by Ciara Knight
Where did that shot come from? I asked Harrison.
Don’t know, but look sharp. They could be anywhere in this damn place.
Raeth and I huddled around Mart as she rocked Gordon and cried.
“Ryder,” Mart sobbed, “help. You be able to save ‘im.”
Ryder crawled to Gordon’s side. His hands shook and I knew he didn’t have the energy.
“No,” Gordon rasped. “Not worth it.”
“What ye talking about?” Black eye make-up streaked down Mart’s pale face. “Ye be captain. Man who rescues and comforts all. Tell ‘im.” She looked at each of us. “Make ‘im well.”
My chest ached. I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arm around her but she shoved me away. “No. Don’t need ye comfort. Need ye to fix ‘im.”
“No. I’m a traitor.” He coughed red droplets into his hand. If Ryder didn’t do something soon, Gordon would die.
“You’re a good man,” I said. “You’re a great asset to our people. Even if I didn’t know you were one of us.” I willed him to listen. While I had trouble trusting the man, I’d spent so many hours at his side in his office. We’d grown close.
“Why’d ye do that? It shoulda been me that got shot. Ye speak nonsense. Shh.” She continued to rock him as she looked at Ryder. “Ryder, save ‘im,” she pleaded.
Gordon clutched his chest, coughing and gagging on the blood filling his mouth. “Leave. Queen’s summoned Emperor for reinforcements. Foreign soldiers in route.” His bloodied hand reached out to me. I took it and edged into Mart’s side. She didn’t push me away this time. Instead, she rested her head on my shoulder and cried.
“Dreams,” Gordon said. “Thought my baby boy was there. Queen captured them years ago. I thought they lived. Should’ve known. Please forgive me.”
A lump lodged in my throat. Blasts continued to pound against the doors from the corridor outside, but I looked to Ryder for help.
He leaned in and pressed his hands to Gordon’s chest. Silver edged down his arm, but only a thin, dull line streamed from his fingertips before fading.
Gordon released my hands and grabbed at Ryder. “No. Please. Honor my dying wish. I’ll be with my little boy now.” He slipped his hand to Mart’s porcelain cheek. His thumb brushed the dark lines left by her tears, smearing them. “Thought my family was alive. All that time wasted. Could’ve loved you. Give Paulson a chance. He’s not so bad.” He arched and grunted. A few stuttered breaths heaved from his lungs before he gasped one last time. His eyes went vacant, distant, and his hand slipped from her face.
Mart hovered over him, bringing his hand back to her cheek and holding it there. “No. Ye can’t leave me. I don’t want Paulson.” Her forehead dropped to his and she pounded weakly against his chest. “I love you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The blasts outside in the corridor grew more frequent, accompanied now by the guards’ shouting orders to surrender.
I swiped tears from my eyes. “We have to go, Mart.”
“Yes, we’re vulnerable here. Let’s move,” Harrison said, but his softened tone did nothing to console Mart. The tough girl with dreadlocks, piercings, and dark makeup, now looked like a lost child.
“M-Mart, he’d want you t-to go,” Raeth urged, working her magic as she nudged her gently away from Gordon.
I lifted his head from Mart’s lap and laid him on the ground, closing his sightless eyes with my fingertips. “Rest in peace, my friend.”
It felt wrong to leave him there on the floor, but we had no choice. Climbing to my feet, I slid my gun from its holster and scanned the room, searching for a way out. A glint of something reflected in an alcove beyond the council’s box. I reached out and tasted metal. “There.” I pointed. “A door.”
“Got it. Move.” Harrison waved Ryder forward as he ushered Mart toward the exit.
Hurrying after them, a loud crash drew my attention back to the French doors. The guards had finally broken through. Aiming behind me, I fired several shots at them as I continued to run.
Reaching the exit, I crouched, providing cover as Harrison shoved the door open. Ryder pushed Mart through before following.
Two men down. Three.
“Come!” Raeth shouted.
I dove through the doorway, pulling my legs to my chest and rolling across the ground to cushion my fall. Coming to a rest in the weeds, I glanced around. Ryder was rounding the corner of the building, Raeth, with her arm strung through Mart’s, hurrying after him.
Before I could scramble to my feet and follow, the wind whipped into a frenzy, all sound drowned out by the roar of powerful engines overhead. A massive bronze, gold, and silver-trimmed ship hovered over the Tower, a strange emblem adorning its hull. A red square with a large yellow star at its center, surrounded by four smaller stars.
I’d seen it before, on a flag flown at the capitol of Acadia East.
Harrison! I called through our mental link.
I know, he said, his frustration apparent even through telepathy. The Emperor’s providing support for the queen.
But why?
We don’t have time for that now. Get your ass moving!
I sprang to my feet and ran, dodging gunfire as I fought my way to the others.
Small crafts, fighters with sleek, arched wings, shot from beneath the emperor’s ship and opened fire on the city. Fires erupted all around me.
Grabbing the stone wall for stability, I swung myself around the corner of the building then skidded to a halt as Mart broke away from Raeth and pulled her gun from its holster. She closed one eye, aiming, as she lifted the large barrel directly at me.
“Duck!” she yelled.
I barely had time to react before she fired off several rounds, narrowly missing me as I dove to the ground, skinning my arms on the Tower’s stone facade. Behind me, a guard lay clutching his chest.
“Get up. I won’t be letting Gordon die in vain. If he wanted ye to live, I be making sure that happens.” Mart fired again and another guard dropped.
“Thank you,” I said, climbing to my feet.
The ground suddenly shook with explosions, the blasts echoing off the high walls of the Tower. I glanced up at the emperor’s ship, projectiles dropped from the open ammunitions bay door to the ground and buildings all around us. I snagged the collar of Mart’s jacket and swung her around. “Let’s move.”
Mart and I took turns providing cover as we followed Raeth back to the field where we’d left Penton, Ryder and Harrison just ahead of us.
“P-Penton?” Raeth called out. No answer. Her shoulders drooped, her eyebrows scrunching together with worry.
“It’s okay,” I said, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “We’ll find him.”
“Can’t stop here. Keep moving.” Mart removed a second gun from her belt, just as big and deadly as the first. Walking sideways, she kept her arms stretched out to either side of her, covering our front and our rear as we headed down the walkway.
“We n-need to f-find—”
Another bomb shook the grounds, nearly toppling us.
As we steadied ourselves, using the stone walls for support, I saw Bendar trudging through the debris. “Problem. Path to ship blocked.”
“What?” Harrison and I asked in unison.
My hands shook. Where do we go?
Calm down. Let me think, Harrison said.
I scanned our surroundings. Debris lay everywhere, cutting off any obvious escape routes, with more bombs falling around us by the second. We have to fight our way out of here. But even if we make it out of the city, we can’t swim across the river.
You’re right. There must be another way.
“There be a ship in the hangar,” Mart said. “I’ll get ye to a ship. ‘S what the captain woulda wanted. But then I’m gonna fight. My people be dying out there, so move it. The hangar’s a few hundred meters that way.” Mart fired, killing another guard.
Dust and debris fell from the walls of the Tower as bullets struck
stone.
“Our people,” I corrected her, my back pressed against hers as I covered her rear. “Come with us. We’ll fight together. We all have the same goal. We’re all fighting for freedom.”
Raeth looked at each of us, her concern growing. “Wh-what about Penton?”
“On ship, with Dred.” Harrison answered. Bendar took her hand in his. “We get back soon.”
Harrison and Mart shuffled to the end of the building. “Clear,” Harrison called.
I snagged Raeth’s hand and followed the others around the corner and onto a street. Bullets whizzed past. We rushed down the street, Mart checking doors as we passed. If we didn’t get off the street soon, we were dead.
Kaboom!
A bomb struck a nearby building, shaking the ground violently. Harrison was thrown against a metal door. Ryder and I stumbled, Raeth’s hand slipped from mine as she fell to the ground. My heart thrashed against my ribs and I clutched my chest for a moment, trying to regain control of my breathing.
Debris and bodies littered the street, yet the onslaught of gunfire continued.
Heaving, I leaned against a building and took aim.
Before I could fire off a shot, smoke plumed overhead and ash rained down on us as a wall of dust and dirt rolled through the street. There was no way we’d be able to see, let alone breathe, in that massive rolling cloud.
But only Raeth, Ryder, and I had masks. Without enough masks for everyone, we had to find another way out of the oncoming cloud.
Grabbing the brass doorknob of the first door I came to, I allowed heat to surge to my hand. Bronze liquid dripped over my knuckles onto the ground. I lifted my boot and kicked in the door. Mart, Raeth, and Bendar filed into the room after me, Ryder tossing Harrison inside before pressing his back against the door to keep it shut.
Coughing, sneezing, and groaning, we all struggled to catch our breath. I swiped my watering eyes, trying to clear them of dirt. Though my vision was blurred and the room dark as night, I could tell by the way our coughs echoed that the room was cavernous.
Bendar flipped on his light, swirling it about to reveal a warehouse with a large open mezzanine. As the beam swept across the open space, a glint reflected from the middle of the room.
“Wait.” I leaned over and grabbed Bendar’s hand, directing the light back toward the center.
Bendar’s light settled on red fabric, a jacket, its bronze buttons marching down either side. The reflection came from a medal attached to the upper left corner.
My hands instantly shook. Afraid of what I would discover, I raised the light higher anyway, revealing a monster.
The queen’s general.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Old fears, ones I’d nearly forgotten since my last encounter with the general on Acadia Beach, surfaced, and I struggled to breath.
Look at him, Semara. See him for what he really is, Harrison said.
I forced myself to look at the man before me. Instead of the all-powerful general I remembered, I saw a pock-marked, hair plugged old man. And while he had remained the same, I wasn’t the same frightened young woman he’d known and expected to see anymore.
“I see you all finally made it.” The general rested a hand on the gun at his belt. “Harrison. So, you do live.”
“Yes, and faring better than you, by the look of it.”
Soldiers flanked the general as he stepped closer. “She swore you were alive, but I wasn’t so sure. How’d you make it out of that cabin?”
Cabin? Is he referring to the night Mother died?
Yes, now be still. “My little secret,” Harrison said then gestured to the general’s mechanical leg. “Still hurt?”
The monster’s lip curled into a feral snarl. “Still as smug as ever, eh, Harrison? She no longer loves you. Not even your smile would win her over now.”
“Mandesa never loved me. She doesn’t know how to love. And when I finally smile again, it’ll be over your grave.”
I almost clapped for joy as the general’s face turned ashen. My eyes narrowed at the tremor in his hands and the urge to humiliate him further flared within me. I was about to ask the pot-bellied beast if he still wore a corset, when Harrison’s hand on my arm stopped me. It was only after Ryder snorted, Mart chortled, and Harrison snickered in my mind that I realized Harrison had transmitted my thought to the others.
Holding onto his shredded dignity, the general puffed out his chest. “Too bad Mandesa didn’t kill you and your daughter years ago. It would have saved us a lot of trouble.” He snorted. “As I’m sure you’ll soon discover, Semara’s more bother than she’s worth. Does she know she’s alive only because you’ve manipulated the council into believing she’s the queen’s heir?”
Unable to conceal my shock, I glanced at Harrison. I didn’t know whether to explode in fury or kiss him in thanks. But as quickly as the heat blossomed, Ryder sent cooling waves through me.
“Want me to kill the general for you?” he asked out the side of his mouth.
“Later.” I knew he’d relish sucking that monster dry. “He’s stalling,” I returned.
Semara’s right. He’s waiting for reinforcements.
The general squared his shoulders and stared at me. “You remember the night your mommy died, don’t you, Semara?”
Flashes of the sounds and smells assaulted me. “Yes.”
“Then you already know it was your fault. Your mother is dead because of you.”
I could feel Harrison’s rage explode, his thoughts ringing through my mind in rapid fire. I touched his hand and he quieted.
Straightening my back, my regal bearing in perfect form, I met the general’s gaze. “You’re wrong. I know better. Hate and anger rule Mandesa, always have. She doesn’t have an ounce of feeling for anyone, including you, General. If you think differently, you’re as insane as she is.”
“Wrong, am I? Your parents kept you hidden because they knew you were born to be a murderess. You proved it that night, when you nearly killed your father.”
Harrison stiffened next to me as a memory flashed through my mind.
Daddy shoved me behind a secret wall and begged me to stay hidden. I wanted to meet my Aunt Mandesa. But he said no. Said she was a mean lady and Mama needed him. He needed to go to her.
He pushed the door open and I saw Mama. I leaned forward, waiting to be scooped up in her arms. But the door was closing again. The man at Aunt Mandesa’s side met my gaze for an instant then I was left in darkness.
I could hear Daddy’s muffled pleas. I covered my ears and curled into a ball.
He screamed.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Something hit the secret wall.
“I was willing to leave with you, to give my life!” Daddy yelled. His voice sounded scary, scarier than I’d ever heard it. “You’d won! Why? Why murder Lanena?”
“How could I not?” Aunt Mandesa’s voice was so calm, it terrified me. I scooted further away from the wall, into the darkness. “You were supposed to love me. I was supposed to birth your babe, not Lanena, whose child is meant to murder me. Now, they’re both gone and you have only me.”
“Then…” Daddy’s voice cracked, “Then I have no one.”
Terrified and silently sobbing, I crawled to the panel and touched it.
“I’m here, Daddy,” I tried to tell him through our connection. Nothing.
Rocking in the darkness, I tried to calm myself as Mama and Daddy had taught me. Nothing worked. All I wanted were my parents to hug me, kiss me, and make that mean lady go away.
Then Daddy called out to me in my mind. “Semara!”
A scuffle. Something crashed against the door.
I felt feverish and sleepy. I fought to stay awake.
The secret wall opened. Red and orange flames were everywhere, burning the table and Daddy’s favorite chair. Aunt Mandesa’s leg was trapped beneath a large wooden beam, the flames crawling toward her. The man I’d seen earlier lay unconscious on the floor, one leg hidden beneath a pile o
f wood and roof tiles.
I blinked. Disgust filled me as I stared at the general. “You were there. You’re the murderer. You helped kill my mother.” I clutched Harrison’s hand and met his sad gaze. My heart ached to beg his forgiveness. “You tried to save Mama.”
“Yes. I loved her, just as…just as I’ve always loved you,” he said in a broken voice.
“Too bad. And you tried so hard to save her,” the general said. “It was pathetic, watching you beg Mandesa for her life. Remember how I held her down while Mandesa took her head?”
Harrison lunged at the general.
A canister shot from the gangway above and blue mist instantly filled the room. My head spun and my legs buckled.
Gunfire echoed throughout the warehouse. I collapsed on my hands and knees, heaving, as a searing pain split my head.
“No…” I heard Harrison cry out, but his cries quickly faded.
Head throbbing, I fought the pain in my temples and searched the dissipating mist for the others. On the ground a few meters away, Ryder clutched his leg, blood pooling around him.
“No!” I screamed. My fingers grazed his vest, but the general grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking me from him. “Ryder!”
“Don’t touch her.” Ryder thrashed, trying to reach me.
“What are you going to do to stop me?” the general sneered. “Like my new toy? A gift from the emperor. Chemical weapons that can block the brain from utilizing your abilities. It only lasts a few minutes, but that’s all we need. Looks like our little test worked.” He nodded to a nearby soldier.
Three soldiers marched toward Ryder.
“No!” I twisted and pulled against the general’s grip.
As the soldiers descended on him, Ryder looked at me and gasped, trying to speak. Lifting his arm in the air, he stretched toward me.
I can’t lose him. Not now, not ever. I flung my foot back, kicking at the general’s calf. He yelped in pain but didn’t relinquish his grip.