troubles alone—she wished he could go with her. But the Dom was hers to protect, no matter how difficult.

  As Ryuu set off, she watched him for a moment, hoping he would make it there in one piece. Then she drew in a quick breath and checked which weapons she had on her.

  There was only one place Kohl would be now.

  With light footsteps, she passed a street at the edge of the Center where a fire still raged, undeterred by the rain. People had run out of their homes and businesses,
glancing back over their shoulders at a group of men who blocked the other exit of the street. Peering closely, Aina caught sight of a Jackal tattoo on one of their forearms, and her blood ran cold. She picked up her pace to the Stacks, nearly getting run over by an older woman with three diamonds pierced in an arc on her forehead. She held a few possessions in her hands, her eyes flicking back to the fire she’d fled.

  As Aina walked down the hill into the Stacks, the hair rose on the back of her neck. She turned east after walking south for a few minutes, and as she continued, the Tower caught her eye, its surface illuminated every time lightning flashed across the sky. People ran past her, breaking the windows of small shops and grabbing anything inside they could carry. She kept to the shadows, not wanting to draw attention to herself.

  About a mile from the Dom, she walked by a group of people huddled around a fire on a relatively quiet street, shielding the flames with their bodies and passing around a bottle of firebrandy.

  “All their bodies hanging from the bridge,” one of the men said in a slightly derisive tone, his eyes wide in amused disbelief. “Except Mariya Okubo, that is.”

  Aina slowed, straining her ears to hear them and keeping her gaze forward so they wouldn’t know she was listening.

  “Where’d she go?” asked one of the women at the fire.

  “Either she escaped or she’s a hostage,” the first man replied with a shrug.

  “Or, maybe she’s in on it with Bautix,” another of the men said in a gravelly voice. “They say he came in through the prison and bribed the inmates to fight for him.”

  Aina’s heart raced as she continued. Bautix had taken the Tower, and most of the Sentinel was dead. Were Tannis and Mirran still alive? What about the fighters from the tradehouses? And where were Raurie and Lill?

  She could do nothing for them now, but she wouldn’t push thoughts of them away. She held the image of Teo’s last moments at the front of her mind, reminding herself what she was here for. Now she had only one job, and it was to get to Kohl.

  She couldn’t go with her knives drawn or fierceness in her eyes. She’d used to think anything else was weakness, but like the Mothers had said in the cave under the Tower, she needed to learn to embrace that weakness.

  She would be strong, but not with Kohl’s strength—she’d use the same strength she’d used to survive her parents’ death and the same she’d used to plunge her knife into Teo’s heart. The same strength she’d always had, and that Teo had always known was in her.

  A full storm was in effect now, and her hair clung wet to her face. As she pushed it out of her eyes, a shrill scream reached her ears. She crouched near a house and peered around the corner.

  What she saw next happened so quickly, she barely drew a knife in time to help. A couple of tall, burly men had found the Sacoren woman Aina had seen fleeing earlier. One of them drew a knife across her throat, cutting off her scream. They were built like men trained to fight, and she suspected they were some of the Diamond Guards who’d been on Bautix’s side, like the ones in the Center square.

  A few minutes later, she turned a corner and the Dom came into view. Lightning flashed, revealing it. Nothing looked amiss on the outside, but all the lights were on. She squared her shoulders, preparing herself for whatever she would find—and what she would have to do.

  She would face the Blood King once more.

  When she reached the path leading to the door, the entirety of the Thunder tradehouse filtered outside, one at a time. They watched her walk past them to the door without a word. The only one who did anything more than stare straight ahead was their new, youngest employee. He opened his mouth as if to say something to her, tears in his eyes, but one of the other men elbowed him and he hung his head instead of speaking. Arman Kraz stood at the entrance with a smug grin on his face. She barely spared him a glance as she stepped inside.

  She entered the hallway and took in the scene in front of her. She wished she could say she’d paused longer, felt a surge of fear or ruthless anger. But there was nothing else Kohl could do that would surprise her.

  She spared one glance each for Markus, Johana, and Kushik—their bodies lined up against the walls of the hallway, coated with blood.

  Lightning struck once more, further illuminating the hall dimly lit with the silver vine-ensconced electric lamps. Kohl stepped out of the office. He took her in for a moment, his hands hanging loose at his side. His shoes clicked against the jade-and-crystal floor stained red with the recruits’ blood as he approached her.

  When the lightning’s flash died away, only the two closest lamps lit his face, making the hollows on his cheeks stand out like he was a corpse.

  A thousand instincts roared up inside her, telling her what to say or do to the man in front of her. But she knew there was only one option left.

  A curious glint sparked in his eyes as she sank to her knees.

  “Kohl,” she said, her voice flat and without hope. “Help me.”

  35

  A long silence passed before Kohl walked toward her, his footsteps the only sound. Aina kept her eyes glued to the floor, afraid to look at him and give away what she thought. He’d told her, not long ago, that one day she would finally admit she needed him.

  Today was that day.

  He knelt in front of her in the narrow hallway. Bruises that hadn’t been there before marked the side of his face now, and pride surged through her at the thought that Markus, Kushik, and Johana had put up a fight. He reached out and touched her chin with his hand, like she was a fine weapon to examine. She let him—he only trusted Blades who obeyed him.

  “Bautix tricked us,” she said, keeping her voice at the level of an awestruck whisper. “He used the poison against us. Teo, he’s…” Her voice choked up without her even having to try. “Does he know what we tried to do? That we were trying to take him down?”

  Kohl nodded slowly, taking in every tiny reaction on her face, trying to read her as much as she tried to read him. “He’s always known.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked in a soft voice, tilting her head to the side even though a sour taste settled in the back of her throat—telling her she should have known this all along, that this was the way it always was between them.

  “How else could I get you to work with me unless you thought we were standing up to him as a team? It was easy to make you hate a Steel like him. He knew you were a threat and wanted to kill you from the start, but I convinced him it would be better if you served a purpose—you would take out his loose ends like Fayes and the smuggler when he no longer needed them, getting you out of the city while he sneaked in his weapons and now, while he takes the Tower. The best way to get you to do all that was to have you work with me.”

  “To have me work with you,” she repeated, her thoughts racing to make sense of his plan. “Does that mean you knew about the bombings?”

  “I set off most of them, although I didn’t expect you to be caught in the thick of it. The only thing I didn’t know about was the fire at the Dom,” he said, a sudden darkening in his eyes, and her heart clenched. He’d let so much of the city be destroyed as part of some bigger plan. “Bautix probably suspected I would stop it if I knew.”

  “Do you want him to win?” she asked slowly, fighting to control her reactions. It made sense, then, why Kerys had fought them on the roof of the train and why it had seemed like she had told Bautix of Kohl’s plans—they’d been on the same side the whole time. All this time, whenever he’d been kind to her, or revealed some part of his past or some deep fear … she didn’t know how much of it was true and how much of it had been to control her, convince her to do exactly what he wanted, like Teo had known he would.

  “That’s what I let him think,” Kohl said with a low chuckle. “I let his plans continue until now, let him think I was tricking you for his benefit. You have to understand, Aina: If you hadn’t played along, he would have killed you long ago. I lied to you to protect you. But today, your purpose came
to an end, and he wanted me to prove myself. Prove that I could stand against you if needed, to make up for my mistakes in the Tower. He told me to let you die on that ship, poisoned by your own brew like your friend. But I’m close enough to my goals that I don’t need his trust anymore. I gave you the antidote to save you.” He touched a finger to her lips then, cold as winter and thin like a blade. “He doesn’t know you’re still alive. But I wouldn’t kill you with poison.”

  Forcing herself to stay still under his touch, she said, “And now that you don’t need his trust anymore…”

  “He’s already killed most of the Sentinel and has his men in the Tower now to take it. He’ll think he’s winning. Once that happens, he’ll be the only person in my way. Think of what we can do in the new world that will be left after this. Do you think our people would actually want to follow a Steel, if they had the choice? We can give them a better choice. We can take the south and the whole country together, Aina, and turn things around. We could actually make a difference in the lives of people here.”

  She kept her face entirely passive, but her mind raced. He’d spent the past month double-crossing her and Bautix at the same time. Kohl alone didn’t have the support and weapons to kill the Sentinel and take the Tower on his own, so he’d let Bautix do it. But once Bautix took the Tower, Kohl would fight him for the entire city. The whole breadth of his plan hit her slowly, and it took all her effort to not show her surprise on her face.

  “And what do you want with me, Kohl?” she asked, meeting his eyes.

  “I want to go back to the way it was. Nothing standing in our way. Me, ruling the south and more. You, working alongside me.”

  She imagined it in an instant. They would take down Bautix in one swift blow once the Tower was secure, and take over in his place. They would never fear challenge again; they’d have the power of the military and the economy, and the trust of everyone in the Stacks. With the Mothers’ magic flowing through her veins, they would even have the trust of the Inosen.