by Claire Luana
“We’re not animals, Hale, you know that. You were raised in Se Caelus. The soldiers will follow my orders. And we want a prosperous Maradis, not a wounded and violated one.”
“Would you help us save several Guild members from execution? And guarantee their safety?” Hale asked.
Hale wasn’t listening. Wren exchanged a look of wide-eyed panic with Thom. Her horror was mirrored on his face. After all, she realized, she was not the only one in this tent who cared deeply for an Imbris.
“Hale, no,” Thom protested. “We’re not considering an option where Lucas and Trick are killed.”
“You two aren’t the only ones with a say here,” Hale said.
“What, you would have sacrificed Sable to save Callidus?” Wren snapped and instantly wished she could swallow the words.
“I already did,” he rumbled, pointing at Thom. “For him.”
“But that wasn’t the plan,” Wren said softly, sending a silent apology to Thom, who looked stricken. The three of them lapsed into uneasy silence.
General Marius cleared his throat. “We could save the guildmasters Hale speaks of, and we would want them on our side, assuming their only transgression was crossing King Imbris.”
“It was,” Hale said.
“We’d just need to know where to find them once we got into the city.”
“The king and his family will be at the execution,” Hale said. “It’s scheduled for tomorrow. It would be the opportune time to strike.”
“No!” Wren cried. “Hale, the answer is no. General Marius, I’m sure this is unconventional, but may the three of us have a minute alone?”
“That’s not necessary,” Hale said, ignoring Wren completely. “I’m afraid Wren and Thom won’t be able to get past their sentimentality to see what needs to be done. But I do.”
Wren rounded on Hale. “You aren’t thinking clearly. It’s one thing to sacrifice the king. He’s a bastard and deserves to die. But Lucas? Virgil? Trick? Ella? Their mother? They’re good people. They don’t deserve to die. We can’t tell him what we know. We’ll find another way to help Callidus.”
“What other way, Wren?” Hale asked. “Do you have another idea?”
“No, but I’m not willing to sacrifice Lucas and his family for your revenge.”
“It isn’t up to you,” he said with a roar, and with those words, he advanced on her.
Wren scrambled back, knocking into the table. Thom tried to push between them. “Hale, calm down.”
Hale pushed Thom to the side, knocking him out of the way like an errant tree branch.
Hale was upon her now, looming above her. Panicked thoughts flickered back to the feeling of his hands on her throat, choking the life from her. Sable’s near-death had driven him to the edge last time and Wren wouldn’t be surprised if her death pushed him over.
But to her surprise, he didn’t grab her. Instead, his fingers closed around the chain hanging from her neck, breaking the clasp with a quick jerk. He withdrew the heavy key and turned to Marius.
“Hale, no,” she pleaded, turning to him, grasping his thick bicep. “Please, let’s find another way. There has to be another way.”
Thom chimed in. “Lucas and Trick don’t deserve to die just because their father is a royal bastard. Don’t do this, Hale.”
“It’s done,” he said, avoiding their pleading eyes and handing the key to Marius. “This is the key to several secret passageways into the city. Your men can be inside the city in a matter of hours.”
“We agreed,” Wren raged, his betrayal stinging like lemon juice in the wounds of her ragged soul. “Don’t tell him. We agreed if all three of us didn’t like the terms, we’d walk.”
“You agreed,” Hale said. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes. He addressed Marius. “I would like the terms we discussed in writing. Signed. And one more thing. I want the chance to kill King Imbris myself.”
Marius inclined his head. “I think we can arrange that.” He clapped Hale on the shoulder. “Good to have you back with us, brother. Aprica welcomes home one of its own.”
Hale said nothing, his tanned face unreadable.
“Hale!” Wren cried. “It’s not too late. Sable wouldn’t want this—”
Hale’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Don’t speak of what Sable would want. Marius, I think it would be best if Thom and Wren are…kept out of the way until all of this is resolved.”
Wren’s heart seized in her chest. She backed away, her feet moving of their own accord. No. Surely, Hale wouldn’t… Run, the little voice inside her shouted. Run! But it was too late. Wren realized too late the truth of their predicament. She and Thom were deep within a war camp, surrounded by enemies, including the one they hadn’t foreseen: Hale.
Marius nodded, his green eyes gentle. Almost apologetic. “Guards!”
Hale sat in the dark shadow of the tent housing Wren and Thom’s makeshift cell. His knees were pulled up, his head hanging over them. He had seen a few horrors in his life, memories that haunted him, no matter how cheerful a veneer he tried to put on his life. Cal bleeding and dying on the ground next to him. The surprise in Sable’s eyes when the sword had cut into her soft belly. And now—the look of anguish on Wren’s face when he had stood by and watched the Aprican soldier place the irons on her.
He wasn’t sure he had done the right thing. Without Sable, he felt untethered from the world, from right and wrong and betrayal or loyalty. There was only with Sable and without Sable. And without Sable, nothing really mattered. Nothing except King Imbris paying for what he’d done.
Perhaps Lucas and his brothers and sister didn’t deserve to die. But neither had Sable. Neither had Cal or his mother. The gods seemed little concerned with fairness—innocent people died every day while monsters like Hadrian Imbris and Willings and Killian lived on, their poison creeping into the cracks of the city itself. The Aprican invasion could be a purifying fire. Cutting out the rot that was the Imbris dynasty. Hale nodded to himself. Good could come from this.
Night had fallen over the camp as Hale went over the terms of his agreement with General Marius and Sim Daemastra. It seemed that the men would be true to their word, taking the city with as little bloodshed as possible. Sim Daemastra had asked detailed questions about Thom and Wren, about the guildmasters being held, marking everything down in a little black notebook. The man’s interest sent fingers of unease creeping up Hale’s spine. It was the part of his deal with the Apricans that made him most uneasy. While Daemastra’s flowery words spoke of cultural exchange and sponsorships, his shrewd eyes betrayed an eagerness that set Hale on edge.
The sound of Wren and Thom’s muffled shouts brought him back to his dilemma. They didn’t seem resigned to their fate, not by a long shot. Hale pondered his options. He hadn’t wanted to betray Thom and Wren to the Apricans, but he understood they wouldn’t be able to set aside their sentiments to do what needed to be done. But neither could he leave them here as Aprican prisoners. Sim Daemastra’s unnaturally smooth face swam to mind. It might not be safe for Gifted in Maradis. Could he spare them? Give them one final gift, for old times’ sake. Their freedom.
Hale stood, moving silently across the grass between tents, keeping to the dark patches of shadow between the tall torches. The Apricans would attack tomorrow. In plainclothes, men would flood into the city through the tunnel and make their way to the gates. In a coordinated strike, the soldiers would throw open the gates and let in the Aprican armies from all sides. If it went as planned, it would be over in a few short hours. Maradis would fall.
Hale spotted what he was looking for: an empty soldiers’ tent. He ducked inside and grabbed the soldier’s rucksack and threw in flint, a knife in a leather holder, a waterskin, some hard bread, and two apples sitting on the man’s little bedside table. Lastly, he grabbed an extra spear that was leaning against the canvas. He murmured a thank you to the absent man and moved back towards the tent where Wren and Thom were being held. Hale tossed the bag into the shadow of the
tent and swaggered up to the guard dozing in front. “Supposed to relieve you,” he said.
The guard, a tall, wiry man with a thick, brown beard, frowned at him. “Where’s your uniform?”
“My captain already told me to change into plain clothes for the assault tomorrow. I won’t have time after my shift.”
“Though my shift wasn’t over for another half hour?”
“Captain’s also making me start early. Mad at me for talking back about the uniform.” Hale grasped for an excuse. “Officers,” he said with a rueful shake of his head.
“Ain’t that right,” the man commiserated.
In that moment, Wren let out a scream of rage inside the rent, rattling her chains in fury. “Let me out, you blond bastards!” she shouted.
The guard rolled his eyes. “Bitch hasn’t shut up. I’ve half a mind to go knock her out, get a little peace and quiet.”
Hale chuckled, trying to mask the anger that bloomed at the guard’s crude words. “May do that myself if I get desperate.”
The guard clapped him on the shoulder and dropped a heavy ring of keys into his hand. “Best of luck,” he said before sauntering off across the camp.
Hale waited several minutes until he was sure the guard was completely out of sight. Wren and Thom were keeping up an impressive racket inside the tent, but they fell into silence when he ducked inside, the rucksack with its meager supplies in hand.
They were chained to a heavy block of stone, their wrists shackled. “Hale,” Wren said, drawing her dignity around her like a cloak. The way she’d said his name had made it sound like a curse. Thom looked on warily next to her, his mop of blond hair drooping over his eyes. It was the second time the man had been held captive in as many weeks, Hale realized with a flicker of guilt.
“I’ve come to free you,” he said, kneeling between them and fumbling with the keys.
“Why?” Thom asked with narrowed eyes. “You’re the one who put us here.”
“I didn’t want to,” Hale said. “But I knew the two of you wouldn’t be able to see what needed to be done.”
“You mean the murder of innocent people we love?” Wren said, her words laced with scorn. “Yes, it is a bit difficult for us to comprehend. We Alesians are so simpleminded, after all.”
Hale winced inside at that but kept his face impassive. He deserved their resentment, their scorn. It was just another price he would have to pay for avenging Sable. And no price was too high.
Wren’s irons fell away with a click, and she pulled her hands to her, rubbing her wrists. “Will you be punished for this?” From her tone, he couldn’t tell if she hoped he would be or not.
“Perhaps,” Hale said. He wasn’t sure. Daemastra would be put out, but Marius wouldn’t want to risk alienating a new ally so soon. He hoped. Besides, so long as he got to kill King Imbris, he didn’t really care what happened to him after. He thought Marius would understand that and not deprive him of the chance.
“The Apricans attack tomorrow,” Hale said, working on Thom’s cuffs. “They will go in plainclothes through the tunnels. Nowhere in Maradis is safe. I’m not freeing you so you can run back into the city and get yourself killed.”
Thom’s irons opened.
“Wren.” Hale turned to her, meeting her wild, chestnut eyes. She looked so young sometimes, so innocent and vulnerable. Yet he knew there was iron in her core, hard and unyielding. She would get through this. “Leave this city. You and Thom should make a new life for yourselves. Go to Nova Navis, or across the mountains to Ferwald. Centu. Live. What we had here…it’s gone.”
Wren’s lip quivered. “And what about everyone I love? What about you, Hale?”
Hale stood, tossing her the rucksack. “I’m already gone, too.”
Chapter 35
Wren and Thom stared at each other, temporarily stunned by Hale’s sudden departure.
“We can’t run,” Wren said, shaking her head to settle her racing throughs. “Can we?”
Thom shouldered the rucksack and grabbed her hand in his. “Let’s discuss in a safer location.”
But where? They ducked out of the tent into the night. Wren’s heart felt like a wild thing within her. She couldn’t stop rubbing the raw spots where the irons had chaffed her wrists. “Where do we go?” Wren asked weakly.
“North or east border of camp,” Thom said. “Those are our choices. Maybe try to find the camp followers? Somewhere we’ll blend in?”
Wren looked about, feeling like any moment someone would shout out that prisoners had escaped. “East,” she said. “I think Marius’s tent was closer to the eastern border of camp.”
Thom pulled her forwards, keeping the high walls of Maradis to their right. His fingers were twined tightly in hers, his grip almost painful. She didn’t mind it—it felt like a tether to something safe.
“What a fool idea this was,” she whispered as they wound their way through the dim spaces between the maze of white tents. “You must be furious at me.”
“It was a pretty stupid idea.” Thom let out a shaky laugh. “But I didn’t talk you out of it. We couldn’t have foreseen what happened here.”
“I should have. Hale’s not himself.”
A misty rain began to fall on them as they picked their way through the tents towards the blackness beyond. That way lay freedom. Freedom from the doom hanging heavily over them, the terror of trying and failing. What if they made it back into the city and it wasn’t enough? What if they doomed themselves, and still Callidus and Lucas and all the others died? Wren didn’t think she could live with herself. But she didn’t think she could live with herself if she ran, either. When she had been almost lost, almost executed, Callidus had saved her. All of them. Sable and Hale. Guildmaster McArt had sent the infused cheese that had given her one last crazy idea to save her hide. Pike had stood up for her in court. Olivia had gone against her grandaunt, Lennon against his guildmaster. Lucas had gotten out word of her execution. All of them had rallied together for her. There was something worth saving here. People she loved. A life worth living. She wouldn’t run.
They had reached the edge of the camp, the field beyond a midnight black contrasted with the bright torchlight of the camp. It was like falling off a cliff. Wren and Thom huddled under the overhang bordering a shabby brown tent covered in patchwork. The inhabitant seemed to be temporarily absent.
Thom turned to her, blowing into his hands to warm them. “What now?”
“I’m going back in,” Wren said, resolved. “You don’t have to come, and I don’t expect anything from you at this point, but I can’t abandon them. I have to try to warn Lucas.”
“Wren, I’m not leaving Maradis. My family’s in there. And everyone from the Guild. And Trick.” He said the last word softly, hesitantly.
Of course. His family. Wren felt foolish, forgetting that he had more people than the Guildmembers care about. “Of course. Okay. We go back in.”
They both peered into the night, silence stretching between then. They hadn’t talked about Hale, about what he had done. On the one hand, could she fault him? She had been contemplating betraying their city herself just hours before. Had even gone to the Aprican camp. But a part of her thought, as desperate as the plan had been, that she never would have gone through with it. Could she really betray her city, her nation, dooming it to an unknown future? She wanted a future without King Imbris more than anything, but at what cost? There was no way of knowing that the Apricans would be any better. It seemed that Hale had nothing left to lose.
“How do we get back in?” Thom pointed out, pulling down his hood and running his hand over his blond curls to dry them.
“What do you mean?” Wren’s hand strayed to her chest as she realized what Thom meant. She had been so focused on getting to this point, to somewhere safe, that she had forgotten. Hale had taken the key. The Apricans had it now. Wren closed her eyes, weariness washing over her, threatening to bear her away. Everything since Sable’s death seemed so hard. So heavy.
“Could we sneak in through one of the gates?” Thom asked.
Wren shook her head. “They’re locked up tight, guarded by dozens of Cedars. They’d shoot us on sight.”
“The harbor?”
“No boat,” Wren said, despair filling her. Callidus would die thinking they had abandoned him to his fate.
“We could…steal back the key?”
Wren considered this, looking back through the thicket of tents. “We don’t even know who has it.” She shook her head, dismissing the idea.
Thom scrunched his freckled nose, thinking. His blue eyes grew wide. “Okay, I have an idea. It’s kind of crazy.”
“Your other ideas haven’t been crazy?” She let out a tired little laugh. “Shoot.”
“We pretend to be Aprican soldiers and just walk in with them through the tunnel.”
Wren opened her mouth to dismiss this as a truly crazy idea. But then she closed it, her mind whirring to life. It could work…
The pallid light of a gray dawn was just leaking over the horizon when Thom and Wren approached the wall, their faces shadowed in the hoods of their cloaks. Ranks of Aprican soldiers waited in shadowed rows across the field from the wall, waiting for the signal that would send them pouring into the tunnel. They looked a motley assembly, in tattered cloaks and leather jerkins and shirts with sleeves too short. Whatever plain clothes could be scrounged up around camp, it seemed.
“I bet they’ll go soon,” Thom said. “If they wait too much longer, it will be light enough for the Cedars on the wall to spot them.”
“And when they go, we go,” Wren said, with much more confidence than she felt.
“Like we own the place.” Thom nodded.
Swathed in their cloaks, they might be able to pass through with the rest of the soldiers, if the men didn’t give them too much attention. Thom could pass for a soldier, though he was lankier than most of the Apricans. Wren would be the problem. If anyone saw her, they would be lost.