To my grandparents, here and there. You are always home.
CONTENTS
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from Queen Song
Excerpt from Steel Scars
Back Ads
About the Author
Books by Victoria Aveyard
Credits
About the Publisher
ONE
I flinch. The rag she gives me is clean, but it still smells like blood. I shouldn’t care. I already have blood all over my clothes. The red is mine, of course. The silver belongs to many others. Evangeline, Ptolemus, the nymph lord, all those who tried to kill me in the arena. I suppose some of it is Cal’s as well. He bled freely on the sand, cut and bruised by our would-be executioners. Now he sits across from me, staring at his feet, letting his wounds begin the slow process of healing naturally. I glance at one of the many cuts on my arms, probably from Evangeline. Still fresh, and deep enough to leave a scar. Part of me delights in the thought. This jagged gash will not be magically wiped away by a healer’s cold hands. Cal and I are not in the Silver world anymore, with someone to simply erase our well-earned scars. We have escaped. Or at least, I have. Cal’s chains are a firm reminder of his captivity.
Farley nudges my hand, her touch surprisingly gentle. “Hide your face, lightning girl. It’s what they’re after.”
For once, I do as I’m told. The others follow, pulling red fabric up over their mouths and noses. Cal is the last uncovered face, but not for long. He doesn’t fight Farley when she ties his mask into place, making him look like one of us.
If only he was.
An electric hum sets my blood on fire, reminding me of the pulsing, screeching Undertrain. It carries us inexorably forward, to a city that was once a haven. The train races, screaming over ancient tracks like a Silver swift running over open ground. I listen to the grating metal, feel it deep in my bones where a cold ache settles in. My rage, my strength back in the arena seem like faraway memories, leaving behind only pain and fear. I can scarcely imagine what Cal must be thinking. He’s lost everything, everything he ever held dear. A father, a brother, a kingdom. How he’s holding himself together, still but for the rocking of the train, I do not know.
No one needs to tell me the reason for our haste. Farley and her Guardsmen, tense as coiled wire, are enough explanation for me. We are still running.
Maven came this way before, and Maven will come again. This time with the fury of his soldiers, his mother, and his new crown. Yesterday he was a prince; today he is king. I thought he was my friend, my betrothed, now I know better.
Once, I trusted him. Now I know to hate him, to fear him. He helped kill his father for a crown, and framed his brother for the crime. He knows the radiation surrounding the ruined city is a lie—a trick—and he knows where the train leads. The sanctuary Farley built is no longer safe, not for us. Not for you.
We could already be speeding into a trap.
An arm tightens around me, sensing my unease. Shade. I still can’t believe my brother is here, alive and, strangest of all, like me. Red and Silver—and stronger than both.
“I won’t let them take you again,” he murmurs, so low I can barely hear him. I suppose loyalty to anyone but the Scarlet Guard, even family, is not allowed. “I promise you that.”
His presence is soothing, pulling me backward in time. Past his conscription, to a rainy spring when we could still pretend to be children. Nothing existed but the mud, the village, and our foolish habit of ignoring the future. Now the future is all I think of, wondering what dark path my actions have set us upon.
“What are we going to do now?” I direct the question at Farley, but my eyes find Kilorn. He stands at her shoulder, a dutiful guardian with a clenched jaw and bloody bandages. To think he was a fisherman’s apprentice not so long ago. Like Shade, he seems out of place, a ghost of a time before all this.
“There’s always somewhere to run,” Farley replies, more focused on Cal than anything else.
She expects him to fight, to resist, but he does neither.
“You keep your hands on her,” Farley says, turning back to Shade after a long moment. My brother nods, and his palm feels heavy on my shoulder. “She cannot be lost.”