Athan doesn’t answer. His face is pale and tense in the flickering illumination of the distant spotlights.
“What’s happening?” I demand, trembling, finding something sharp to grasp. Something like anger. “What do you know?”
He leans back against the tree opposite me. The mask still rests on his forehead at an awkward angle. “The protesters aren’t happy to have us here, you know that.”
“And you thought they’d attack my damn masquerade because of it?”
“I didn’t know anything! God, what do you think?” He sounds as panicked and frustrated as me. “I just had a fear inside me, and I’ve learned to listen to that fear. It’s often right.”
I lean forward and snatch the mask off his forehead. It looks all wrong.
Tense moments go by, the sky filled with engines, staccato sounds erupting from the distant palace. But then a shadowed figure approaches the woods cautiously, and Athan readies his pistol.
“First into the fray, Charm?” the familiar voice calls.
It’s Cyar, looking shaken when he nears, but relief softens his face at the sight of us. Athan also looks relieved. He jumps up and they begin to speak in Savien, but I stand and clear my throat behind them.
“Please,” I say, arms wrapped round myself. “Whatever it is, I want to hear.”
Cyar glances at me warily, and I raise my chin higher. He relents. “It’s the protesters,” he says. “They came disguised as guards. We’ve captured them, and our General has secured the palace, but there are rioters still marching up from the city. They’re armed, demanding the Queen be arrested.”
Coldness seizes me, indignant. “This isn’t her fault!” I say. “She has nothing to do with this. They’re angry at you. They’ve been in the square all day!”
Cyar hesitates. “This … this is larger than Hathene, Princess. There are three other cities in revolt.”
“Then what are they saying?” My panic builds with the growing discomfort on Cyar’s face. “If it’s not about you, then what is it about?”
“They’re saying … she murdered your father.”
My body turns to ice. My heart, my blood, my bones. Everything. They know—the kingdom knows the truth. They know my father was murdered. But how? And how could they ever blame her?
“Where’s my brother?” I ask frantically.
“He disappeared. And they’re searching for you now.” Cyar looks at me, helpless. “The General wants to put you with your mother, for the time being.”
“He wants to arrest me, too?” My voice nearly breaks on that, stunned.
Athan remains silent, fist tightening on his gun.
“Our General doesn’t wish to arrest anyone,” Cyar says quickly. “It’s only for your own protection until the protesters are dealt with. It’s much too—”
“No, we have to get to the hangar,” Athan interrupts.
“The hangar?” both Cyar and I repeat.
Athan looks at me. “I told you. I’m taking you away from here.”
“You can’t steal a damn aeroplane!” I say.
But he’s already striding for the tree line, off to plot this mad strategy. Cyar turns to me once he’s disappeared. We stand together awkwardly, my dress torn and bloodied, my arms still clutched to my chest.
He removes his Safire jacket and hands it to me. “You look cold, Princess.” That’s what he says, which is truer than he can know, but I also see what he means, gentle beneath the surface. He’s aware of my trembling horror. I put it on gratefully, savouring the sudden warmth, covering up the splotches of brutal red. The blood of my people.
Then he holds his pistol out. “And put this in the pocket.”
I stare at the weapon. “No, I can’t—”
“You need it more than me tonight. But don’t let him see. He won’t let me leave here without it.”
I know he means Athan, and I’m about to protest, but my mad dragon-boy is already back, and I hide the gun quickly.
Athan looks me up and down, now wrapped in Safire uniform.
“Tonight’s not the night to be running around in a dress,” Cyar says to him simply.
Athan nods, and I see a bit of embarrassment in his gaze. Perhaps he knows that he should have thought of this. That he should have been the noble one to give me his coat. But there’s no time to worry about being a gentleman.
“Cyar’s going to make our diversion,” Athan says to me, “and I’ll borrow one of the Safire planes.”
“Borrow?” I ask.
“Commandeer.” He shrugs.
Stars, they’re going to get themselves both court-martialed—or worse!
But he takes my hand, earnest. “We have to run, all right?”
There’s urgency in his touch, and I see the loyalty in his gaze, feel the strange sense of having everything I want right in front of me … and yet nothing at all. And then I see the orange glow south of us, rising higher. A devilish horizon of blood red. The hazy air.
It isn’t the fuel of aeroplanes I smell.
The Safire boys see my fresh horror, and they turn.
Flames dance in the distance, beyond the front gates of the palace. Thick, dusty smoke blots out the stars, billowing south, and shapes of aeroplanes pass between the dark plumes.
The forest is on fire.
The rioters have done this, or perhaps one of the metal machines in the sky. I don’t know anymore, but my world is burning.
“Good God,” Cyar says.
“Get to the hangar,” Athan orders, grabbing my hand.
I’m not sure if it’s the Safire uniform I’m wearing or the pistol hidden in my pocket, but suddenly, with absolutely certainty, I know what I have to do.
“No,” I say, pulling from Athan. “I’m not leaving my mother behind.”
He stares at me. “Ali, there’s no way we can get to her. Not without you being found and locked up as well. Look around you! There’s an entire militia demanding your neck!”
“I have a way.” I sound more confident than I feel. “Because I know it’s a lie.”
“What’s a lie?”
“The damn murder, Athan!” I could hit him for looking so perplexed right now. “My mother didn’t do it! She must speak to them. They’ll listen. I know they will. They adore my mother, I swear it! If they heard the truth, they could never blame her.”
Athan tilts his head. His face is fire and shadows. “The truth?”
I don’t have time to explain. Not now. But we have an answer, the secret rumour about our royal line, the reason he was truly murdered. My mother didn’t want to share it with the world, but now she’ll have to find a way to redeem herself. A half version of it, perhaps. There’s no other choice.
I grab Athan’s arm. “Take me to your General.”
His eyes widen. “What?”
“Please! I need him, and I believe he’ll listen to me. I know that sounds mad, but we have an understanding. He won’t arrest me.”
“You are mad,” Athan says. “You don’t know what fear makes people do. They don’t listen.”
“Oh, he’ll listen, Lieutenant. He has to, because I have leverage.” I raise my chin, finally feeling some power in this. “Photographs of his son’s war crime.”
Another Safire fighter snarls above us, and Cyar raises his hands, stepping back. “Maybe commandeering the plane was the better idea.”
But Athan says nothing. He simply stares at me for a long moment, the feeling of an eternity passing between us, the brilliant little wheels turning in his head. Like he’s trying to run through every possible outcome of this gamble. I don’t blame him. But I’m going back for my mother, with or without him, and I think he knows this, too.
He waves to Cyar. “All right, you’re scaring first. But I guess we’re doing it inside the palace now.”
Cyar sighs. “Copy that, Lieutenant.”
“Is this pilot talk for ‘yes’?” I ask.