die today,” is all she says, before marching toward the front of the train. Her boots sound like hammer falls on the metal flooring, each one smacking of stubborn resolve.
I sense the train slow before I feel it. The electricity wanes, weakening, as we glide into the underground station. What we might find in the skies above, white fog or orange-winged airjets, I do not know. The others don’t seem to mind, exiting the Undertrain with great purpose. In their silence, the armed and masked Guard looks like true soldiers, but I know better. They’re no match for what is coming.
“Prepare yourself.” Cal’s voice hisses in my ear, making me shiver. It reminds me of days long past, of dancing in moonlight. “Remember how strong you are.”
Kilorn shoulders his way to my side, separating us before I can tell Cal my strength and my ability are all I’m sure of now. The electricity in my veins might be the only thing I trust in this world.
I want to believe in the Scarlet Guard, and certainly in Shade and Kilorn, but I won’t let myself, not after the mess my trust, my blindness toward Maven got us into. And Cal is out of the question altogether. He is a prisoner, a Silver, the enemy who would betray us if he could—if he had anywhere else to run.
But still, somehow, I feel a pull to him. I remember the burdened boy who gave me a silver coin when I was nothing. With that one gesture he changed my future, and destroyed his own.
And we share an alliance—an uneasy one forged in blood and betrayal. We are connected, we are united—against Maven, against all who deceived us, against the world about to tear itself apart.
Silence waits for us. Gray, damp mist hangs over the ruins of Naercey, bringing the sky down so close I might touch it. It’s cold, with the chill of autumn, the season of change and death. Nothing haunts the sky yet, no jets to rain destruction down upon an already destroyed city. Farley sets a brisk pace, leading up from the tracks to the wide, abandoned avenue. The wreckage yawns like a canyon, more gray and broken than I remember.
We march east down the street, toward the shrouded waterfront. The high, half-collapsed structures lean over us, their windows like eyes watching us pass. Silvers could be waiting in the broken hollows and shadowed arches, ready to kill the Scarlet Guard. Maven could make me watch as he struck rebels down one by one. He would not give me the luxury of a clean, quick death. Or worse, I think. He would not let me die at all.
The thought chills my blood like a Silver shiver’s touch. As much as Maven lied to me, I still know a small piece of his heart. I remember him grabbing me through the bars of a cell, holding on with shaking fingers. And I remember the name he carries, the name that reminds me a heart still beats inside him. His name was Thomas and I watched him die. He could not save that boy. But he can save me, in his own twisted way.
No. I will never give him the satisfaction of such a thing. I would rather die.
But try as I might, I can’t forget the shadow I thought him to be, the lost and forgotten prince. I wish that person were real. I wish he existed somewhere other than my memories.
The Naercey ruins echo strangely, more quiet than they should be. With a start, I realize why. The refugees are gone. The woman sweeping mountains of ash, the children hiding in drains, the shadows of my Red brothers and sisters—they have all fled. There’s no one left but us.
“Think what you want of Farley, but know she isn’t stupid,” Shade says, answering my question before I get a chance to ask. “She gave the order to evacuate last night, after she escaped Archeon. She thought you or Maven would talk under torture.”
She was wrong. There was no need to torture Maven. He gave his information and his mind freely. He opened his head to his mother, letting her paw through everything she saw there. The Undertrain, the secret city, the list. It is all hers now, just like he always was.
The line of Scarlet Guard soldiers stretches out behind us, a disorganized rabble of armed men and women. Kilorn marches directly behind me, his eyes darting, while Farley leads. Two