The Seven Markets (37 page)

“Holy—Ellie, you almost got me!”

“I don’t think it can hurt us, love. I’ll be more careful.”

He pushed off and covered the expanded hole with a fresh blast of fire. Through the smoke and the edges of the hole, she thought she could make out some of Hart’s features.

“My turn now,” she said, flying in close.

But before she could lay one claw on his skin, Hart’s armor began shifting and changing shape. The wound did not close but two pairs of massive hands sprang like fast-growing trees from either side of the scar. They grabbed Ellie before she could react, crushing her wings to her side, mashing Cutter against the thick scales at her back.

Its head spun around and she saw, not in the center of the chest but behind the face, peering out at her from behind cold golden eyes, Hart’s blazing hatred.

“There you are,” he said, sounding immeasurably pleased with himself. “Aren’t you a pesky thing?”

Hart swatted Joshua clean out of the sky, batting him away with a casual flick of one massive hand. Ellie watched as he became a streaking blue comet crumpling against a distant wall.

“No!”

“No? I say yes! That is you in there, isn’t it, Ellie? Another one of Bo’s tricks, isn’t it? Such creativity! I might have to take that one for a spin myself.”

She ignored him, knowing she only had a precious few seconds to free herself and Cutter. Even crazed as he was, Hart wasn’t one for long, drawn-out speeches. He’d take his moment, call her a rude name, and flatten the two of them against the ground with his palm.

“Cutter . . .”

“’m here,” he said, his voice weak. For the first time it occurred to her how much worse the burning touch of Hart’s iron must be against his skin. She had to get him out of here before he was overwhelmed.

“Hold on,” she said. Hart heard her talking and squeezed the air right out of her lungs. Air? Fine, let him have it. She had worse things in her, after all.

Ellie turned to find the mechanical hand’s wrist joint. With her last gasp of breath she covered it with a fresh spray of acid. It began sizzling immediately. From somewhere far, far away she was aware of Hart yelling at her to stop. What did she think she was doing? Another hand blotted out the sky, closing itself around her.

But it was too late. She and Cutter dropped out of Hart’s grip. She reached for the captain but was too slow. As she fell, it was all she could do to shift her weight and take the impact on her thicker back scales.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Hart said. He bent to retrieve her, but Ellie scampered away, using reserves of strength she didn’t know she had. Loping through his massive fingers, one leg dragging limply behind her, she found a shred of cover and had a second to catch her breath.

“There you are!” He flung the rubble away, blasting at her with every weapon he had. Ellie darted behind new cover, tucking her wounded leg in tight to avoid catching it on anything. She needed her wings. If she could leave the ground, she might have a chance.

He caught her with a barrage of perhaps half a dozen shots, all in her back. The pain rushed through her like adrenaline, urging her forward, drawing her up, up into the sky that might prove her last refuge against him.

Ellie stumbled and fell, rolling through the dust and the dirt. She felt her wings open, but could sense no life in them. How much had they suffered this day? Would they be able to hold air? She imagined leaping up at the Market’s suns, a moment of weightless joy and then plummeting face-first into the rubble-strewn ground. How could Hart possibly miss her in that condition? At least it would be over quickly.

He was everywhere, all at once. He sprouted new arms and legs, filling the high street with his body, knocking down walls and flinging aside roofs to get at her. She kept running, kept fleeing, racing blindly at any shadow she could find, moving again when he tore it away a moment later. There was no escaping him, nowhere she could go to get away.

“Mama . . . Papa . . . Joshua . . .”

Ellie ducked around the remains of a building and found herself facing a dead end; a wall which had survived undamaged. She swore and flattened herself against it, hoping she might buy a few precious seconds to rest and hide.

“Oh no, you don’t.” He wagged a finger at her. “Naughty, naughty!”

Hart uprooted the wall intact, tossing it aside as if it were made of paper. Ellie dove clear and found herself teetering on the edge of a deep hole that had not been there a moment earlier, the collapsed basement and foundation of the building that had stood on this spot for so many years before their arrival today. She caught her balance and stood staring down into the blackness when inspiration struck. In the end what it came down to was a simple decision: if this last, desperate gambit didn’t work, at least she could deny Hart the satisfaction of killing her himself.

She leapt into the darkness, spreading her wings, telling herself it was possible the damage wasn’t as bad as it felt. She fell and fell, down into the black, begging her borrowed wings to serve her just one final time.

The air was still. She heard the trickle of running water nearby. Distantly, she could sense the outline of the cavern’s bottom, craggy and threatening, not far below.

Falling was almost like flying, and Ellie allowed herself to enjoy what might be her final moments. She closed her eyes and imagined the open sky, the clouds and the suns overhead. If she carried them with her, was it so bad being down here in the dark?

No. But there were others, above in the light, who would suffer without her.

How long would it take for Hart to find Mama and Papa? What would he do with Joshua once he learned his true identity? She thought of Cutter and Bo and Clay, all up there in the light. She told herself they would manage without her, that they would find a way to beat Hart, to escape his rage. It was one lie she could not make herself believe, no matter how she tried.

Her wings were torn and battered, but the rushing air caressed their delicate skin. She felt a measure of control returning and tested it out, beating her wings once and adjusting her course down through the void. She whipped her tail to the side and turned with no small measure of difficulty. Again she flexed her wings, and now she was rising from the darkness. She was weak beyond belief, aching in a hundred places. Did she have enough strength left for one final attack?

“Yes. I have to.”

She rose to the light, to her friends and family, to face the monster she’d created.

He was waiting when she emerged, but here Ellie’s exhaustion worked to her favor. Hart snatched at her, filling the sky with blazing projectiles. She had none of the speed she’d previously exhibited. His attempts to catch her failed as his blasts overshot, vanishing into the distance.

She ignored him, fighting for all the altitude she could get. Higher and higher she flew, telling herself he would wait for her on the ground. His strength was there, his armor designed to be an unstoppable, moving fortress. He would not follow her. He would wait for her to come to him.

She would only get one chance.

Soon she’d flown high enough that only the meanest evidences of the day’s damage were visible. The high street was ruined but the majority of the Market was intact. It was lovely, her Papa’s fairy tale made real. She wished she could go back and find the girl she’d been and bring her to this moment. Ignore the fighting, ignore the danger, and behold the wonder that was the Market.

Hart fired up after her. She thought she heard him screaming for her to return and fight honorably. Easy for him in his unstoppable weapon. Easy for him with no injuries and no loved ones in harm’s way.

There was only one building this tall in all the Market. Ellie flew to it, and not trusting herself to rest even for a moment, hovered in place as she struck at it with what remained of her claws. She raked at the very tip, cutting into the stonework until she’d broken through. With quickness that belied her weariness, she swept around and caught the tip of the tower before it could topple over on its own.

“There,” she said, wishing Cutter was here to offer his opinion on this latest bit of foolishness.

It was no trick finding Hart at this distance. His armor had become greater than any of the Market’s buildings. The triple suns reflected off his golden skin, their faces becoming distorted as it shifted and continued growing.

Ellie made a wish for Joshua and, gripping the point of the tower, turned to point herself at Hart.

She made no attempt to control her descent apart from focusing on her target. Faster and faster she fell, wings tight to her sides, tail straight back, forelegs clutching at the point of the tower. It was difficult balancing, so Ellie braced the flat, wide end against her chest, using her whole body to aim this crudest of missiles.

“Joshua . . .”

Hart began firing on her as soon as she was in range but Ellie was falling too rapidly for him to more than graze her. One claw slipped from the point of the tower. She sunk her talons deep into its skin and held on by sheer force of will. This was it. Win or lose, this was all she had left.

She pushed it away at the last second, spreading her wings in what she knew was a futile gesture. The point of the tower hit Hart’s armor on what Ellie thought was a shoulder, splitting it from top to bottom, sending a long, running crack through its entire body.

“Joshua!”

She tore the collar from her neck and where Ellie the dragon had been now there was only Ellie the girl, falling uncontrollably at her foe. She slipped into the chasm in Hart’s armor with her eyes closed, a mumbled word in the old language on her lips. Mama would have recognized it, even all these years later.

Protection.

The armor closed around her, healing itself as swiftly as it had been damaged. It caught Ellie, absorbing some of the force of her impact, cushioning her body as it closed in around her. It was enough to keep her from liquefying on contact, but not enough to keep her bones from splintering, her organs from exploding. Ellie held what breath she had and prayed she would have enough time to get her work done.

Behind her closed eyes, a heads-up display appeared as the old, familiar user interface flooded into her mind. She was aware of shouted words and a desperate frenzy of movement, but he couldn’t get to her in time. He was up in the armor’s head and she was wedged somewhere in the shoulder.

Enough, Anthony. Enough.

His control unit was set only to broadcast. That was how he’d avoided her shutdown order, why he hadn’t appeared in her system when she scanned for him. Hardwired as she was now, however, there was nothing he could do to stop her. It was still, after all, her tech. Her system.

She killed the power and they fell together to the street. She braced herself for the impact, a part of her savoring one more time the feeling of flight.

Hart picked himself up before Ellie. He beat at the control unit on his hip, screaming at it to turn itself back on. She ignored him, concentrating instead on trying to lift herself up. Where was her dragon’s collar? Where was her healing ring? It was no use; she was a rag doll, broken, battered, and unable to move.

“You! Always you!”

She tried to say, “Hello, Anthony.” Her muscles weren’t working. Her jaw felt a thousand miles away.

“Kill you! Revenge!”

He threw himself at her, clutching for her neck. Tall as she’d become, he was still taller, and outweighed her by a significant amount. Even uninjured, she couldn’t have fought him off. He pinned her to the street with his knee, crushing it into her battered ribs. His hands around her neck were impossibly strong. She struggled to breathe and the coarse, rattling sound made her head swim. This was it. No more glamours, no more tech. Just a man she’d once considered a friend squeezing the life out of her with his bare hands.

Beneath her, the ground rumbled. Shifted.

Anthony. No.

His eyes were blind, his lips foaming with fury. “Revenge! Revenge! Kill you!”

Twinkling stars filled the edges of Ellie’s vision as she began to lose consciousness. She found she didn’t mind, not really, dying after all this time. How many years had she had, after all? Hadn’t she found Joshua again, and her parents as well? Hadn’t she soared through the sky? Hadn’t she lived? All the years the Prince had stolen from her, she’d won them back in the end.

Darkness swept over her and it was a familiar sight. She felt the ground shift again, wriggling like a bed made of snakes. It reminded her of something she’d learned long ago, something she couldn’t quite recall in this, the moment of her death. Bright light suffused her entire being, and suddenly the pressure was gone from her chest. The pain was gone from around her throat. Ellie stood in her body, whole and undamaged. She stretched her fingers and touched her neck, expecting soreness and finding none.

She’d been pulled into the system. Yanked out of her body a heartbeat ahead of death.

She saw her own face, dirty and bruised, hair singed, eyes open in a blank stare of shock. Hands were clenched around her neck, straining as if holding on for dear life. Ellie peered into the window and the world rushed forward so now she was looking down at herself, down at her lifeless body.

Looking out through Hart’s eyes.

The ground rose up around her, thin tendrils of dark, broken street wrapping themselves around the clutching hands, obscuring her view, pulling her away from her own body, drawing her back, consuming her, dragging her down, away, into the ground. She screamed with Hart’s voice, and Ellie’s heart broke as with no glamour and no armor to protect him, the Market finally claimed Commander Anthony Hart.

“I’m sorry,” Bo said, speaking from behind her.

Ellie turned. “Bo?”

“It was all I could think to do. You saw him, Ellie. There was no stopping him.”

“You let the Market take him? The Market Peace?”

Bo shook her head, frowning. “There was no way to stop that. But you’re safe, at least. It was all I could think of.”

“What about my body?”

Bo brought up a screen. Ellie realized the UI had changed so they were sitting in her old house in Maine. It was the house she’d shared with Rossi, the house she’d returned to after the disaster in New York all those years ago.