Glass Sword (27 page)

She flicks one of her many braids over her shoulder. It’s the only thing she can move without straining against her many belts and straps. “What’s in it for me, then?”

“Innocence.” I heave a breath. “You keep running your mouth and you leave all those prisoners to their fate.” Jon’s words float back to me, a haunting echo of a warning. “To die, or face worse. I’m saving you from the guilt of that.”
A guilt I know too well.

There’s a slow pressure at my shoulder—Shade. Leaning into me, letting me know he’s there. A brother in blood and arms, another to share in victory, and blame.

But instead of agreeing, as any rational person should, Cameron looks even angrier than before. Her face darkens, a thundercloud of emotion. “Can’t believe you’ve got the stones to say that. You, who abandoned so many after you sentenced them to the trenches.”

Cal’s had enough. He slams a fist onto the arm of his chair. It echoes bluntly. “That wasn’t her order—”

“But it was your fault. You and your stupid band of ratty red rags.” She tosses a glare at Farley, cutting off any retort she might throw. “Gambling with
our
families,
our
lives, while you ran and hid in the woods. And now you think you’re some kind of hero, flying around saving everyone you think is
special
, who’s worth the lightning girl’s precious time. I bet you walk right through the slums and the poor villages. I bet you don’t even see what you’ve done to us.” The blood rises with her anger, coloring her cheeks in a dark, lurid flush. I can’t do much more than stare. “Newbloods, silverbloods, redbloods, it’s all the same, all over again. Some who are special, some who are better than the rest, and the ones who still have nothing at all.”

Sickness rolls in my belly, a foreboding wave of dread. “What do you mean?”

“
Division.
Favoring one over the other. You’re on the hunt for people like you, to protect them, to train them, to make them fight your war. Not because they want to, but because
you
need them. What about those kids going to fight? You don’t care about them at all
.
You’d trade them all for another walking, whining spark plug.”

The lights flicker again, faster than before. I feel every revolution of the jet engines, despite their blinding speed. The sensation is maddening. “I’m trying to save people from Maven. He’s going to turn newbloods into weapons, which will end in
more
death,
more
blood—”

“You’re doing exactly what
they
did.” She points her bound hands at Cal. They shake with anger. I know the feeling, and try to hide the tremors of rage in my own fingers.

“Mare.” Cal’s warning falls on deaf ears, drowned out by my thundering pulse.

Cameron spits venom. She’s enjoying this. “An age ago, when the Silvers were new. When they were few, hunted by the people who thought they were too different.”

My hands grip the edge of my seat, digging into something solid.
Control.
Now the jet whines in my ear, a screech to split bone.

We bounce in the air, and Gareth yelps, clutching at his leg. “Cameron, stop!” Farley shouts, her hands flying to her belts. They unsnap in rapid succession. “If you don’t shut yourself up, I will!”

But Cameron only has eyes, and anger, for me. “Look where that road led,” she growls, leaning as far as her straps will allow. Before I know it, I’m on my feet, my balance unsteady as the jet sways. I can barely hear her over the metallic shrieks bouncing around my skull. Her hands are out of her bindings, unfastening her belts with striking precision. She jumps up to stand, snarling into my face. “A hundred years from now a newblood king will sit the throne you built him on the skulls of children.”

Something tears inside me. It’s the barrier between human and animal, between sense and madness. Suddenly I’ve forgotten the jet, the altitude, and everyone else relying on my weakening control. I can think only of
educating
this brat, of showing exactly who and what we’re trying to save. When my fist collides with her jaw, I expect to see sparks spread over her skin, dragging her down to the floor.

There’s nothing but my bruised knuckles.

She stares, just as surprised as me. All around us, the flickering lights return to normal and the jet levels out. The whine in my head abruptly cuts off, as if a blanket of silence has fallen over my senses. It hits like a punch in the gut, dropping me to one knee.

Shade has my arm in a second, clutching with brotherly concern. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

In the cockpit, Cal glances between me and his control panel, his head whipping back and forth. “Stabilized,” he mutters, though I’m anything but. “Mare—”

“Not me.” A cold sweat breaks across my brow, and I fight the sudden urge to be sick. My breath comes in short pants, like the air is being pressed from my lungs. Something is smothering me. “Her.”

She takes a step back, too shocked to lie. Her mouth falls open in fear. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t, I bleeding swear it.”

“You didn’t mean to, Cameron.” That might surprise her most of all. “Just calm yourself, just—just stop—” I can’t breathe, I really can’t breathe. My grip tightens on Shade, nails digging in. Panic spikes through my nerves, alone without my lightning.

He takes my full weight on his bad shoulder, ignoring the slight twinge of pain. At least Shade is smart enough to know what I’m trying to say. “You’re silencing her, Cameron. You’re shutting her abilities down, you’re shutting
her
down.”

“I can’t—how?” Her dark eyes are full of terror.

My vision spots, but I see Cal blunder past. Cameron flinches away from him, as any person in their right mind would, but Cal knows what to do. He’s coached the children, and me, through similar episodes of superhuman chaos.

“Let go,” he says, firm and steady. No coddling, but no anger. “Breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Let go of what you’re holding.”

Please let go. Please let go.
My breath comes in gasps, each one shallower than the last.

“Let her go, Cameron.”

It’s as if a boulder has been placed on my chest, and is pressing me to death, squeezing out any semblance of myself.

“Let her go.”

“I’m trying!”

“Easy.”

“I’m trying.” Her voice is softer, more controlled. “I’m trying.”

Cal nods, his motions smooth as rolling waves. “That’s it. That’s it.”

Another gasp, but this time the air sears into my lungs. I can breathe again. My senses are dull, but returning. They increase with every strengthening beat of my heart.

“That’s it,” Cal says again, looking over his shoulder. His eyes find mine, and a thread of tension releases between us. “That’s it.”

I don’t hold his gaze long. I have to look at Cameron, at her fear. She squeezes her eyes shut and furrows her brow in concentration. A single tear escapes, trailing down her cheek, and her hands massage the tattoo at her neck. She is only fifteen. She doesn’t deserve this. She shouldn’t have to be so afraid of herself.

“I’m all right,” I force out, and her eyes snap open.

Before she slams shut the walls to her heart, relief flashes across her face. It doesn’t last long. “This doesn’t change how I feel, Barrow.”

If I could stand, I would. But my muscles still tremble with weakness. “You want to do this to someone else? To your brother when you find him?”

There it is. The bargain we must make. She knows it too.

“You get us into Corros, and we’ll make sure you know how to use your ability. We’ll make you the deadliest person in the world.”

I fear I will regret those words.

M
y voice echoes strangely
in the wide entrance chamber of the safe house. The storm from the Rift has caught up with us, and a heavy mix of snow and freezing rain howls on the other side of the dirt wall. Cold comes with it, but Cal does his best to chase it away. The inhabitants of the Notch huddle together, trying to warm themselves over the campfire he kindled on the floor. Every eye catches the firelight, becoming too many red and orange jewels. They flicker with every twist of flame, always staring at me. Fifteen pairs in all. In addition to Cameron, Cal, Farley, and my brother, the adults of the Notch have come to hear what I have to say. Sitting next to Ada are Ketha, Harrick, and Nix. Fletcher, a skin healer immune to pain, extends his pale hands too close to the fire. Gareth pulls him back before his skin can burn. There’s also Darmian, invulnerable as Nix, and Lory from the rocky islands of Kentosport. Even Kilorn graces us with his presence, sitting firmly between his hunting partners, Crance and Farrah.

Thankfully there are no children present. They will have no part in this, and continue on in whatever safety I can give. Nanny keeps them
in their room, amusing them with her transformations, while anyone over sixteen listens to me explain everything we learned on the way to Pitarus. They sit in rapt attention, faces pulled in shock or fear or determination.

“Jon said four days would be too long. So we must do it in three.”

Three days to storm a prison, three days to plan. I had more than a month of hard training with the Silvers, and years before that on the streets of the Stilts. Cal is a soldier from birth, Shade spent more than a year in the army, and Farley is a captain in her own right, though she has no abilities of her own. But the others? As I look on the collected strength of the Notch, my resolve wavers. If only we had more time. Ada, Gareth, and Nix are our best chances, having abilities best suited to a raid, not to mention the most time training at the Notch. The others are powerful—Ketha can obliterate an object with the blink of an eye—but woefully inexperienced. They’ve been here for a few days or weeks at most, coming from gutters and forgotten villages where they were nothing and no one. Sending them to fight will be like putting a child behind the wheel of a transport. They’ll be a danger to everyone, especially themselves.

Everyone knows it’s foolish, an impossibility, but no one says so. Even Cameron has the good sense to keep her mouth shut. She glares into the fire, refusing to look up. I can’t watch her for long. She makes me too angry, and too sad. She’s exactly what I was trying to avoid.

Farley finds her voice first. “Even
if
that Jon character spoke true about his abilities, there’s no proof what he told us isn’t a lie.” She leans forward, cutting a sharp silhouette against the pit of fire. “He could be an agent of Maven’s. He said Elara was going to start controlling newbloods—what if she was controlling him? Using him to lure us? He said Maven would set a trap. Maybe this is it?”

With a sinking feeling, I see a few nod along with her. Crance, Farrah, and Fletcher. I expect Kilorn to side with his hunting crew, but he keeps still and silent. Like Cameron, he won’t look at me.

Warmth breaks against me on all sides. From the fire ahead, and Cal behind, leaning against the dirt wall. He radiates like a furnace, but is quiet as the grave. He knows better than to speak. Many here tolerate him only because of me, or the children, or both. I cannot rely on him to win soldiers. I must do that myself.

“I believe him.” The words feel so foreign in my mouth, but they are stone solid. These people insist on treating me like a leader, so I will act like one. And I’ll convince them to follow. “I’m going to Corros, trap or not. The newbloods there face two fates—to die, or be used by the puppeteer everyone calls the queen. Both are unacceptable.”

Murmurs of agreement roll through the ones I’m trying to win over. Gareth leads them, bobbing his head in a show of loyalty. He saw Jon with his own eyes, and needs no more convincing than I do.

“I won’t make anyone go. Like before, you all have a choice in this.” Cameron shakes her head slightly, but says nothing. Shade keeps close to her, always within arm’s reach, in case she decides to do something else stupid. “It will not be easy, but it is not impossible.”

If I say it enough, I might start to believe it myself.

“How’s that?” Crance pipes up. “If I heard you right, that prison was built to keep people like you shut up. It’s not just bars and locked doors you’ll have to get through. There’ll be eyes at every gate, a fleet of Silver officers, an armory, cameras, Silent Stone, and that’s only if you’re lucky, lightning girl.”

Next to him, Fletcher swallows thickly. He might not be able to feel pain, but the pale, fleshy man can certainly feel fear. “And what if you’re not?”

“Ask her.” I tip my head toward Cameron. “She escaped.”

Gasps ripple through the crowd as if they were the surface of a pond. Now I’m not the one they’re staring at, and it feels good to relax a little. In contrast, Cameron tightens, her long limbs seeming to fold inward, shielding her from their many eyes.

Even Kilorn looks up, but not at Cameron. His gaze trails past her, finding me as I lean back against the wall. And all my relief washes away, replaced by a twist of some emotion I can’t place. Not fear, not anger. No, this is something else.
Longing.
In the shifting firelight, with the storm outside, I can pretend we’re a boy and girl huddled beneath a stilt house, seeking refuge from autumn’s howl. Would that someone could control the span of time, and bring me back to those days. I would hold on to them jealously, instead of whining about the cold and hunger. Now I’m just as cold, just as hungry, but no blanket can warm me, no food can sate me. Nothing will ever be the same. It’s my own fault. And Kilorn followed me into this nightmare.

“Does she speak?” Crance sneers when he gets tired of waiting for Cameron to open her mouth.

Farley chuckles. “Too much for my taste. Go on, Cole, tell us everything you remember.”

I expect Cameron to snap again, maybe even bite Farley on the nose, but an audience calms her temper. She sees my trick, but that doesn’t stop it from working. There are too many hopeful eyes, too many willing to step in harm’s way. She can’t ignore them now.

“It’s past Delphie,” she sighs. Her eyes cloud with painful memory. “Somewhere near the Wash, so close you can almost smell the radiation.”

The Wash forms the southern border of Norta, a natural divide from Piedmont and the Silver princes that reign there. Like Naercey,
the Wash is a land of ruin, too far gone for Silvers to reclaim. Not even the Scarlet Guard dares walk there, where radiation is not a deception, and the smoke of a thousand years still lingers.

“They kept us isolated,” Cameron continues. “One to each cell, and many didn’t have enough strength to do anything other than lie on their cots. Something about that place made the others sick.”

“Silent Stone.” I answer her unasked question, because I remember the same feeling all too well. Twice I’ve been in such a cell, and twice it leached my strength away.

“Not much light, not much food.” She shifts on her seat, eyes narrowed against the flames. “Couldn’t talk much either. Guards didn’t like us speaking, and they were always on patrol. Sometimes Sentinels came and took people away. Some were too weak to walk and had to be dragged along. I don’t think the block was full, though. I saw lots of empty cells in there.” Her breath catches. “More every bleeding day.”

“Describe it, the structure,” Farley says. She nudges Harrick and I understand her line of thinking.

“We were in our own block, the newbloods taken out of the Beacon region. It was a big square, with four flights of cells lining the walls. There were catwalks connecting the different levels, all tangled, and the magnetrons pulled them back at night. Same with the cells, if they had to open them. Magnetrons all over,” she curses, and I don’t blame her for her anger. There were no men like Lucas Samos in the prison, no kind magnetrons like the one who died for me in Archeon. “No windows, but there was a skylight in the ceiling. Small, but enough to let us see the sun for a few minutes.”

“Like this?” Harrick asks, and rubs his hands together. Before our eyes, one of his illusions appears above the campfire, an image turning slowly. A box made of faint green lines. As my eyes adjust to what I’m
seeing, I realize it’s a rough, three-dimensional outline of Cameron’s prison block.

She stares at it, eyes flickering over every inch of the illusion. “Wider,” she murmurs, and Harrick’s fingers jump. The illusion responds. “Two more catwalks. Four gates on the top level, one in each wall.”

Harrick does as he’s told, manipulating the image until she’s satisfied. He almost smiles. This is easy for him, a simple game, like drawing. We stare at the rough picture in silence, each one of us trying to puzzle out a way in.

“A pit,” Farrah moans, dropping her head in her hands. Indeed, the prison block looks just like a square, sharp hole.

Ada is less gloomy, and more interested in dissecting as much of the prison as she can. “Where do the gates lead?”

With a sigh, Cameron’s shoulders slump. “More blocks. How many total, I don’t know. I got through three in a line before I was out.”

The illusion changes, adding blocks onto the sides of Cameron’s. The sight feels like a punch in the gut. So many cells, so many gates. So many places for us to stumble and fall.
But Cameron escaped. Cameron, who has no training and no idea how much she can do.

“You said there were Silvers in the prison.” Cal speaks for the first time since we began the meeting, and his mood is dark indeed. He won’t step into the circle of firelight. For a moment, he looks the shadow Maven always claimed to be. “Where?”

A barking, angry laugh, harsh as stone against steel, escapes from Nix. He jabs an accusing finger in the air, stabbing. “Why? You want to let your friends out of their cages? Send them back to their mansions and tea parties? Bah, let them rot!” He waves a veined hand in Cal’s direction, and his laughter turns cold as the autumn storm. “You
should leave this one behind, Mare. Better yet, send him away. He’s got no mind to protect anything but his own.”

My mouth moves faster than my brain, but this time, they’re in agreement. “Every single one of you knows that’s a lie. Cal has bled for us all, and protected each of us, not to mention trained most of you. If he’s asking about the other Silvers in Corros, he has a reason, and it is
not
to free them.”

“Actually—”

I spin, eyes wide, and surprise echoes over the room. “You
do
want to free them?”

“Think about it. They’re locked up because they defied Maven, or Elara, or both. My brother came to the throne under strange circumstances, and many,
many
, will not believe the lie his mother tells. Some are smart enough to lie low, to bide their time, but others are not. Their court schemes end in a cell. And of course, there are those like my uncle Julian, who taught Mare what she was. He aided the Scarlet Guard, saved Kilorn and Farley from execution, and his blood is blinding silver. He’s in that prison too, with others who believe in an equality beyond the colors of blood. They’re not our enemies, not right now,” he replies. He uncrosses his arms, gesturing madly, trying to make us understand what the soldier in him sees. “If we set them all loose on Corros, it’ll be chaos. They’ll attack the guards and do everything they can to get out. It’s a better distraction than any of us can give.”

Even Nix deflates, cowed by the quick and decisive suggestion. Though he hates Cal, blaming him for the death of his daughters, he can’t deny this is a good plan. Perhaps the best we might come up with.

“Besides,” Cal adds, retreating back into the shadow. This time, his words are meant only for me. “Julian and Sara will be with the Silvers, not the newbloods.”

Oh.
In my haste, I’d actually forgotten, somehow, that their blood was not the same color as mine. That they are Silver too.

Cal presses on, trying to explain. “Remember what they are, and how they feel. They are not the only ones who see the ruin in this world.”

Not the only ones.
Logic tells me he must be right. After all, in my own limited time with Silvers, I met Julian, Cal, Sara, and Lucas, four Silvers who were not so cruel as I believed them to be. There must be more. Like the newbloods of Norta, Maven is eliminating them, throwing both dissenters and political opponents into jail to waste away and be forgotten.

Cameron worries at her lip, teeth flashing. “The Silver blocks are the same as ours, staggered in like a patchwork. One Silver, one newblood, Silver, newblood, and so on.”

“Checkered,” Cal mutters, nodding along. “Keep them separated from each other. Easier to control, easier to fight. And your escape?”

“They walked us once a week, to keep us from dying. Some guard laughed about it, said the cells would kill us if they didn’t let us out a bit. The rest could hardly shuffle along, let alone fight, but not me. The cells didn’t make me sick.”

“Because they don’t affect you,” Ada says, her voice controlled and even and gently correct. She sounds so much like Julian it makes me jump. For a blistering second, I’m back in his classroom full of books, and I’m the one being examined. “Your silencing abilities are so strong that the normal measures don’t work. A canceling effect, I think. One form of silence against another.”

Cameron just shrugs, uninterested. “Sure.”

“So you slipped away on the walk,” Cal mutters, more to himself than anyone else. He’s thinking this through, putting himself in Cameron’s position, imagining the prison as she escaped, so he can figure
out a way to break in. “The eyes couldn’t see what you planned to do, so they couldn’t stop you. They guarded the gates, yes?”

She bobs her head in agreement. “One watched every cell block. Took his gun, put my head down, and ran.”

Crance lets out a low whistle, impressed by her boldness. But Cal is not so blinded, and pushes further. “What about the gates themselves? Only a magnetron can open them.”