This time, I wish for the sounder device. I wish for something to kill me, to give me the safety of death. I am still falling. Perhaps that will do it. Maybe I’ll die before she wriggles into my brain, and turns me loose on everything and everyone I care about. But I feel the tendrils in my mind, already taking hold. My fingers twitch at her command, and sparks jump between them. No. Please no.
I hit the other side of the block hard, probably breaking my arm, but I feel no pain. She takes it away.
With one last ragged scream, I do what I must, and use the last drops of my own free will to slip between the twisted bars beneath me, into the prison of Silent Stone. It shatters my ability—and hers. The sparks die, her control breaks, and blinding pain sears through my left arm and up into my shoulder. I laugh through my tears. How fitting. She built this prison to hurt me and the other newbloods. Now, it’s the only thing stopping her from doing just that.
Now, it is my last sanctuary.
From my place on the back wall of the cell—I guess it’s the floor now—I watch the mist dance. The gunfire slows, either because bullets are running low or it’s impossible to aim in such terrible visibility. A curling snake of flame blazes by, and I expect to see Cal follow, but his shape never appears. I call for him anyway. “Cal!” But my voice is weak. The Stone that saved me is taking hold. It presses like a weight against my neck.
She doesn’t take long to find me. Her boots edge the bars of my cage, and for a second, I think I must be hallucinating. This is not the glittering, glorious queen I remember. Gone are her dresses and jewels, replaced by a neat, navy-blue uniform with white detailing. Even her hair, usually perfectly curled and braided, has been slicked back into a simple bun. When I see gray at her temples, I laugh again.
“The first time we met, you were in a cell just like this,” she muses, stooping so she can see me better. “Bars did not stop me then, and they will not stop me now.”
“Come in, then,” I tell her, spitting blood. Definitely missing a tooth.
“Still the same girl you were. I thought the world would change you, but instead”—she tips her head, smiling like a cat—“you changed a little bit of the world. If you give me your hand, you can change even more.”
I can barely breathe through my laughter. “How stupid do you think I am?” Keep her talking. Keep her distracted. Someone will see her soon, someone must.
“Have it your way then,” she sighs, standing. She gestures to someone I can’t see. Guards, I realize, with a hollow, sinking resignation. Her hand reappears with a pistol, her finger already on the trigger. “I would have liked to be in your head once again. You have such lovely delusions.”
A small victory, I think, shutting my eyes. She will never have the lightning, and she will never have me. A victory indeed.
Again, I feel myself falling.
But instead of the bullet, the bars smack against my face. I open my eyes in time to see Elara sailing away from me, the gun spilling from her hand, a look of terrible anger twisting her beautiful face. Her guards scatter with her, disappearing into the yellowed clouds. And someone grabs my good arm, pulling me to him.
“C’mon, Mare, I can’t get you through on my own,” Shade says, trying to ease me through the bars. Breathless, I squeeze, pulling as much of myself as I can through. I guess it’s enough, because suddenly the world shrinks, the mist disappears, and I open my eyes to see blinding, white tile.
I almost collapse with joy. When I see Sara sprinting toward me, her hands outstretched, with Kilorn and Julian on her heels, I really do. Someone else catches me, someone warm. He turns me on my side and I hiss when my arm catches a bit of the pressure.
“Arm first, then burns, then scars,” Cal says, all business. I can’t help but moan when Sara touches me, and a blissful numbing spreads through my arm. Something cool hits my back, healing the burns, which were certainly infected. But before the healing can spread to my ugly, gnarled scars, I’m pulled to my feet and out of Sara’s control.
The door at the end of the corridor explodes outward, broken apart by rapidly growing twists of tree trunk. The mist follows, spinning toward us at great speed. The shadows come last. I know who they belong to.
Cal throws a blast of fire at the oncoming branches, burning them back, but the charred embers simply join the roaring whirlwind. “Cameron?” I yell, craning my head to look for the one person who can stop Elara. But she’s nowhere to be found.
“She’s already out, now go,” Kilorn yells at me, pushing me ahead.
I know I’m what Elara wants. Not only for my ability but for my face. If she can control me, she can use me as a mouthpiece again, to lie to the country, to do as she says. That’s why I run faster than the others. I have always been the fast one. When I look back over my shoulder, I’m yards ahead, and what I see chills me.
Cal has to forcibly pull Julian along, not because he’s weak, but because he keeps trying to stop. He wants to face her. He wants to pit his voice against her mind, against her whispers. To avenge a dead sister, a wounded love, a broken and torn-apart pride. But Cal won’t lose the last piece of family he has left, and all but drags Julian away. Sara keeps close to Julian’s side, one hand in his, unable to scream in fear.
Elara looks ugly in death. Lightning twisted her muscles, pulling her mouth into a sneer even she couldn’t muster while alive. Her simple uniform is cooked to her skin, and her ash-blond hair is almost gone, burned away until only stringy patches remain. The other bodies, her guards, were just as deformed. We left them rotting on the runway. But the queen is still unmistakable. Everyone will know this corpse. I’ll make sure of it.
“You should go lie down.”
The body unsettles Kilorn, that much is clear. I don’t know why. We should be dancing on her bones. “Let Sara check you out.”
“Tell Cal to change course.”
He blinks at me, perplexed. “Change course? What are you talking about? We’re going back to the Notch, back home—”
Home. I scoff at such a childish word. “We’re going back to Tuck. Tell him, please.”
“Mare.”
“Please.”
He doesn’t move. “Have you gone crazy? Do you remember what happened back there, what the Colonel will do to you if you come back?”
Crazy. I wish. I wish my mind would snap from the torture my life has become. That would be such a relief, to simply go mad. “He can certainly try. But there are too many of us now, even for him. And when he sees what I bring him, I doubt he’ll refuse us this time.”
“The body?” he breathes, visibly shaking. It’s not the corpse scaring him, I realize quietly. It’s me. “You’re going to show him the body?”
“I’m going to show everyone.” Again, firmer. “Tell Cal to change course. He will understand.”
The jab stings Kilorn, but I don’t care. He hardens, drawing back to do as I tell him. The cockpit door shuts behind him, but I barely notice. I’m preoccupied with more important things than petty insults. Who is he to question my orders? He’s no one. A fish boy with only good luck and my foolishness to protect him. Not like Shade, a teleporter, a newblood, a great man. How can he be dead? And he is not the only one. No, there are certainly others left to make the prison their tomb. We’ll only know when we land, and can see who else escaped on the Blackrun. And we will be landing on the island compound, not trekking to some lonely, backwoods cave.
“Did your seer tell you about this?”
The first words Farley’s spoken since we left Corros. She hasn’t wept yet, but her voice sounds hoarse, as if she spent the last few days screaming. Her eyes are horrible, ringed with red, the irises a vivid blue.
“That fool, Jon, who told us to do this?” she continues, turning to face me. “Did he tell you Shade would die? Did he? I suppose that was an easy price for the lightning girl to pay, so long as it meant more newbloods for you to control. More soldiers in a war you have no idea how to fight. One measly brother for more followers to kiss your feet. Not a bad trade, was it? Especially with the queen thrown in. Who cares about a dead man no one knows, when you could have her corpse?”
My slap sends her back a step, more in surprise than pain. She catches the sheet as she falls, pulling it sideways, revealing my brother’s pale face. At least his eyes are closed. He could be only sleeping. I move to tug the sheet back into place—I can’t look at him long—but she hits me with her shoulder, using her considerable height to drive me into the wall.
The cockpit door bangs open, and the two boys rush out, drawn by the noise. In an instant, Cal takes Farley down, tapping the back of her knee so she stumbles. Kilorn is less fancy, simply wrapping both his arms around me, hoisting me clean off the ground.
“He was my brother!” I yell at her.
She screams her response. “He was far more than that!”
Her words trigger a memory.
When she doubts. Jon told me to tell her something. When she doubts. And Farley certainly doubts now.
“Jon did tell me something,” I say, trying to push off Kilorn. “Something for you to hear.”
She lunges, reaching, and Cal pushes her back down again. He gets an elbow to the face for the trouble, but doesn’t relinquish his firm hold on her shoulders. She isn’t going anywhere, yet she continues to struggle.
Farley, you never know when to quit. I used to admire you for it. Now I only pity you.
“He told me the answer to your question.”
It stops her short, her breath coming in tiny, frightened puffs. She stares, wide-eyed. I can almost hear her heart beating.
“He said yes.”
I don’t know what that means, but it levels her. She slumps, falling on her hands, and bows her head behind a short curtain of blond hair. I see the tears anyway. She isn’t going to fight anymore.
Cal knows it too, and backs away from her shaking form. He almost trips on Elara’s deformed arm, and shies away from it, flinching. “Give her space,” he murmurs, and seizes me by the arm in a bruising grip. He all but drags me away, despite my protests.
I don’t want to leave her. Not Farley, but Elara. Despite her wounds, her burns, and her glassy eyes, I don’t trust her corpse to stay dead. A foolish worry, but I feel it all the same.
“By my colors, what’s the matter with you?” he snarls, slamming the cockpit door behind us, shutting out Farley’s low sobs and Kilorn’s scowl. “You know what Shade was to her—”
“You know what he was to me,” I reply. Being civil isn’t at the top of my list, but I try. My voice quivers anyway. My closest brother. I lost him before, and now again. This time he isn’t coming back. There’s no coming back. “You don’t see me screaming at people.”
You’re right. You just kill them.”
Breath hisses between my teeth. Is that what this is about? I almost laugh at him. “At least one of us can.”
I expect a screaming match at the very least. What I get is worse. Cal takes a step back, bumping against the instrument panel, trying to put as much distance as he can between us. Usually I’m the one to pull away, but not anymore. Something breaks behind his eyes, betraying the wounds he hides beneath his flaming skin. “What happened to you, Mare?” he whispers.
What hasn’t happened to me? A single day without worry, that’s what. All to prepare me for this, for the fate I bought myself with the mutations of my blood—and the many mistakes I’ve chosen to make, Cal included. “My brother just died, Cal.”
But he shakes his head, never looking away from me. His gaze burns. “You killed those men in the command center, you and Cameron, while they begged. Shade wasn’t dead then. Don’t blame this on him.”
“They were Silver—”
“I am Silver.”
“I am Red. Don’t act like you haven’t killed hundreds of us.”
“Not for me, not the way you kill. I was a soldier following orders, obeying my king. And they were just as innocent as I was when my father was alive.”
Tears prick my eyes, begging to be spilled. Faces swim before me, murdered soldiers and officers, too many to count. “Why are you saying this to me?” I whisper. “I did what I had to, to stay alive, to save people—to save you, you stupid, stubborn prince of nothing. You of all people should know the burden I carry. How dare you try to make me feel guiltier than I already do?”
“She wanted to turn you into a monster.” He nods toward the door, and the twisted body behind it. “I’m just trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Elara is dead.” The words taste sweet as wine. She’s gone, she can’t hurt me. “She can’t control anyone anymore.”