by Everly Frost
“Why didn’t you?” Blaze asked, his eyebrows raised. He kissed my forehead, easing the sharpness of the question.
“I have to stop Alexander.”
“We know,” Quake said. “And when you’re done, we’ll be here to take you home.”
I breathed. “Home.”
Suddenly I couldn’t stop the tears. I reached for Michael where he hovered at the edge of the group, and pulled him into our circle.
Too soon, Rachel returned. Her voice was firm, but her eyes were lowered. “I’m sorry, your time is up.”
Quake kissed my cheek, releasing me.
“Wait, Quake, you met your mother. How is she?”
He grinned. “She’s little. Like you. And just as tough.”
Rift squeezed my hand and Blaze kissed the top of my head.
Blaze wrinkled his nose at me. “Promise me, you’ll grow your hair back when this is all over. I’m not liking this bristly look so much.”
I smiled. “I promise.”
I bit my lip as hard as I could, squeezing my eyes shut, unable to watch them leave.
A woman’s voice drew my eyes open.
“Ava?”
“Ruth!”
She rushed to me, taking each of my hands, pressing kisses to them. “They said you came back willingly but I didn’t believe it. We tried everything we could to stop this. Everything.”
She looked ragged, her hair hastily platted, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She lifted my wrists, circled with gold shackles, my scorpion tattoo hiding behind them.
I asked, “Is Snowboy safe? What about Pip?”
“Snowboy made it back to Starsgard. He begged us to go to war with Evereach and I wanted to, Ava. I wanted to so much. But that wouldn’t bring you back. By the time we raised an army you’d already arrived in Seversand.”
“Snowboy’s not here, is he?”
“He vowed to come after you, but I couldn’t risk his life—or Pip’s—so … we dusted the air over the tower with sleep pollen before he could leave. We wouldn’t normally take a chance like that with airborne chemicals, but there was nobody else around. The leader of the Protectors, Ricardo, is a good man. After the boys fell asleep, he made sure they were safely inside the tower, dosed to stay asleep for the week with sustenance so they don’t starve or get dehydrated. We’ll wake them up once this is over.”
“Thank you for keeping them safe. But, I’m sure you know, Snowboy will be seriously angry when he wakes up.” I could only imagine the damage he’d inflict. “Tell him that I want him to forgive you.”
She leaned into me and lowered her voice. “We tried to bring nectar, but they searched us and forced us to throw it in the ocean.”
“What about the children? The ones I freed.”
“Safe. We sent out the Protectors to retrieve them. We also raided the other tunnels and collected the prisoners. They’re all behind Starsgard’s borders.”
I was surprised and it must have showed because she smiled. “Yes, Ava, it was an act of war. And, no, I don’t regret it for one second.”
“Sarah, too?”
She nodded.
“Thank you, Ruth.”
“Olander’s hold on Evereach is very precarious right now. A lot of people are angry that their loved ones were abused. We’ve made it very public knowledge that the captives are now safe and free. There’s some serious backlash brewing. But right now, he still controls your fate and that gives him power. I’m very surprised he’s going through with this. He needs you alive. He needs the threat of war. Without it, he will lose control.”
“Will the people of Evereach overthrow him if I’m gone? Since he won’t control Ember either, I mean.”
“It’s very possible, Ava.”
I frowned. I glanced at Michael who was also pensive. “Then … why is he willing to risk that? Why go along with killing me?”
I hadn’t forgotten Olander, but I knew that unless Alexander was beaten, Olander would never fall either. Olander’s actions and motivations had been clear to me until then, but knowing what Ruth had told me…
I had to figure out Olander’s plan. He and Alexander were often at odds about their methods, but Olander had made it clear that their goals were the same. I had no doubt that Olander wouldn’t give up his power easily.
Ruth searched my eyes, sinking to her knees. “Beautiful girl. I’ll pray for your safety.” She bent over my hand and her tears dripped through them. She’d stepped into the role of my mother when I was in Starsgard and in her way, she’d tried to protect me as best she could.
“Tell me, Ruth, are all the world leaders here?”
“They’re waiting for the door to open to the garden. The President has allowed the drones to broadcast everything. The whole world’s watching.”
“Good.” I nodded, my throat constricting. “Then let it begin.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
RACHEL RELEASED MY chains from the seat in the hall and looped the golden restraints in my arms. She did the same for Michael and we carried them like precious jewels into the corridor outside the hall.
We found Ember waiting there, her expression filled with shadows and her own chains overflowing in her hands. “I’m glad my mother isn’t here to see this,” she said quietly. “They’re keeping her sedated until it’s over.”
I gave her a small smile. “We’ll walk together, you and I.”
The corridor was lined with a single row of guards on either side. On the right, Evereach soldiers stood tall. On the left—the side with the glass wall—Seversandians watched us pass.
Twenty steps beyond the hall, a new door had been created in the glass wall. Beyond it, people gathered inside the enclosure, most of them occupying seats that had been placed in rows. The space was divided into segments denoted by flags—an area for each world leader and their entourage.
I only recognized a few of them: the Queen of Tenacia and her staff stood closest to the opening. Further in, I recognized the flag of Credence—a group of islands in the western sea. The Evereach and Seversandian flags flew at the front closest to the tree and the Starsgardian flag fluttered in the breeze on the right hand side behind Seversand.
Nobody stood anywhere near the tree itself. A ring of warriors dressed in red armor stood guard a hundred feet around it. A wide corridor had been created through the middle of the onlookers—a place for us to walk.
As we reached the door, I turned to Rachel, holding up the chains. “Please take these off us. We won’t run.”
The archer hesitated. With a nod from her sister, she unlocked the shackles from my wrists and handed them to a waiting warrior. I rubbed my wrists. It was a welcome relief to lose the weight around my body.
I took Ember’s hand. She was clothed the same as me in a simple ivory dress that swished around her legs as she moved. Her hair was loose. I ran my hand over my stubbly head, but it suddenly felt right to stand bare in front of the tree.
Our shoulders brushed as we stood in the entrance, hands clasped. Michael stayed close behind us and one glance told me he was assessing everything—the layout of the seating, the positions of the guards, and the alternating rows of Seversandian warriors and Evereach soldiers lining the glass wall on the inside. He was looking for openings, weaknesses. I wasn’t sure there were any.
General Gaza waited just inside the door. He lifted a horn to his lips and blew it. Monarchs, Prime Ministers, and Presidents, along with their staff, all turned in our direction. People found their final seats. The crowd hushed.
Ember’s hand was suddenly clammy in mine. “I’m scared.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I…”
I couldn’t keep the ferocity from my voice. “I mean it, Ember. You won’t die here today.”
“Neither of you will,” Michael growled. “We’re getting Ava to the tree and then we’re getting out of here.”
When I risked another look back at him, I found him changed. The gent
le boy I knew, the one who wrapped his arms around me and mopped up my tears with his kisses, was gone. In his place stood the warrior who lurked beneath the surface. A warrior who would fight with everything he had.
Ember nodded, accepting my promise, but her hand clamped tightly around mine.
Everyone else wore shoes, but my feet were bare. I’d asked for it to be that way. I couldn’t run away from what this soil had become. I had to feel it. Still, I hesitated, hovering above the black ash.
When I rested my foot onto the dead surface, prickles rode my skin. I shuddered, holding in the dread that seeped into me from the deadly ash as if all the evil from Alexander’s actions had turned the ground to poison.
General Gaza strode ahead of us while the two archers followed behind. My feet crunched on the shells of dead scorpions. I was sure I’d seen live ones when I first arrived, but now I realized that was a trick of the light. Scorpion husks caught the sunlight and shivered across the surface, blown by the breeze. It looked as if they were alive, but they weren’t. We were the first living creatures to step foot in this place for a long time.
I rubbed the scorpion tattoo around my wrist and the action wasn’t lost on the people I passed. They shuffled uneasily in the strange black carpet of insects and dust.
Fixed cameras were positioned all around the edges of the enclosure, high up. Ten drones rode the wind above us, buzzing softer than the crunch of our feet in the dirt.
Finally, I passed President Olander on my left. Alexander stood beside him like a statue. His unmoving stare burned into me, but I kept my gaze forward. He was the reason I was there, the reason I’d come back.
We reached the front and General Gaza stepped to the right to stand next to President Vale.
That’s when I had a full view of the tree for the first time.
It resembled a clawed fist, clenching down toward us, its branches curled over like a scorpion’s tail. Its bark resembled scales, tough and dried out, flaking. The breeze blew dust from the surface of the branches. It had been dying for a thousand years, and now it looked like a strong puff of wind would blow it away into nothing.
Dazzling movement behind us drew everyone’s attention. A woman in glittering armor strode down the walkway. Behind her, a fully-grown Seversandian lion prowled, the muzzle over its mouth doing nothing to make it look less ferocious. The walkway was wide enough for her to draw level with us while people in the crowd whispered and murmured.
Helena Rivera dropped to one knee before President Vale. “My leader, I humbly request that my son stands with me.”
President Vale was once again the steel-eyed bear I’d seen when we first arrived. She wore golden armor and carried a curved sword at her back and a skirt of daggers around her waist.
Her voice carried over the crowd. “You may stand where you wish, Daughter of Eve. And your son with you.”
Michael spun on his heel, his fist to his heart, bowing to the President. I was curious to see that Helen positioned herself on the left hand side facing the crowd, but I wasn’t surprised when she stopped directly opposite Alexander, ten feet between them, with Michael at her side. Alexander scowled but Helen’s expression was carefully blank. She knew he’d try to stop me reaching the tree.
The nearest country’s representatives shuffled uneasily at the display of strength, but Ruth gave Helen a ferocious grin across the distance. She sat in the Starsgardian section, three rows behind Seversand. My brothers were located beside her. They nodded to me, but there was a question in their eyes.
I almost heard their voices in my head: What’s the plan, Ava?
I hadn’t told any of them what I was going to do. I knew they were taking a giant leap of trust right then. Ember, more than any of them, was putting her life in my hands.
We faced the crowd as President Vale took up a spot next to us. From there, I could see everyone except the warriors around the tree and Michael and his mom. But I was comfortable with that—they had my back.
“People of the world,” President Vale began, commanding everyone’s attention. “This gathering represents the end of fear.”
I imagined her voice carrying through every air screen around the world into people’s homes and workplaces. I wondered if the whole world was as quiet and still as I was right then.
She said, “It has been agreed between Seversand and Evereach that with the removal of the threat that stands before you today, neither of our countries will seek to create a mortality weapon ever again. There will be no mortality war.”
Nobody clapped. The silence was as thick as the layers of ash beneath our feet.
Olander joined President Vale, his voice carrying across the space. “To save thousands of innocent lives, two must pay the ultimate price: one mortal girl from Evereach and one from Seversand. Once the threat is gone, the peace treaty will be signed.”
The crowd remained quiet. Even the drones were still.
Olander returned to his place and so did President Vale. She turned to the two female archers. The veins at her neck pounded visibly and it shocked me to realize how much she was fighting her feelings right then. Her eyes remained on Ember and suddenly brimmed with tears.
Ember wobbled beside me and I reached out to steady her.
My brothers were alert, waiting, their muscles twitching. They were all watching me—waiting for me to give them a signal. But I couldn’t move yet.
I had to know what Olander was going to do. He had everything to lose if I died. He had to have another plan…
The female archers took up positions twenty feet away and raised their bows. They were moments away from unleashing their weapons.
Olander shifted, his chest rising and falling. He was a puzzle that I didn’t fully understand. He was intelligent and had beaten Michael’s dad at the long game they’d played. He’d told me I was coming to Seversand as part of a swap, not to die. He’d told me I was the key to creating a supreme race. He’d told me that Ember was even more lethal than I was.
But now, because of him, Ember and I were both going to die. He was about to lose both of us.
Only Alexander remained perfectly still. Except for the flicker of his gaze to the tree.
I drew a deep breath. “I’d like to speak.”
President Vale looked at me in surprise—and relief. “Of course,” she said before anyone could object.
“I have a last request.”
She inclined her head, but her whole body radiated caution and a hint of hope. She was waiting for me to solve this for her. She wanted a way out. She’d shown me that when she told me the truth about Seversand’s fictional mortality weapon. “Yes?”
“I want to hear my sister sing.”
Ember startled beside me. “Ava?”
I took her hands in mine. “There’s a song they need to hear.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “There is.”
President Vale was on the verge of speaking. It looked like Olander would jump in any second too.
Without waiting for permission, Ember began to sing, her voice soaring upward.
“At the end of the Fracture, two brothers…”
Alexander jerked forward as though he’d launch himself across the distance and barrel into her. Helen took three steps toward him, daring him to move. In response, Olander’s arm shot out, holding Alexander fast.
Alexander gritted his teeth, his lips drawn back into a soundless snarl. None of this was about mortality. Not really. It was about truth. The truth about the two brothers flowed from Ember’s lips while Alexander fumed at the front of the gathering.
I assessed him as if I were the hunter, not the prey, as the dangerous song filled the air around us. I studied the impact on the listeners, checked the drones—their flickering lights told me they were still recording.
The breeze cooled my body in the hot sun, no shade provided by a tree whose branches were charred as coal, as if it burned in a flame that nobody could see. Fed by the blood of a dying man.
Ember’s voice grew louder as she found her strength. She was wholly focused on the powerful melody on her tongue. But Alexander and Olander were my focus now. The only way through this was to draw them both out.
Another breeze plucked at my dress, cooling my skin. The air was light against me, and for a moment I could believe that the clawed branches behind me swayed like a normal tree. As if it responded to Ember’s voice.
Even though she was now the center of attention, I suddenly realized that Olander hadn’t looked at Ember once. Not while we walked to our deaths, not while she sang. He’d told me that she was even more powerful than I was, and yet, he hadn’t fought for the swap. He wasn’t fighting to keep her alive. He hadn’t even looked at her, as if she were inconsequential. Instead, his focus was on me.
Then it clicked. The puzzle fell into place.
Olander knew the truth. He knew all along that Ember wasn’t a threat but he’d played along with it. He’d played along because it got him into the heart of Seversand when nothing else could. He’d played along because every single world leader had gathered at this place—in fact, I’d asked for them—making them easy targets.
He alone controlled the weapons to kill them. And he knew it.
There was no way in or out of the glass enclosure except the doorway at the far end. The walls were too high and too smooth to climb. There was no way to break the glass and escape.
It would be a bloodbath.
I glanced up at the drones, but the mortality weapons couldn’t be in them. President Vale had told me that all weaponry had been removed from each drone.
The last verse ended and I spun to Ember. I needed more time to figure out where the weapons were hidden.
Even without me asking, Ember didn’t stop singing.
She threw me a brief smile as she began another song.
It was one I’d never heard before.
“Let the earth tremble, the mountains freeze, and secrets be spoken aloud, when shadows reach beyond the veil and sunlight drowns in fire.”
My eyes widened. She was looking at my brothers as she sang. Smiling at them.