But I couldn’t. Not if I wanted any hope of honoring her final wish and stopping the Irkallan’s insidious plans.
I pushed to my feet and looked around. The skies might be weeping for a sister lost, but it was also making it damn hard to find a way off the tower’s roof.
Leap, the wind said. We will deliver you safely to the ground.
This time, there was no hesitation. I ran toward the edge that overlooked Winterborne and leapt high. The wind caught me, wrapping me tightly in her cold fingers as I plummeted toward the ground. There were two figures down there standing in front of a carriage, and though it was hard to see their features through the gray curtain of rain, I had no doubt it was Kiro and Trey.
The wind checked my speed and deposited me safely on the ground, but I’d barely had a chance to drag in a relieved breath when Trey pulled me into his arms, his hug as fierce and as welcome as anything I’d ever experienced.
“Freedom, help me,” he murmured. “I think I just lost ten years of my life watching you fall like that.”
“I wasn’t falling.” I closed my eyes, briefly allowing myself to relax in the warm comfort and strength of his embrace, then gently pulled away. “The Irkallan are coming and Saska’s placed a toxin of some kind in the tank’s water, one that doesn’t need to be ingested to work.”
Kiro swore and immediately ran for the pumping station situated underneath the tower. “How long ago?” he asked, over his shoulder.
I hesitated as the wind supplied the answer. “Three hours.”
“Will the sheer volume of water being held in the tank dilute the potency of it?” Trey asked.
The wind stirred again. “Apparently not,” I said.
“Which isn’t an unexpected answer,” Kiro said. “But a frustrating one, given three hours means entirely too many people could have already been exposed to it.”
“Yes.”
Kiro opened the pump house’s main door and stalked inside. We followed, and discovered what could only be described as chaos. Bits and pieces of metal lay everywhere, and the huge pumps that were used to draw the water from the artesian well through to the filters and then up to the tank were silent. The place was dark and there were no signs of any life—and, at the very least, there should have been several people monitoring operations and a couple of guards, given the importance of this pumping station to the Upper Reaches.
“Spread out and try to find someone,” Kiro said. “I’ll contact the Forum and order an immediate shutdown of water usage in the areas covered by the tank.”
“With the pumps out of action, will people still be able to access the water?”
“Yes, because it’s gravity fed.” He made a “go” motion with his hand and then pulled an earwig out of his pocket.
I headed left, Trey went right. In the far corner, behind several large but silent machines, I found three women and two men; two of the former and one the latter wore the basic brown uniform of Winterborne’s general workers, and the other two wore guard uniforms.
“Found five people.” I checked for signs of life, even though it was obvious from the odd angles of all their necks that none had survived their encounter with Saska. “All dead.”
I moved out from behind the machines and saw Trey walking toward me.
“That must be everyone, because there’s no one else here,” he said. “Did Saska say how long we had until the Irkallan came?”
“No, just that they were on the move.” I crossed my arms, trying to ward off the chill that came from not only being soaked to the skin, but the growing sensation of doom. “Our best chance of survival is to stop them digging underneath us.”
“Which is undoubtedly why Saska was ordered to place the toxin in the water.” Trey took off his waterproof jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. “They were hoping to knock out a good percentage of our witches.”
“Kill them, not knock them out.” I pulled his jacket closed but felt no warmer for it. The chill seemed to have settled into my soul.
Trey studied me, his expression troubled. “What else did Saska tell you? Because there’s a fear in you that wasn’t there before you talked to her.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not catching my thoughts?”
“Only some. Perhaps that will change as we become more intimate but for now, no.”
Good. While I had every intention of telling Kiro what Saska had said regarding the only viable way to get into the hive and kill the queen, I wasn’t about to be so open with Trey. Not until it was absolutely necessary. Even if we hadn’t been involved, he wasn’t the type of man to willingly let any of his people undergo what would probably be a suicide mission. For all intents and purposes, I was currently under his command and therefore his responsibility.
“Saska was my twin sister,” I said. “She’s the reason I can command the air as well as I do. I’m the reason she was able to order the air to interact with earth to get out of that tunnel.”
“At least that explains the connection between you.” He hesitated. “Are you all right?”
“I discovered I had a blood sister and then lost her all in the past hour,” I said, shivering. “And I learned that I killed my mother. So no, I’m not all right.”
He didn’t say anything, just tugged me into his arms again and held me. That odd connection stirred, filled with a strength and warmth that flowed around and through me, bolstering my reserves.
“And the bodies in the tunnel?” he asked softly, his question whispering past my ear.
“Her daughter, and an Irkallan soldier.” I reluctantly pulled away from him and scrubbed away the tear that slid down my cheek. “Saska killed her child rather than let her remain under the queen’s rule.”
“A monstrous act in any other circumstance but this,” he said softly, “and one I fear we will have to repeat if we are to win this war.”
I didn’t reply to that statement. I didn’t even want to think about it.
“We can’t just stop them at Winterborne’s walls,” he continued. “Not this time. The fight has to be taken to them.”
“Saska said that was tried during the war. That because there’s no life in the Blacksaw Mountains, no witch will ever be able to do much damage to them.”
“Witches might not be able to, but I’m betting a fully equipped army could.”
“Aside from the fact Saska said it wouldn’t work, if that were true, wouldn’t they have tried it last time?”
“Technology has taken some dramatic leaps since then. We now have the power to blast the entire mountain away if we want to.”
“That won’t help if the bulk of the apiary is deep underground.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And is it?”
“From what Saska said, the queen and the breeders certainly are.”
He grunted. “That may or may not be a problem. Especially given we have no idea if the tunnel coming out from underneath the mountains is at the same depth as the one we found.”
“Its depth would probably depend on where the bulk of the workers and soldiers live.”
“Yes.” He glanced at Kiro briefly, who was still talking animatedly into his earwig, and then added, “That’s not our main problem, however. And it’s certainly not the one that will make us monsters.”
My throat went dry and my heart began to beat a whole lot faster. I already knew what he was going to say, because Saska had also referred to it, however obliquely.
“The children,” he added softly. “We have to find and destroy both the women who were stolen, and all the children they’ve given birth to. And we have to ensure we collect and destroy the remaining bracelets, so that they can never be used again.”
I swallowed heavily, fighting the pain and the knowledge of what was coming. Of what I’d have to do. “But—”
“With or without them, those children have been indoctrinated into Irkallan society. You saw the mental damage it caused Saska—how much worse would it be for children who were born into that environment?”