by Emily Colin
I wonder if they put her up to that, too.
Eva’s mouth opens as if she’s about to speak. And then it closes again. I regard her icily, thinking about how I’d imagined we might run away together, leave the Commonwealth behind. What an idiot I’ve been, to think she truly shared my curiosity about the world beyond our borders, my faith there must be something more, something better. What a fool, to imagine a girl like this could be anything but a spy inserted into the very heart of the Bellatorum, an informer planted to ferret out its weakest links. To imagine she craved my touch the way I crave hers, an addiction that’s never satisfied.
The fact of her betrayal hurts more than anything ever has—the lash of the High Priest’s whip against my back, the icy water of the Austari seeping through my clothes and deep beneath my skin. They’re nothing compared to the tightening in my chest, the pain that pierces my heart, sharp as my blade.
But I am a warrior. So I will stand. And I will fight.
There are at least two men in each corner, most of them Bellatorum. Three men between me and the door, all of them armed. This is a suicide mission, pure and simple. But I see no other way. If I run back into the tunnels, they’ll catch me. If I let them take me, they’ll kill me.
Better to die an honorable death, even in defense of the impossible.
I let the fear run out of me, settle into the focused state that’s my only hope of survival. My eyes scan the rutted walls of the cavern for handholds, assess the furniture and the lighting fixtures for anything that can be used as a weapon or a point of balance. I take in the men one by one, considering their weight, what I know of their success in training, their muscularity and the extent to which they’re armed.
My best hope—my only hope, really—is to disarm the ones who stand between me and the door, then rely on speed and my knowledge of the tunnels to escape. The only way out is through, and I’ll need to strike fast and without mercy. Most likely I’ll die in the trying.
But maybe I’ll take some of them with me, I think, and I’m disturbed to find the idea doesn’t trouble me the way it should.
Efraím sees me scouting the room and raises one dark eyebrow in derision. “Don’t bother, Westergaard,” he says, his voice clear and cold—as if all the time we’ve spent together, sparring and debating and studying, means nothing. As if I am a stranger. “You can’t win. Why make this difficult? It’ll end the same, either way.”
“Why did you bomb the encampment?” I ask, ignoring this. In my heart, I know Ronan was telling the truth, but I need to ask. To be sure.
His mouth twists. “The bombing was for the good of the Commonwealth.”
A tremor runs through me. “In the name of the Architect, Efraím, why? People died. Innocent people.”
“They weren’t innocent. They were outlaws, criminals. Threats to everything we have worked so hard to build.” His eyes travel over me, disgust in their depths, and I hear what he has left unsaid: As are you.
“They’ve done nothing to you.” I think of the longing expression on my mother’s face before the smoke swallowed her whole, and fail to keep the anger from my voice. “Your actions are indefensible.”
“Mind yourself, Bellator Westergaard.” The words are a whisper, issuing from the shadows behind Efraím. It is the voice of the Executor.
I am on my feet, my sverd snatched from the ground, bare in my hand. I didn’t mean to draw it, don’t remember pulling it from its sheath. But I hold it nonetheless, its familiar weight giving me the confidence I need to take one step forward, then another. “I am Bellatorum Lucis. I walk in the light.” My voice rises, echoing off the stone walls of the scholars’ chamber. “The Bellatorum administer justice—but we’re not conscienceless killers. If you condone the murder of the innocent, then I cannot stand with you.”
Efraím draws in his breath in a long hiss. He hesitates, regarding me with an unreadable expression. But when he speaks, his voice does not waver. “You will not stand with the brotherhood, Ari Westergaard? Not even in death?”
The air in the room trembles. There is a bright line here, and with the next sentence I will cross it. What began when I first took Eva’s hand, when I heard Kilían out, when Ronan called my mother’s name and I saw her face—it ends now. I’ll die a traitor, executed for the benefit of the people, my body dumped into the pit. But at least I’ll die with my honor intact.
I try not to look at Eva when I speak, but I can’t help myself. Her face is blanched, her expression horrified. Infinitesimally, she shakes her head, and her index finger moves against her thigh, signing something to me. I try to decipher it, but at this distance it’s useless. Why would she signal me, anyhow? She betrayed me. For all I know, this is yet another trick…unless it isn’t.
Dismissing the prospect, I shake off my doubts. I must remain focused if I’m to survive.
Doggedly, I lift my head and look straight into Efraím’s eyes. He raised me to be what I am, has mentored and trained me. Yet despite the hours we’ve spent together, sparring and debating the finer points of strategy—despite the regret I saw in his eyes—there’s nothing left between us but this: a traitor and the warrior chosen to bring about his end. It is my flaw, my sin that I cannot help but wish for more.
I made that mistake with Eva; I won’t make it again. “Non serviam,” I say, the words that sever me from the brotherhood of the Bellatorum—from everything I am, everything I’ve worked so hard to become. “I will not serve.”
A low rumble of incredulity moves through the room. I can’t remember the last time someone left the Bellatorum voluntarily. Not in my lifetime.
Efraím nods, resolute. “Then you stand alone,” he says, and charges me, blade in hand.
If I wasn’t so familiar with the way he fights, attuned to every movement of his body, he might have run me through. Instead I feint right, push off the opposite wall, and use the momentum to flip over his head, landing behind him. He wheels, panting, and I bare my teeth. “You want to kill me, Efraím?” I taunt him. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”
“You always were insolent, Westergaard,” he snarls. “I should’ve known.”
I lift my free hand and crook a finger at him. The exhilaration of battle rises through me, muting my misery at Eva’s betrayal, the loss I feel at severing my bond with the Bellatorum—the only family I have ever known. “Come and get me, Bellator Stinar. If you can.”
With a low growl, he comes. This time I let him, then parry his blade and foot-sweep him, sending him staggering back against a shelf of books, which cascade to the floor. Efraím is fast and strong, but I’m faster. Stronger. He’s telegraphing his every move; all I have to do is deflect it and return the favor.
Flanked by two of the Bellatorum, the Executor claps, as if this is a show designed for his entertainment. “Oh, very good,” he says. “Such a shame to lose this one. One of your best, is he not?”
“My apprentice,” Efraím says bitterly. “Soon to be named one of my Thirty. I trained him myself.”
“Ah.” The Executor nods. “A cruel turn of events. There’s no worse betrayal than one committed by those we trust. Is that not so, Eva Marteinn?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eva wince. “Yes, Executor,” she says obediently. The girl who conspired with me and kissed me is gone. Maybe she was never there at all.
“You’ll not reconsider?” the Executor says to me. “Given your talents, even these...indiscretions...might be forgiven. You can rededicate yourself to the service of the Commonwealth, endure the Trials anew. I’m sure redemption can be arranged.”
For me to believe that, I’d have to be even more of a fool than I’ve already demonstrated on this cursed day. “I’m sorry, sir,” I say, without taking my gaze from Efraím—feeling my dream of becoming one of the Thirty, everything I’ve worked toward all my life, slip away. “But I have renounced my oath.”
The Executor sighs. “A great loss,” he says. “The Commonwealth grieves for you.” And
then he nods to Efraím, giving him permission to loose his blade again. I see what he has in mind—a fight to the death, here in the cavern. There will be no trial for me, no public execution. I’ll die here, and my blood will run out on the stones. They’ll burn my body and scatter my ashes in the dark.
I breathe deep, commending my soul to the Architect—if indeed he exists. There are thirteen of them, counting Eva, and one of me. I cannot fight all of them, not and win.
Then Eva steps forward, and I have to suppress a shudder. Will she request the privilege of dueling me herself? Perhaps she’d consider it a mercy for hers to be the last face I see, for her blade to be the one that pierces my heart.
That would be no mercy, as far as I’m concerned, but the blackest kind of end. Could I kill Eva, if I had to?
Would I be willing to sacrifice my own life, to save hers?
I’m all too afraid I know the answer to this question, and as she turns to face the line of black-clad men, I steel myself for what is to come. But all she says is, “I apologize, Executor.”
His brow furrows. “For what, Bellator Marteinn?”
“For this,” Eva says, and she drops her hand to her weapons belt, yanking a small gray object free. Efraím lunges for her, but he is too late. She pulls the pin and lobs it straight into the middle of the room.
In the seconds before it detonates, I see a number of puzzling things. Efraím has tackled Eva and is doing his best to pin her to the ground, his knee in the middle of her back. She’s bucking wildly to dislodge his grip, and, recognizing my tutelage in the way she moves, I feel an incongruous satisfaction—every time he tries to grab her, she anticipates it, so his knee slides off her spine and his hands close on air. She struggles to her feet, and two more of the Bellatorum surround her, trapping her hands behind her.
I don’t understand why Eva has created this diversion—Eva, who tricked me into believing in her. Is it another trick? A trap? Warily, I shift my weight, my blade bare in my hand.
Efraím forces Eva to her knees, his dagur at her throat. “Surrender,” he hisses, and she shakes her head, a tiny movement that causes a bead of blood to well up on her skin. This is what Efraím would call a rookie mistake. You never, ever move your head with a blade at your throat. You could sever your carotid. The fact is drilled into us over and over again during the first week of training. Eva knows better than this.
Then her eyes meet mine, and I realize she’s done it on purpose. “Run,” she mouths. Efraím has his hand fisted in her hair, forcing her head down, but she fights him, arching her back away from the blade. “Run!” she mouths again, and on her face I see a pure, clear desperation. “Now!”
A haze of smoke swallows the room. I snatch my weapons belt from the ground and disappear into the tunnel.
28
Eva
“Wake up.”
At the sound of Efraím’s voice, I come to consciousness to find I’m exactly where he left me last night—in the dim corner of an underground prison cell. I hadn’t intended to sleep, but after the third hour of staring blearily at the locked cell door, waiting for a summons that never came, I’d decided my best advantage was to be well-rested...or as well-rested as I can be, considering I spent the night on a damp, hard floor, wondering if I was going to be put to death in the morning. I blink, look up at Efraím, and start to rise, ignoring the stiffness in my limbs.
“No, don’t get up.” His voice is cold, hard. “That’s not an invitation, it’s an order. Don’t move an inch unless I say you can. Think of it as a game of Executor, May I, with extraordinarily high stakes.”
I blink at him again, puzzled by the mention of the childhood game we all used to play—three steps forward, one back, always with an imaginary Executor’s permission. “What do you want from me?”
His expression is stony. “That was quite the show you put on last night, Bellator Marteinn. Renouncing the exile, then staging his escape. But the hour for playtime’s come and gone. We’re going to find out what you know.”
“I don’t know anything,” I say, shifting my weight on the cold stone. It takes everything I have to keep my face blank, not to betray the worry and longing and regret I feel for Ari. But my life depends on it.
“Such a pretty liar you are. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Or two of them, anyhow.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t think you actually meant anything to Westergaard, do you? It was a temptation, a test. Which he failed miserably, I might add.”
“Why would I care what I mean to Ari Westergaard?” I say, shrugging. “He’s nothing to me. It’s in our best interests if he finds his way back to the Brotherhood. I know how Ari thinks, what he’ll do. We can track him that way.” I hold my hands out, palms up. “Take my pulse. Listen to my heartbeat. You’ll see I’m not lying.”
“Ah, but as I said, that’s the problem, Eva. You’re such a good liar. Too good.” He stalks closer, glaring. “I can’t kill you, that’s problem number three. You’re too valuable. But I can break you, and make no mistake, I’ll do it with pleasure.”
Fear floods my veins, icy, and my breath comes short. “You won’t break me.”
“Ah, Eva.” His voice is heavy with false sadness. “Everybody breaks. It’s just a matter of how and when. You will shatter at my hands, splintering into a thousand sniveling, pathetic pieces. You’ll beg for mercy before I’m done with you.”
He turns and strides out of the cell, locking the door behind him. I hear him talking to the bellators who are stationed out of my line of sight. And then he’s gone.
I try calling to the other bellators, but they don’t answer. So I wait, anticipation being its own torture, as Efraím has intended. I amuse myself by counting my heartbeats, the passing seconds, the number of paces from one side of the cell to the other (fifteen length-wise, ten across). By thinking what I’ll do to Efraím when I manage to get free. I’m very careful not to think about Ari. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, it is better than being dead.
They come for me two hours later—Efraím himself, with Jakob Riis by his side, backed by two other bellators. Efraím grabs me by the arm and hauls me to my feet, his dagur pressed against my neck. I feel the tip of Jakob’s knife between my shoulder blades. “Walk,” Efraím says, and so I do, past the other cells, all of which are empty.
Efraím drags me down the hallway in grim silence, until we stop in front of the prisoners’ door to the interrogation chamber. He gestures for Jakob to unlock it, and then we step through, leaving the two bellators on the other side. We go down the hall to one of the small rooms, and Efraím shoves me into a chair, twists my arms behind me, and cuffs my wrists to the back of the chair. I pull on the metal cuffs experimentally, but no luck.
Despite my determination to stay calm, I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, thudding in an effort to break free. I make myself meet Efraím’s eyes. As much as the cuffs will allow, I lean back in the chair in a pretense of insouciance, as if I have nothing to hide.
Efraím looks me over, his eyes narrowed in disgust. I can only imagine how I must look—my gear torn and stained, my face filthy despite my best attempts to scrub it clean—but I hold his gaze, and finally he turns to Jakob. “Leave us,” he says, and Jakob backs hastily out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
“So,” Efraím says, settling into the chair on the other side of the scarred wooden table. “I’ll give you one more chance. Do you want to talk and get this over with, or do we have to do this the hard way?”
I set my jaw and lift my chin. “I have nothing to hide. It was important to get close to the exile, to gain his confidence and make him believe I was on his side. It was equally important no one in the Commonwealth know about his plans or my attempt to subvert them. If I played my part a little too well, I have only my Bellatorum training to blame.”
“So you said.” He leans back, his chair teetering on two legs, and snaps his fingers at the vid c
amera in the corner. “The hard way it is, then.”
Twenty seconds later the bellator who took Samúel’s place, a quiet guy in his fourth year of training named Noél Falk, comes in holding the lie detector machine, complete with its snaking electrodes and pheromone receptors. Efraím takes it from him and attaches the electrodes all over me, sticks the pheromone receptor pads to my skin. He sits back down at the table, in front of the machine with its vid screens and needles and dials. And then the questions begin.
What do you know about the Brotherhood? Does your true allegiance lie with the Commonwealth, or the Outsiders? What were you doing in the tunnels that day? What is your relationship with the exile Ari Westergaard? Why did you throw the smoke grenade that allowed Westergaard to escape? Why did you feign compliance with us, only to resist at the last minute? Why did you not inform your superiors of Westergaard’s betrayal? What information does Westergaard have that led him to the tunnels and the Brotherhood camp that day? Who was he looking for? Who told him such a resistance exists?
Ari put me through my paces with the lie detector test, on the premise you can’t truly understand how to break a subject to your will until you’ve been in their shoes. I know how sensitive the test is, programmed to decipher the slightest flutter in a subject’s heart rate and the lightest dew of sweat on their skin. So I keep my answers short, breathing slowly in between responses to ensure my heartbeat does not change. I think of the most calming images I can imagine—sunlight striking the water of a small brook below the falls, the shady spot at the edge of the woods where I liked to sit and catch my breath after training. And I reply.
I only know what Ari told me—that such a resistance exists. I’m loyal to the Commonwealth. Ari Westergaard was my mentor. I threw the grenade because I believed he was more valuable to us alive than dead. I feigned compliance in order to take the exile by surprise. I didn’t inform my superiors because I feared it would compromise the quality of the intelligence I was gathering. Westergaard wanted to go to the camp because he was informed his mother was there. I don’t know who told him about the Brotherhood. He never shared that information with me.