His brows rise. “To Mt. Rhine? These aren’t warriors, Ambry. They’re salesmen. Dircey was right to run.”
“Is that what we should do, just let the Arcs charge in? Adrian may be dead, but he implied that he created some type of immunity elixir from the siren he captured. Tyrus is going to get the tears, and then what do we do?”
Talon answers my question with one of his own. "Why does he want them?"
"What do you mean?"
“Did anything about that conversation strike you as odd?” Talon asks.
“You mean besides finding out that you’re basically a Feihrian prince?”
Talon chuckles. “That makes it sound too glamorous. We’re warriors. I’m just next in line to rule the people—that is assuming they let me. I mean, it almost seemed like Tyrus was determined to get my father, my people, to attack him. Goading him with tears, taunting that he would be basically invincible because of them.”
“You think Tyrus has some other motive?” I ask.
“Tyrus doesn’t care about avenging his father’s death. In fact, that was the first I’d heard of it. They took me to Arcaia when we left my homeland—I had no idea my father came to Valadir to avenge my death. Whenever I asked about my father, Shasa always told me what a disappointment I would be to him.”
How nice of her, I think but don’t say.
“All that passion about Tyrus’s father was a show for my father. Nothing more.”
“That’s suicide,” I say. “Egging Feihrians on, demanding a duel? Maybe Tyrus is losing his mind.”
“No, he’s not,” Talon argues. “Tyrus knew exactly what he was doing down there. He was trying way too hard to get my father to come to him.” Talon’s words slow, as if he’s realizing something at the admission. I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t.
“Then you think he wanted to lure them away from Feihria?” I ask. “What could the Arcaians possibly want there?”
Talon shakes his head, looking uncomfortable. “I’m not sure.” He glowers, turning his face away from me.
“Whatever it is, the tears have something to do with it. What if he’s right, Talon? What if those tears make him so powerful that not even your people will be able to stop him?”
Maybe that’s what Nattie’s prophecy about me meant. Maybe I’m just supposed to keep them from being drunk by those who would seek to tear down my world.
“We have to get to the tears first,” I conclude.
Talon thrusts out a hand. “These Black Vaulters can’t fight,” he insists.
“Is that what’s really holding you back?”
He exhales, and then to my surprise, he laughs humorlessly.
“I’m sorry you were captured,” I blurt before he can say anything else. I have to get it out before another word is spoken. “It’s my fault. You should have stayed with Shasa, you should have—”
He turns away, head sagging so his hair falls into his eyes. “Don’t blame yourself. I was outnumbered—they Proned me when Ren dragged you off. They were watching for us.”
“I should have figured as much.”
He limps to the edge of the yard toward a collection of trees not quite large enough to be considered a forest. He sits at the base of a thick trunk and raises his eyes to me, but something is off, some sadness, like he left a piece of himself back at the palace.
“That was some show you gave everyone. You never told me Nattie gave you anything in that archway,” he says.
I sink beside him, resting my head against the trunk. “I wasn’t sure whether I should or not. She didn’t say not to, but she was very clear about my…purpose,” I finally settle on the word, “in this war.”
“You’re the one who’s supposed to drink the tears,” he surmises.
“Nattie told me as much. I just don’t see how. They burned me when I tried. They burned you! The tears told me to take them to the sirens, Talon.”
“Maybe it was just a matter of timing,” he suggests.
“Maybe. I wish I could see the end from the beginning.”
“Have you talked to Jomeini yet?”
“Shasa is always with her.” And you’re always with Shasa. I shouldn’t be bitter, but I can’t help this pebble in my chest wherever the Feihrian maiden is concerned.
Talon stands again, brushing leaves from his pants. He offers a hand, and I take it while I make it to my feet. I long to keep mine in his—to have him close to me in whatever way we’re allowed. But I’m not sure what that is.
We wander the trees for a while, exchanging glances, admiring branches or a particularly large dragonfly that lands on a bush nearby. He smiles at me, catching my heart. This is how I like him best. Unguarded and alone, with only me.
“I know how you must feel about her,” he says. “About me. You must hate me.”
I lower my head, remembering the way he showed up in the city after I left him and the wizard, stealing me back into an alleyway and kissing me to stop my petulant rant. He told me she wasn’t a choice, but an obligation, that he didn’t know what would happen with her.
I resolved to get him out of the palace, and I did. I know I can’t expect anything more with him. So why do I want him to draw his arms around me, to pull me in and make me promises I know he can’t keep?
“I had a lot of time to think in that cell.” He has that tone. The tone of someone about to let a girl down easy. “I can’t keep balancing between loyalties, Ambry.”
I stare back at the Black Vault safehouse, small in the distance. “You don’t have to say anything else. I already know. I know it by heart.”
“I’m sorry. I tried—” His voice breaks and he clears his throat. “I tried to keep you at arm’s length. But the closer we got the less motivated I felt, until—”
“It’s okay,” I say, knowing we’re both remembering the same moment. That night in the house, just before I found out Gwynn joined with Tyrus and held my tears. The night I asked him to kiss me. And he did.
“We can still be friends,” I add.
He clears his throat, tangled at the word. A word I suddenly hate, but I force a smile to be as genuine as I can make it.
“Friends,” he repeats. A question. A confirmation.
We sit together as the word strings a new sort of awkwardness between us. It’s unchartered ground. We went from despising one another, to relying on one another, to teacher and student, to trading hearts before falling into this. Friendship.
It’s not enough, I want to scream. But it has to be.
Talon sniffs. “Can I see the amulet the Firsts gave you?”
I remove the chain from my neck and pull the crystal teardrop from within my shirt. The fading twilight catches on a few of its facets, casting rainbows in the air before I lower it into Talon’s palm.
“Nattie said they tried to recreate tears, and this was the result. All of their tears combined and hardened into this crystal amulet. The power of the First creatures of Itharia is in the palm of your hand at this very moment. It’s only been within the past week or so that I’ve figured out what it can do.”
“Incredible,” he says, dangling it before his face. “I wonder if it works for anyone else but you.”
“Too bad you aren’t going to have the chance to find out,” I say with a smirk, reaching for the chain.
“Hey, I taught you my secrets.”
“Yeah, and look how well that turned out for you.”
His head hangs down again. Whoops. I shift to my knees and kneel across from him instead of beside him. An owl hoots above our heads.
“Talon,” I say.
His lids lift, and those clear green eyes meet mine, ensnaring something within me.
“Why does Tyrus hate you? What happened between you two? To have him backstab you and betray you to your people—your father—like that?”
“My whole life has been a chain, Ambry,” he says, eyeing the chain as he carefully drips its length into my hand. His fingertips linger on my skin. “I never rea
lized how much until just before he betrayed me.”
“What happened?” I ask again.
“Bridar Haraway was my blood father, but I only have segments of memories with him. Tyrus was the only father I really knew.”
“After how harsh Gwynn’s stepdad was on her,” I say, “she wouldn’t give herself to anyone who treated her anything like Clark Hawkes did. Tyrus obviously has a soft side as well. I just—I’ve never thought of it before.”
Tyrus as a person. A human being.
A human being who is manipulating my friend and turning her against me.
“He had his moments,” Talon says. “Heart-to-heart moments. He would come to my room, talk to me about my day. He would treat me to dinner just the two of us sometimes to talk over battle tactics and what the new recruits had learned that day. He would exhibit pride in my accomplishments and more so for the accomplishments of his battalion.”
“But?”
“He wanted me to rule at his side, to be just like he was. But I couldn’t bring myself to take magic like the rest of them. I thought my strength and skill was enough for Tyrus, but…”
“It wasn’t,” I finish. “Is that what made you want to leave?”
“He gave me an ultimatum. Either I take magic or lose my position.” He clenches his fist.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “But you didn’t do it. And that’s what matters.”
His eyes flick to mine. “Well…not exactly.”
“What are you saying?”
With the slow shake of his head, Talon tugs at the strap on his fingerless glove, tearing it from his hand. A distinct tan line marks where the sun has been kept from his skin, but that’s not what rips the gasp from my lungs.
Talon’s palm is a soft violet.
I forget where I am for a moment. I forget about the war, the dungeon, the Feihrians. The world spins, and I nearly spin with it.
Talon took someone’s magic.
He pumps his hand into fists, flipping it palm-up and -down several times. The purple is almost unnoticeable under the added blood flow. It doesn’t engulf his entire hand the way it does to Tyrus’s and other Arcaian’s hands.
I don’t care, I want to tell him. But it wouldn’t be the truth. I do care. It cuts as deeply as though it’s my own magic he tried to steal.
But this is Talon. My Talon. The Talon who trained me, who helped me find my magic, who kissed me, who came to help me. The Talon who used to be so closed up I could hardly get a sentence out of him.
But he showed me this, without request. He opened up to me. He could have kept this from me. But he didn’t.
I pause before pushing out the words, “Whose magic was it?”
“Tyrus can be very persuasive,” Talon says, his throat working as he swallows. “He knows the right things to say to get people to think foolish things, to think they have the right to subdue others. I was so stupid.”
“You fought him,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as him. “You ran away. You fought against that teaching, that influence. Maybe there’s hope for Gwynn too.”
“She’s got to want it, Ambry. I don’t know; I wish I could promise you that she will change, that she’ll wake up and listen to reason instead of his tainted promises. But it took me years. And if she’s not pure to the core…”
And Talon thinks he is? “You took magic, Talon.” I shouldn’t be so defensive about it, but Gwynn was my friend too. My only friend.
His voice sounds gnashed, as if he’s choking out the words.
“I always thought I could be separate from them. But it got to the point where I couldn’t straddle the line anymore. I had to be fully with the Arcaians or turn wholly against them. And when it came down to it, I couldn’t do what they do.
“I couldn’t finish, Ambry. I released the claw halfway through. And when I wouldn’t finish, Tyrus stabbed the poor girl—our kitchen maid—right in front of me. He killed her. And I’ll always bear the mark of it.”
I reach a tentative hand toward his, sliding my fingers over his palm. He closes his eyes at the touch. It’s strange, feeling his skin against mine instead of the leather I’m used to. Seeming to realize this, he pulls away, but I tighten my grip.
“I don’t care. It’s not who you are now.” And it’s true. I doubted him for a moment, but it’s clear he’s ashamed of what he’s done. He’s changed.
He presses my hand, folding it between both of his. “I ran away after that and never turned back. I started wearing these then. I only take them off if I have to.” He releases me to slip the glove back on.
“Talon—”
“I have to put an end to it. I don’t know how many people he owns, Ambry. But someone has to stop him.”
The sight of the gloves on his hands reassures me for some reason. Like he’s back to being himself. Those gloves are part of who he is; he should know he doesn’t have to hide it, and ironically, seeing him without the gloves seemed like the opposite.
“Gwynn didn’t stop,” I say after thinking it through. “Gwynn took my magic. All of it.”
Talon purses his lips. The silence between us is comfortable like an old friend. Friendship. It will work. If it’s all we have, we can make it work.
“That’s what he wanted for you, isn’t it? He wanted you to lead his army against Feihria, against your own people. I should have known he wasn’t only after Itharians.”
“I’m going to kill him for what he’s done.”
My head rears back at the declaration. I blink at him a few times, but the stern set of his brow doesn’t change.
I’m not sure what to say. Tyrus humiliated Talon in front of his real father. Of course Talon would want justice. Tyrus used Talon as leverage against his people.
“I’ll help you, if I can,” I eventually say.
Tyrus deserves death and so much worse. I can’t get the image of Mile Odis’s subjugate out of my mind. The way she stood there while Miles used her magic. The way she looked too frightened to even speak to me. Tyrus is the cause of it. For the girl’s sake, for my people and Talon’s, for Gwynn, Talon is right.
“Ambry,” Talon says, fading away, like he doesn’t know what else to say. I can’t tell how he feels about my offer, but he doesn’t argue.
“A man like Tyrus wouldn’t invite his girlfriend to battle,” I go on, “to guard a coveted jar of tears, to lead soldiers like Gwynn was doing back at the Triad, unless she was contributing somehow other than just behind closed doors. And he certainly wouldn’t do it for a girl he just met weeks ago.”
“You think the tears she drank have given her battle tactics or some other kind of advantage?” Talon asks, folding his arms across his chest.
The only noticeable changes have been in her appearance, but something shifted inside her. Talon and I begin making our way back to the house, our steps unhurried. The sky is now a velvet blue, the moon fully visible outside the cover of the trees.
“I don’t know what those tears did to her, but they ruined her. They’re allowing her to be manipulated by him.”
“She had to accept it,” Talon says. “Gwynn still had a choice in all of this. Drinking those tears hasn’t forced her to do anything she didn’t want already.”
“That’s what Ren keeps telling me too,” I say, peering up at him. “But I just can’t believe it.”
He stops for a moment, pressing his lips into a firm line. “I wish there was a way to reverse its effects on her, Ambry. For your sake.”
“If there’s a way, I’ll find it,” I promise him. I stare at the house. “I’ll talk to Jomeini and see what she knows about what Nattie told me. About my destiny to break Solomus’s spell. And if that means helping you kill Tyrus, then I’ve got your back.”
Talon chuckles at this.
“Not that you need me,” I add. “But I want you to know…”
“I’ll always need you,” he says, the green of his eyes spilling enough on their own that he doesn’t have to say anything else.
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Warwick flips through the designs. A drawing compass, rulers and other measuring devices cover the desk, filtering in with the smell of eraser shavings and scraped metal. He uses a small handheld brush to dust the debris from the finished sketches.
“Tick tock, tick tock, Warwick.”
Miss Hawkes swaggers down the narrow lab between discarded bits of metal and the file he used to shave down the locator turret element earlier. Her green, pointed alligator heels clip the concrete with every step.
Warwick fingers the pencil and attempts to write in the corner of the sketch, determined to ignore her for as long as he can.
He grits his teeth, lowering the leaden tip as though through mud. His body swivels in the chair, but he wraps his foot around the bottom rungs, pushing the pencil down. Seconds count in his mind—ten, eleven, twelve—but his body still turns. His fingers pop open like a sprung trap. The pencil falls to the sketch, and he sighs, relaxing his will to hers.
Seventeen seconds. He made it longer that time.
Miss Hawkes wears a khaki pantsuit to match her general boyfriend’s. And while Warwick is positive she has no qualifications other than being Blinnsdale’s girlfriend, a set of badges decorates her breast pocket and shoulders.
“Show me what you have,” she says, “and it better be good.”
Sparks bulge in his chest. He’s been working on keeping his anger in check, but the feeling has been growing with every passing day. The more she comes down here, the larger it gets.
It starts at the edges of his chest, like always. A streak of resentment on the prowl. He scratches the bracelet he hasn’t been able to take off since she slapped it on him.
“This doesn’t look like I thought it would.” She lowers the sketch. “You’re sure it will sync with the system?”
“I studied the structure of your Station and its blueprints,” Warwick says. “The day you brought me there, I even took measurements.”
“You’re sure you got all the dimensions correct? We don’t have much time—our source in Feihria says they’ve reached Haven Town. They’re coming, Warwick, and this machine has to be ready before they get here.”
Such a Daring Endeavor Page 16