Bluewing (8 page)

Based on the location of Echlos and Borde’s private lab, the remains of the Security Center had to be around here somewhere. And I was going to find it. It made sense to try all the ruins of the places I knew had previously existed when looking for the way to contact the Trio. Borde’s lab had turned up nothing in the vein of what I sought, so I’d moved on.

Something about the landscape seemed familiar, but only faintly. Was this the location of the former Security Center? Everything was bigger, harsher, more tangled. The centuries had gnawed everything familiar apart and grown it back wild and strange.

After a moment of hesitation, I began to cross the clearing. The snow crunched, crusty like old bread beneath my feet.

Then the world gave way, and I fell.

The air punched from my lungs in a strangled huff as I hit the ground. Pain shot through my legs. Snow hissed around me in a cascade. I lay stunned, staring at the sky far above me.

I’d fallen into some kind of pit.

When I could breathe again, I moved my legs and arms. Nothing seemed broken, although everything hurt. I lifted my hands. They were bleeding where jagged pieces of ice had cut them. My back ached, and I tasted blood on my lips—I must have bit my tongue when I fell.

I slid my hands in front of me to get purchase on the ground enough to sit up, and the sound of my movements echoed around me, amplified into something hollow and strange. Groaning, I looked around.

Light slanting through the hole above me and illuminated the space. Thick walls of smooth stone surrounded me, and a corridor stretched away in either direction, the ends veiled in darkness.

The Security Center?

I climbed gingerly to my hands and knees and then to my feet, testing myself for injuries before I stood. My hip ached where I’d fallen, but otherwise I was unharmed. I brushed snow from my cloak and blew hair from my eyes, and then I faced the tunnel. With no light, I was reluctant to venture down it. But how else was I going to get out of here? I couldn’t climb back up the way I’d fallen. I couldn’t simply wait here, hoping for someone to pass by. This was the Frost. Nobody ventured out into it except Hunters, Trappers, and now Farther soldiers. I didn’t dare seek help from any of them.

Sucking in a lungful of musty air, I headed down the corridor.

The back of my neck prickled with every step, but I pushed the thoughts of apprehension away. Fear would not help me now.

The light grew dimmer and grayer the farther I went, until it winked out entirely. No ceiling lights flicked on at my movement—either no power existed in this structure anymore, unlike Echlos, or it wasn’t part of the Compound buildings. The ground was spongy beneath my feet, a combination of dust and lichen.

A blue light glimmered ahead. I turned the corner and saw beads of glowing fungi clinging to the wall. I plucked a handful and continued on.

The corridor walls pressed in around me like the edges of a nightmare, hemming me in, keeping me prisoner. The silence-infused darkness was suffocating, and the pitiful light in my hand did little to allay it. Strange, distorted shapes danced in the faint glow that surrounded me. Doorways loomed like mouths of monsters, and shadows dripped down walls and scuttled away from the light like rats.

The corridor dead-ended in steps that twisted upward, and I climbed them, because I wanted to go up. The fungi in my hand cast a soft circle of light around me that touched on the walls and revealed a patch of floor ahead. I turned another corner and paused.

I recognized this hall. I’d spent hours cleaning it. There were the doorways leading into offices and security rooms. Hope blossomed in me. Perhaps this was where Adam contacted the Trio?

My quest to escape forgotten, I searched the offices one by one. The floors were coated in dust, and the furniture that remained had rotted into cadaverous reminders of their former selves. I brushed my hands over the walls and crouched to peer into shadowy corners.

Nothing.

Something about the shape of the final office felt familiar, like the essence of a dream I’d forgotten. I paused, thinking hard. From the depths of my memory rose a recollection of me peering into a room where guards huddled around a glowing box. My heartbeat quickened. Perspiration broke across my back. I stepped into the room and lifted the fungus to see better.

The glint of metal caught my eye, and my pulse stuttered. I took a hesitant step toward the far wall, and the light illuminated a table strewn with humming devices. I sucked in a breath. Was this it?

The pale light of the fungus painted shadows on the wall and threw the devices into garish relief. I saw buttons, tangles of wires, a row of boxes. I ran one finger over the dials and switches and gnawed my lip. How was I supposed to work this thing?

My finger slipped on the dial.

Light shot from the device. The boxes blinked and hummed louder. Glowing words flashed in the darkness.

Agent A, report.

Agent A. Adam? Or Atticus? I reached out to touch the letters, and they swirled away from my fingertips, replaced by rows of new ones all in a jumble. I touched each letter I needed, building a message in return. I kept it brief. I didn’t dare say anything about the Blackcoats until I was sure this wasn’t some kind of trap.

Agent A gone. Agent L here. Have fugitives. Need orders.

When I’d finished, the message disappeared. I stared for a long time at the blank space where it had been. Was that it? What happened now?

I remained there for a span of hours or minutes, it was impossible to tell. My stomach pinched, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in a long time. My hip throbbed. I needed to get out of here.

The device clicked loudly. I sprang back, startled, as words flashed across the screen once more.

Received. Keep fugitives safe. Gather information. Do what you can to solidify your position.

I composed a reply.

Revolution developing. Instructions?

I waited and waited, but there was no response. Time was slipping away—I needed to get back to Echlos. I decided to return later to see what they’d said.

The machine hummed behind me as I left the room, heading toward where I knew staircases led to the higher levels. I’d never been to those floors before, because I hadn’t had permission to see them. But I knew they were closer to the surface, and that was where I needed to be right now.

Ahead I spotted light. The seams of a closed door glowed white. Relief shot through my body. I grabbed the knob and twisted.

The door gave way with a groan of hinges rusty from disuse. I staggered inside, blinded by the light. When my vision cleared, my lungs squeezed and my stomach flipped.

I was not outside. A transparent ceiling—glass?—stretched over me, drenching a massive room of white tile in light.

And in the middle of the room, motionless, were more than two dozen Watchers.

WATCHERS. NOT FIVE steps away.

I gasped, the sound a harsh rasp in the silence. Every hair on my body prickled as I fumbled for my knife and braced for them to turn at the sound.

But they didn’t move.

It was then that I began to notice the small details—the slack positions of their limbs, the glassy black color of their eyes, the stillness of their bodies. They were...dead? Sleeping? Whatever these mechanical things did during the day?

My whole body sagged as relief turned my muscles to mush.

I held still and counted to one hundred, waiting for them to stir. When they didn’t, I began to inch backward toward the door. I remembered Ivy’s words about their ability to wake in daylight. She’d also claimed they were docile during sunlight hours. Was it true?

The sky, visible through the transparent ceiling, mocked me with its nearness. But there had to be another way out, one that was not fraught with peril.

My fingers closed around the knob behind me, and I twisted it. The door shrieked as I dragged it open, and fresh horror swept over my skin in the shape of goose bumps. But still, the Watchers never stirred.

My courage grew as the creatures remained motionless. I bent and scooped up a piece of debris from the ground, tossing it a few feet from the closest Watcher. The eyes didn’t open. The powerful, jointed neck didn’t stir. The claws never moved from where they were curled against the floor.

I relaxed. Curiosity sunk its hooks into me, and I let go of the knob and stepped back into the room. I’d never had time to truly study a Watcher in the light of day, and I certainly had never seen so many in one place. They were all different sizes, different colors. Some were black, some iron gray, some pale enough to almost be white. They looked like a pack of ugly, misshapen wild dogs crossed with reptiles, with their too-long necks and too-powerful haunches and curling, talon-tipped feet. Long heads ended in hulking jaws laden with teeth. Spikes lined the necks and descended down backs studded with armored plates and patches of fur. Long tails stretched behind them on the ground. They were terrible, strange, freakish. Monsters.

I raised my gaze from the Watchers to the ceiling. A seam split the glass, and below it...was that a ramp? It was made of metal, rusted but still solid-looking, and it led upward to the seam in the ceiling. I sucked in a breath and crept forward, keeping to the edge of the room. Clearly this was where the Watchers came to sleep during the day, and that ramp must be how they gained access to the Frost at night.

Could I use it to escape this place?

I edged past the slumbering Watchers. How was I supposed to open the ceiling-doors?

But as I reached the ramp, the doors above me groaned and slid apart. Snow whispered down in white granules, bits of ice striking my face and catching in my hair. I breathed in and out in relief and stepped forward.

Then, something behind me moved.

I whirled, my cloak fluttering.

One of the Watchers was stirring. Light glowed in the dark eyes. The claws scraped against the floor, the haunches flexed, the neck swerved. A faint, guttural sound emanated from the jaws.

I hissed a curse and crept backward, fumbling at my waist. Where was my knife? My fingers brushed the handle. I wrenched it out and pressed it to my skin.

The creature turned its head and caught me in its gaze. I stopped as the Watcher rose up to full height.

But instead of red, the eyes were amber. The creature studied me. I remained poised, my finger against the knife, but the creature didn’t approach. I noticed a reddish mark on the side of its right shoulder, a streak of paint.

Backing the rest of the way up the ramp, I reached solid ground and fled.

~

When I returned to Echlos, Jullia and Ivy were waiting. Jullia handed me a note from the Blackcoat leaders without a word.

We must meet immediately. Trouble in Iceliss. Give your reply to the bearer of this note along with your preferred location.

I raised my eyes from the note to Jullia. “Trouble?”

She shook her head to indicate that she didn’t know. “The soldiers have been more active lately. Nobody knows what Raine is thinking or planning. He’s called an assembly this afternoon, and we think he has something he’s going to announce. Something important.”

I wanted to be at that assembly. I chewed my lip, thinking.

Gather information
, the message from the Trio had said.

“I’m going to accompany you to the village.”

~

It’d only been a few months’ time since I’d seen Iceliss by day, but it felt more like years. Everything about the town was tinged with gray, trampled down, sucked of life. Dried vines gripped the edges of the walls like withered fingers. Dirty snow lined the streets in piles of sludge. Even the sky was the color of cold steel.

The villagers scuttled past with their heads down. Ivy and I joined the flow heading toward the Assembly Hall. I wore a plain, ragged gray cloak instead of my normal Weaver blue, and I kept the edge of it drawn across my nose and mouth to hide my face. But nobody glanced my way, not even the soldiers that stood on every corner.

A crowd had already begun to gather at the Assembly Hall by the time we reached it. I saw a few familiar faces among them. Eyes were lined with shadows, mouths were thin and pressed tightly together, arms were crossed. Everyone looked braced for bad news.

Ivy and I slipped as close to the front steps of the hall as we dared to get, and then we waited. I leaned against the wall and turned my face away from the crowd. Whispers floated around me, snippets of conversation.

“I hear there’s been another soldier death due to Watchers...”

“...Wouldn’t die if they didn’t venture into the Frost like imbeciles...”

“There’s been talk of the Blackcoats again. There was a break-in at the Mayor’s house...Raine is furious...”

A break-in? I wondered.

Movement flickered at the edge of the crowd, and the people parted like a stream around a rock, the flow of gray and white cloaks cut in half by a stomping retinue of dark-haired soldiers followed by Officer Raine, the commanding officer in charge of the occupation of the Frost. He was smallish compared to the soldiers around him. My chest clenched and my skin prickled at the sight of him. His hair lay in thin wisps over his forehead, his mouth curled in a perpetual scowl, and he lurched with every step due to a limp sustained from an old injury. He looked like someone’s grumpy but benign grandfather, not a man bent on wringing every last drop of life from our village. I stepped back so I was clothed in shadows, but he passed by without even glancing my way.

I saw the Mayor, thin and white-faced, following in Raine’s shadow, and I wondered briefly what he thought of Ann’s absence and the accusations against her. Did he know that his daughter was a member of the Thorns? Surely not. How ironic, how twisted...now he was working with us, and she wasn’t here to see it.

I missed her, and the feeling was like a bruise on my heart.

The Mayor and Raine climbed the steps alone and turned to face us as the soldiers fanned out below. Raine frowned at the crowd.