by Audrey Grey
The earth comes away beneath my fingers as I try to claw my way to Riser. “Riser! Hold on, I’m coming.”
The soft ticking sound of thirty crossbows being cocked grabs my attention. I look up just in time to see Flame charging on horseback, two riders shadowing her. In the split second it would take the Gold Cloaks to release their arrows, the nano-shredder arcs through the air toward them.
I don’t hear the explosion. I feel it. Like a million enraged hornets let loose their cage, thrumming the air, the vibrations wriggling through my marrow. Each shredder is about the size of a fly. They converge, a monstrous wave that blacks out the stars—lifting, lifting, lifting—and crash down onto the wall of Gold Cloaks.
Just like that, over half the Royal Guard is gone, a puddle of blood where they stood mirroring the sky.
“Grab Riser,” I scream.
“Do it!” Flame commands her companion, red arrows whistling from the crossbow at her wrist. Two more guards succumb to her expert marksmanship. The horseman behind her goads his gray horse over the blood. Gripping the saddle’s pommel, he leans down low, one long arm hooking Riser’s belt, and slings Riser’s limp body onto his lap, his horse wheeling and kicking as arrows whiz by.
An arrow sinks into the beast’s exposed haunch, and the animal rears, knocking the horseman’s hood back.
Horsewoman.
“Get some, you rotten Dandies!” Teagan’s short sword carves the air, long legs kicking wildly at the circling guard, before spurring her horse into a furious gallop.
I sigh with relief as the melee swallows them. Now there’s only Flame. Our eyes meet. Please, Fienian, I beg with my face, my whole being. Don’t leave me here to die.
Impossibly long seconds tick by. Will she save me? The girl she despises? I have the key. Will it be enough?
The guards turn their weapons on Flame, but their actions seem to take forever. In slow motion she cracks her neck, dons a wicked smile, and comes for me. Tears of gratitude sting my eyes. Biting my lip, I fight through the pain to my knees. We have only one shot at this. Should I try to jump on the saddle behind her? Or will she stop long enough to help me?
I never find out.
The sharp cold metal that bites the back of my neck comes exactly as Flame jerks hard on her horse’s reins, her face flashing with anger and surprise. In disbelief, I watch her flee. Some wild, desperate part of me thinks that as long as I can see her, she’ll come back for me. My gaze trails her shrinking form. I watch her trample a cluster of guards, shadowed by a hail of arrows.
Then she is gone.
They are all gone.
And I am alone.
“Wipe that hope from your sniveling face.”
Well, not quite.
The Archduchess’s sword pushes deeper into the back of my skull, forcing me to my feet. There’s a sick bone on bone feeling in my shin, the broken ends of my shinbone grinding together.
Overwhelmed with pain, I fall in a helpless heap. I try to curl in a fetal position to protect myself, but the Archduchess digs the point of her sword into my belly. A rancid smile cracks her face. “No one can help you now, maggot.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Fight. Fight until your dying breath.
The whisper yanks me into lucidity. Cold darkness greets me. Pain nibbles my side and settles deep in my mangled leg. My fingers scrabble across the ground, searching for the familiar scrape of dirt. But there’s only stone. Hard, wet, filthy stone. And the air, heavy, coated with the pungent aroma of old excrement and piss. My eyes pick out iron bars, a rusted lock. A slanted rectangle of bluish light spills over my torn dress and broken leg and onto the irregular stones of my cell. At least there is a window above me. At least there’s that.
The Tower. My brain works to determine how long I’ve been here. Hours? Days? But my thoughts are slippery, impossible to grasp. I try to shift my hips to ease the ache in my side, and lighting roars up my leg. My dry throat cracks open, but all I can manage is a raspy groan.
“I don’t advise moving too much,” says a man in the corner. I look up to see the Emperor. He sits proudly on the end of the metal chair, the scabbard of his ceremonial long sword scraping the ground, his erect posture from someone used to uncomfortable, high-backed thrones.
Using my swollen tongue, I part my lips from my teeth, working to deposit moisture enough to talk. “My mother?”
The Emperor’s smug chuckle echoes through the empty room. “Thinks you died years ago. Probably for the best, considering what you are now.”
Terrorist. Murderer. Shame wells up in me. My body aches, my mind aches, but nothing hurts as bad as knowing what we did. What I did. “I’m sorry . . . They weren’t supposed to die.”
The ghost of a smile twitches his lips. He likes to see me like this. Broken, suffering, afraid. I hate that my fear and self-loathing give him pleasure. I hate the way he flushes with my every grimace, every groan. “I would have been disappointed if they didn’t.”
“They were your people,” I snap, suddenly finding the strength to hate him too. “Your daughter.”
His body stills so perfectly I think for a heartbeat time really has frozen, that he feels something, but then he blinks, as if he can blink Ophelia out of existence, and his eyes focus on me. “I had planned for Ophelia to die at the fountain, but no matter now.”
Sure I have misheard him, I press further. “Why would you want your daughter to die?”
“She wasn’t my daughter!” he seethes. “Not anymore. Not after she pledged her allegiance to the Fienians.”
The mentor Nicolai said was working with him. It was Ophelia. My mind races to put it together. “But she was so . . . so innocent.”
“We all have our weapons, Maia. Ophelia tried to use that innocence on me when I found her in the rubble. Begging, calling me daddy like she was a little girl again—”
“She was still alive?” And then realization hits me. “You . . . You killed her.”
“No, Maia. You did. At least that’s what the populace will think, and more importantly what Caspian will think.”
He was two steps ahead of us the entire time. “You knew about me all along, didn’t you?”
His eyes sparkle. “From the very moment you stepped onto the Island.”
“Then why let it happen?” My voice breaks as I remember the explosions, the shredders. “Why not stop it?”
“Don’t you question me, worm!” he spits, his chair scraping stone as he rises to pace between the cells. “The gods were afraid of their sons, did you know that?” One hand absentmindedly massages the flesh above his left eye. “The Titan Cronus ate his children, one by one, because he knew eventually one would betray him. But his last-born son, Zeus, survived to do exactly what his father feared. As soon as Zeus had a son, he suffered the same fears, so he swallowed his own firstborn just like the father he despised.”
I blink, fighting the dizziness in my head. “I don’t understand.”
“My father poisoned my grandfather to ascend the throne. When my father fell ill, I forced him to name me Emperor in his stead and banished him to the very cell you sit in.” He smiles, the shadows making his teeth look sharp and menacing. “It’s a curse and blessing, to have a son. I thought my own son would be different, but he couldn’t stomach my harsh policies and eventually he was going to split the court, perhaps even challenge me someday.”
“You let all those people die . . . because you’re paranoid?”
When he turns, his eyes shine brightly. “Fear, Maia, it’s a powerful, tricky thing, and with every bomb you discharged, you reminded them there are things in this world I need to protect them from. Every single Sleeper felt it, every Silver and Gold and Bronze, the doubters and Fienian Sympathizers.” His gloved fingers wrap around the bars to my cell. “But when Ophelia died, you gave my son something even stronger than fear. You gave him hatred, the same hatred Ezra gave to me when he murdered my wife and child. That rage will bind Caspian to my side, erasing our d
ifferences and any sympathies he might have held for your kind, forging my son into the Emperor who will continue my legacy long after I am gone and Hyperion is just a memory.”
Angry thoughts cram my head. He used us. Allowed hundreds to suffer and die. Killed his daughter. All to secure his court and ensure his deranged ideology was embraced by his son. And I tumbled right into his trap. Just like Ezra, I betrayed the one person who could have helped me.
The one person I was meant to love.
The Fienians and the Royalists both used me for their own bloody ends, and I fell for it. Now Max will die, and the world will burn, and there’s nothing I can do.
I rest my head against the wall, too tired to continue fighting the dizziness and pain, too sad to argue, too broken to move.
“What happened to my friends?” I whisper, wanting more than anything to know if Riser is alive. Is he in pain? Worrying about me?
“Most are dead,” he says pleasantly. “A few are holed up fighting, but don’t fret, they’ll join you shortly.” As if on cue, my ears pick up the sounds of gunshots and yelling far below. “As soon as Victoria finishes rounding them up, she will begin her work on you.” A hollow pit forms in my belly as I realize he means the Archduchess. “After witnessing just how creative Victoria can be with your flesh, they will give up Max, we will find and destroy the Mercurian, and this whole mess will be over.”
“No!” My fists pummel the floor until they are slippery with blood. “No! Please!” My words fall over and over like my fists, pounding the air until my voice frays. The voice in my head taunts me. Stupid, Digger Girl. Stupid, cowardly Maia. You chose wrong. You should have chosen me.
Sobs wrack my body. I hardly notice the Emperor leave. My father died trying to save me. Merida sacrificed herself to keep me alive. Riser saved me over and over and probably died because of me.
For what?
“Why?” I scream at the shadows. Bits of the slick, dank stone come away beneath my fingernails as I claw to the window, groaning with agony, ground shifting wildly beneath my feet.
Three-inch-thick bars stripe my rectangle of sky. Stars wink from their tapestry. She is up there somewhere with the gods, surveying Her kingdom, testing who is worthy and who should die, ready to cast Her shadow and watch us scramble for Her favor, killing each other like the beasts Orion promised to slay.
Voices ring out from below, and a strange warmth falls over me, despite the cool air. Muffled explosions vibrate my cell. My soul. They’re fighting. Still fighting.
Fight.
Fight until your last breath, Digger Girl.
Maia of the stars.
Dead fallen Gold Girl.
Creature from the pit.
Whoever you are, fight until the very last breath trails from your lips and your flesh goes cold.
“I am going to get out of here,” I whisper to Her, as if She is one of the goddesses from my book. Maybe She is. Maybe the gods of our past are only tales of men and things beyond our understanding. Maybe someday, after the dust has settled, someone will tell stories about Pandora, the angry goddess who tore the world apart, and the mortals who fought to save it.
“Somehow I’m going to escape and do what I should have done from the start,” I promise Her, my heart thrumming to the sound of pistols and swords and the whisper of invisible gods. “I’m going to destroy you.”
As if in answer to my challenge, a star streaks the sky and slowly, slowly flames out.
The End
She was carved from the rubble and forged with fire, the girl who clawed from the funeral pyre. Her eyes were diamonds and her hair was Gold, her lips sharp and lovely and bold. But a monster grew where her heart should be—
waiting for the day she would set it free.
Acknowledgements
This section was by far the hardest part for me to write. There are so many people who have helped me along the way and deserve thanks, and my words seem inadequate. However, I’m going to try.
First and foremost, my husband, Christopher, who taught me that life can be so much more. Not only did he give me two beautiful children and allow me to rescue four naughty dogs, he gives me unconditional love and a kick in the butt daily. To my children, Jack and Savannah, for enriching my life with love and laughter, and thinking I hung the moon. To my parents, Don and Kristin, for teaching me the importance of hard work and encouraging my persistence, or what some might call obstinacy, even when it made their life harder. Writing isn’t always easy for me, and if not for their lessons, most of my stories would have gone unwritten. To my mother-in-law, Maxine, for watching my children as if they are her own, and being a wonderful traveling companion. Her unfailing support and advice is invaluable. To the Brown Girls, Debbie and Katy, for taking an interest in my writing and encouraging me. And to my brother, Wesley, for always being there for me.
There are two special people who were my first readers. Jill Tovar, my best friend, bonus sister, and cheerleader, who has accompanied me on this journey and always keeps my spirits up. And Angela Marlow, my twin sister and better half, who’s read every book I’ve ever written and who fell in love with Maia and Riser immediately. She understood the importance of the pit to their history, and without her insistence that I finish their story, Shadow Fall wouldn’t be here today.
A heartfelt thanks to the awesome team at Blaze Publishing, whose talents and hard work turned my manuscript into a novel: Mara Valderran, who guides me through the tricky waters of marketing and thinks my questions aren’t dumb; Eliza Tilton, for rocking out SF’s formatting and giving me her Pringles one night (because she’s just that amazing); Kristen Troiani, who insisted the villains in SF need more page time (she was right), and whose snark and wit match the size of her big heart; Layla Cox, for keeping Mara sane, and cooking actual wild boar so she could write a foodie post using a dish from SF; honorary Blazer, Janelle Leonard Howard, my friend, fellow coffee addict, and sounding board for all things writerly; and, of course, our fearless leader, adverb slayer, editor-in-chief, and the reason Shadow Fall exists, Krystal Dehaba. She understood my voice and characters right away, and took a very complex world and made it accessible to the reader—all without making my cry. Somewhere in that process, we became friends, for which I’ll always be grateful.
There are others to whom I’m appreciative. Jennifer Malone Wright for helping plan my online parties and grow my audience. Chelsea Starling, a beautiful soul who designed my author website and makes the world brighter. Kimberly Marsot, cover artist extraordinaire, who not only gave me an amazing cover for SF, but who patiently worked with me through horrible sketches and ideas to produce lovely character art. My fellow Blazers—authors Jacob Devlin, Tori Rigby, and Case Maynard. And to all the Utopians who became social media cheerleaders and continue to inspire me.
To those few friends who tolerate my expensive kombucha habit, daily uniform of yoga pants covered in dog hair, and inability to be normal—Lauren Guhl and Audrey Delay—your friendship and support mean the world to me, even if I never tell you that.
Lastly, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the bookworms, writers, and nerds that I interact with daily on social media. Feeling a sense of belonging is a rare thing indeed, and I’ve found that with you.
About the Author
Audrey Grey lives in the charming state of Oklahoma, with her husband, two little people, and four mischievous dogs. You can usually find her hiding out in her office from said little people and dogs, surrounded by books and sipping kombucha while dreaming up wondrous worlds for her characters to live in.
You can find out more about Audrey on her website.
http://audreygrey.com/
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