by Julie Kagawa
“Bollocks,” Wes mumbled, turning away. He walked out of the room, still muttering, and I looked at the rogue.
“Still confused as hell over here, Riley.”
He nodded wearily. “I know. Come on.” He motioned me into the living room, gesturing to one of the sofas, but I was too keyed up to sit. Riley continued to stand, as well, gazing out the window with arms crossed to his chest, seeming to gather his thoughts.
“What do you know about Talon,” he asked at length, “and the Vipers?”
I shrugged. “Only what they tell me, which isn’t much. I know the Vipers are some sort of special operatives that Talon sends out when things get really messy, but I don’t really know what they do. I tried asking my trainer, but she never tells me anything. I didn’t even know her name.”
“Her name,” Riley said, turning to me, “is Lilith. And besides being the most evil bitch to set foot out of Bitchtown, she’s the best Viper Talon has. Which makes it very interesting that they chose her to train you.” His eyes narrowed, appraising me across the room. “That means Talon is very invested in your education—they wouldn’t send their best operative to train a hatchling unless they were planning to use you for something big.”
“Is she really that important?”
He snorted. “You have no idea. Lilith is sort of a legend in the organization. Even St. George knows about her. And if you’re such a badass that even those genocidal maniacs sit up and take notice...” He shrugged, but he didn’t have to say anything else.
“So that’s why Wes freaked out. He thinks Lilith was sent here to bring you back to Talon.”
“Firebrand.” Riley gave me a very solemn look, one that sent chills up my spine. “You still don’t know what Lilith is, what the Vipers actually do. If your lovely trainer does come for us, what do you think will happen? She’s not going to swat our wrists with a ruler and scold us for leaving Talon, that’s for damn sure. If someone like Lilith is sent after you, she only has one thing in mind.”
I swallowed as everything—the secrecy, Lilith’s training, Dante’s reaction to the news that I was put with the Vipers—suddenly became very clear. “No way.”
He nodded. “Afraid so, Firebrand. The Vipers are Talon’s assassins. That’s their purpose for the organization. They’re sent to kill whoever Talon points them at. Usually, they go after high-ranking officials of St. George, getting behind the lines and into enemy territory where no one else can. But they don’t just knock off genocidal maniacs.” Riley’s lip curled in an expression of pure contempt. “Ever wonder why there are no ex-rogues or deserters in Talon, and why no one ever seems to have a disloyal thought in their heads? Do you think it’s because Talon is such a shiny happy place that no one in their right mind would ever leave?” He snorted. “No, it’s because Talon uses the Vipers to silence anyone who isn’t loyal. Humans and dragons alike, it doesn’t matter. They’ll take out their own kind if Talon gives the word. That’s why the Vipers are so feared.” His eyes narrowed. “And that’s why I’m determined to get as many dragons out of Talon as I can.”
I was still reeling from the news that Talon wanted me to become an assassin, so his last statement took a few seconds to seep into my brain. But then, it did, and I gaped at him.
“Get them out? But you just said the Vipers kill anyone who goes rogue! Why would you want to put their lives in danger?”
“Because it shouldn’t be a choice,” Riley snapped. “We shouldn’t have to choose Talon or freedom. Because I refuse to be part of anything that tries to kill me for not wanting what they want.” He stabbed a hand through his hair, then gestured at the ceiling in disgust. “They’re brainwashed, Firebrand, every one of them. From the very beginning, every hatchling is trained to Talon’s standards. They’re brought up to want what Talon wants—power, wealth, influence, control. Talon preaches that it’s all in the interest of preserving our race, and that’s true, but only by maintaining a stranglehold on everything they own. Dragons that have no use in the organization, or who break away and forge their own path, are put down by the Vipers. They might spare a hatchling—it depends on how old they are, how long they’ve been out of Talon and if they feel the hatchling can still be useful. But rogues like me and Wes, who have been on the inside, who know what Talon is really like...” Riley shook his head. “They’d kill us, no questions asked.”
I felt ill and had to sink onto one of the sofa cushions as my legs were no longer supporting me. “I can’t do that,” I whispered. “I’m not a killer. I can’t hunt down and slaughter my own kind. How could they expect me to do that?”
“Technically, they wouldn’t give you that bit of information,” Riley said. “Not yet. Not until you’re fully trained to believe whatever Talon says and not question orders. But once your training is complete, there’s usually a final exam required to become a full Viper. One that tests not only your skill, but your loyalty to the organization. You might be sent out after another hatchling, or a human deserter. Or you could be sent to deal with a rogue.” He smirked then, completely without humor. “Who knows, Firebrand? If you stay with Talon, somewhere down the road, we might meet again. Only you’d be trying to kill me. Or maybe even sooner than that. Maybe that’s why Lilith hasn’t come for me yet. Maybe I’m your final exam.”
“I would never do that,” I protested, and Riley shook his head.
“You wouldn’t have a choice. Not if Talon orders it. And by that time, you’d be so indoctrinated, you might actually believe you’re doing the right thing.” He shivered suddenly, a haunted look crossing his face as he stared out the window. “It’s insidious, Firebrand,” he almost whispered. “You don’t realize how much you’re changing, how much of yourself you’re losing, until it’s too late. I fought St. George for years. Never face-to-face, but my actions were responsible for countless deaths. Until one day...I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“What happened?”
He sank onto the cushion beside me, his face and eyes dark. “I was ordered to rig a building to explode, one of their supposed chapterhouses. Risky stuff—get in, wire the explosives and get out before it went off. Probably the craziest stunt they ever had me do, but I’d been so brainwashed to blindly follow orders, I didn’t even realize that it was a suicide mission.”
I watched him, engrossed with what he was telling me. His brow was furrowed, his face solemn and grave, different from the smirking, confident rogue I’d met before. I wondered which was the real Riley, the real Cobalt. Or did he have a different identity for every occasion?
“I got into the compound, no hiccups,” Riley continued, unaware of my thoughts. “But then, while I was sneaking around inside, I was caught by this little human kid. One of the commander’s daughters most likely, couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old. We sort of surprised each other.” Riley gave a short, bitter chuckle and hung his head. “I knew I should kill her, or at least make it so she wouldn’t give away my position, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was in the middle of a freaking St. George chapterhouse—I knew if anyone found me, I was dead, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of hurting a kid, even a human one.”
“What did you do?”
“I...told her I was playing hide-and-seek. It was the only thing I could think of.” He sounded embarrassed, and I bit my lip to stifle a grin. “Yeah,” Riley snorted. “Not one of my more brilliant moments. But that little kid believed me. She even swore not to tell anyone I was there. And then, she just walked out.” Riley sounded amazed, even now. “I could’ve been killed that day. I was completely alone, in enemy territory, surrounded by armed soldiers who hated my kind. If I was caught, my hide would probably be hanging over some lieutenant’s fireplace. But she let me go.”
“You didn’t blow up the chapterhouse, did you.” It was a statement, not a question. Riley made a helpless gesture and shook his head.
&nb
sp; “I couldn’t do it. I kept seeing that girl’s face and thinking there could be more like her, innocent kids wandering around. They weren’t part of our war, they shouldn’t have to die because of us. But I knew Talon wouldn’t accept that. The deaths of a few innocents are nothing to them, not if it benefits the organization. And I couldn’t return not having completed the mission.” Riley sighed, his face shadowed by memory. “So...I ran. I left Talon, dropped off their grid and I haven’t looked back since.”
“And they didn’t send the Vipers after you?”
“Oh, they did.” He grinned humorlessly. “Turns out, I’m a lucky SOB. Dodged a couple Viper attacks before I found Wes, who was looking for an excuse to jump ship, as well. Wasn’t long before we realized that there were others like us in the organization. Humans and dragons who wanted to be free of Talon. So now, we do whatever we can to break our kind out of the organization and show them how to live as rogues. How to avoid Viper attacks, how to stay off Talon’s radar, how to be free.”
Freedom. It sounded so appealing now. This was what I’d always wanted, right? Living away from Talon, not having to follow anyone’s rules or laws or restrictions. Not becoming a Viper, an assassin who hunted her own kind for wanting to be free.
But the thought of going rogue, much as I hated myself for admitting it, was terrifying, as well. I would be hunted. I would be branded a traitor, a criminal, and the Vipers would come for me. I hated the rules, and I wished my trainer would jump off a cliff—in human form—but Talon was all I’d ever known.
And there was also one other problem.
Dante. I didn’t think my straitlaced, perfect-student brother would turn rogue, even if I did. And if I did manage to convince him to run away, he would be branded a traitor and hunted, as well. I wasn’t sure I could do that to him.
As if reading my thoughts, Riley paused, and then his near-golden eyes rose to mine, serious and intense. The dragon stared out at me, fierce and primal and beautiful, sending a lance of heat through my insides. “I could show you how to be free, Firebrand,” he whispered, a dangerous, alluring croon, “if you want me to.”
I stared at him. Riley held my gaze. His nearness was overwhelming; I could feel his dragon watching me, barely contained in his fragile human shell. I felt my own dragon rising to meet his, a surge of heat erupting from the pit of my stomach, spreading to all parts of my body.
“Come with me,” Riley urged, shifting closer on the couch. “You don’t have to live by their rules. You don’t have to become a Viper. You can live your own life, away from Talon and the Vipers and everything they stand for. That’s what you want, isn’t it?” He didn’t move any closer, but I could feel his presence, the dragon, sitting beside me as if he was really there, wings, scales and all. “Wes and I are taking the hatchlings and leaving Crescent Beach tonight. I want you to come with us.”
“Leave? With you?” I blinked. “Where would we go? How would we live?”
“Don’t worry about that.” Riley gave me a careless grin, looking more like himself. “I’ve been doing this for a while. It’s not like we’ll be hobos on the street. I have places we can go, where we’ll be invisible, where the Vipers will never find us. Trust me.”
“I...I don’t know, Riley.”
“All right.” Abruptly, Riley stood, rising from the couch with easy grace, holding a hand to me. “If I can’t convince you, then maybe you should hear it from someone else. Get a different perspective on Talon, and what they’re really about. Come on.”
I put my hand in his, letting him pull me to my feet. My dragon buzzed at his touch, but I ignored it. “Where are we going?”
“Downstairs. I have some people I want you to meet.”
Garret
I rode in the back of the truck, pressed between two soldiers, feeling every bump and jolt through the metal bench welded to the sides. This vehicle was not designed for human transport, and the interior was hot and uncomfortable, though not the worst I’d endured. Around and across from me, fellow soldiers, my brothers-in-arms, waited with the same quiet anticipation. Some joked and laughed in low murmurs, some dozed with their arms crossed and their heads resting on their chest, some, like me, just waited, lost in their own thoughts.
Beside me, a fellow soldier nudged my arm. He was a few years my senior, with cropped black hair and a nose that had been broken repeatedly. I recognized him as Thomas Christopher, one of the few surviving soldiers of Alpha, the squad that was decimated in the South American raid a couple months back. “Hey, Sebastian, you’ve been here over a month, right?” he murmured, smiling like a wolf as he leaned in. “Where’s the action at? What do you do around here for fun?”
“I wasn’t here on vacation,” I replied simply.
“Oh, that’s right.” Christopher leaned back, smirking at me but speaking for the rest of the group. “Our Sebastian is the prodigy, the Perfect Soldier. Nothing ever enters his faultless little head but the mission. Give him a hooker and he’d use her for target practice.”
“Shut up, Christopher,” Tristan said, sitting across from me with his rifle against his shoulder. “At least he’d have a chance with a woman. She’d take one look at your ugly mug and wonder why there was a bulldog’s ass sewed to it.”
The other soldiers hooted and ribbed Christopher, who flushed angrily but laughed along with them. More taunts and good-natured insults were thrown back and forth, with Tristan never missing a beat, but I didn’t join in. Normally at this time I would be silencing my thoughts, mentally preparing myself for the battle ahead. Turn off your mind, turn off your emotions, become a blank vessel that acts solely on instinct with no fear to slow you down. That’s what I’d been taught. What I trained myself to do.
Today, that calm, empty silence eluded me. I was filled with a sense of foreboding, a nagging uncertainty that haunted my thoughts the closer we drew to our objective. I’d always been so certain of the Order—what we did, what we protected. Dragons were the enemy and we were meant to kill them. That’s what I’d believed, unwaveringly, my whole life.
Until her.
She might not be one of them. We hadn’t proven anything. There’d been suspicious happenstance, there’d been strong implications, but there’d been no real proof. Ember might not be a dragon. She could be a normal girl with a normal family, who loved surfing and arcade games and hanging out with her friends. She could be a perfectly ordinary human.
But if she wasn’t. If Ember was our target, the sleeper we’d been sent to kill, then the Order hadn’t told me everything. They never told me that dragons could be kind, that they could be daring, and funny, and beautiful. That they loved surfing and arcade games and hanging out with their friends. None of that had been counterfeit. The Order taught that dragons could only imitate emotions, that they had no real concept of humanity. If Ember was the sleeper, then she had proven them wrong at every turn.
What else had we been wrong about?
“Garret.”
I flicked my gaze to Tristan, who regarded me through the press of bodies and laughing soldiers, his dark eyes appraising. “You okay? You’ve been even broodier than normal lately.” His tone was light, but his expression was hard and suspicious. “Don’t tell me the Perfect Soldier has a sudden case of nerves.”
Thankfully, before I could answer, the truck pulled to a stop and the driver craned his neck to look back at us through a small mesh window. “We’re two hundred yards out,” he told Tristan, who nodded and rose to his feet, clutching his rifle.
“That’s my cue.” Glancing at me, he offered a devil-may-care grin. “Good luck in there. See you on the flip side, partner.”
I nodded. Maneuvering through soldiers, he edged to the back of the truck, opened the doors and hopped out. I knew he would quickly find himself a good vantage point and be watching the house through the scope of his rifle when the raid bega
n. If any of our targets slipped past us and tried to run, they wouldn’t get past the driveway. Not with Tristan guarding the front.
The truck rumbled and began to move again, and I took a deep breath, trying to calm my mind. Two hundred yards out. Two hundred yards from the enemy nest. I couldn’t have any doubts, not at this stage in the mission. Uncertainties would get me and my brothers killed. I was a soldier of St. George; when the time came and we faced our enemies again, I would do what I’d been trained to do, what I knew I must.
Kill every dragon in sight.
Riley
Ember followed me down the stairs, where the crack of billiard balls told me exactly how the two hatchlings were getting ready to leave, which was not at all.
“I’m so glad you two are taking this threat seriously,” I stated as I swept into the game room. At the head of the table, Remy jerked up with a guilty expression, raking sandy hair out of his eyes. Nettle quickly put her pool stick on the table, trying to look innocent and failing. I shook my head.
“I thought Wes told you we were leaving tonight. You’re supposed to be getting ready to go. Call me crazy, but I don’t think this qualifies.”
“We are ready!” Nettle protested. Her dreadlocks bounced as she did, vehemently stating her case. “We came here with nothing, remember? We don’t have anything to pack. We are ready to go.”
“Really?” I crossed my arms. “And what about the whole ‘leaving the house as we found it’ bit? Are the rooms clean, or do they look like a hurricane went through?” They both dropped their gaze, and I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re both going to take care of that, but right now, I want you to meet someone.”
I turned, motioning Ember forward. Her eyes were wide as she stepped around me, staring curiously at the other hatchlings, who stared back. “This is Ember,” I told them as the three hatchlings eyed one another over the table. “She might be joining us when we leave town tonight. Firebrand,” I continued as Ember glanced at me sharply, “meet two of mine. That’s Nettle, and Remy. I got them both out of Talon a year ago.”