She is the only representative from the Scarlet Guard. Even in sleep, she curls her arms around Clara, rocking with the motion of the jet to keep her settled. The Colonel is back at the base, and probably ecstatic about it. With Farley gone, he’s the highest-ranking member of the Scarlet Guard left behind. He can play Command all he likes, while his daughter relays information back to the organization.
On the ground, the verdant green of Piedmont, braided with muddy rivers and rolling hills, steadily gives over to the floodplain of the Great River. The disputed lands line both banks, their borders strange and always changing. I know little about them, except the obvious. The Lakelands, Piedmont, Prairie, and even Tiraxes farther south fight over this stretch of mud, swamp, hill, and tree. For control of the river, mostly. I hope. Silvers fight for nothing most of the time, spilling red blood for less than dirt. They control this land too, but not as tightly as they do Norta and the Lakelands.
We fly on, heading west over the flat grasslands and gentle hills of Prairie. Some is farmland. Wheat sprouts in golden waves, patchworked with corn in endless rows. The rest looks like open landscape, pocked by the occasional forest or lake. Prairie has no kings that I know of, no queens, no princes. Their lords rule by right of power, not blood. When a father falls, his son does not always take his place. It’s another country I never thought I’d see, but here I am, looking down at it.
It never goes away, this strange feeling bubbling up from the odd divide between who I was before and who I am now. A girl of the Stilts, of familiar mud, trapped in a small place until the doom of conscription. My future was so empty then, but was it easier than this? I feel detached from that life, a million miles and a thousand years ago.
Julian isn’t on our carrier, or else I might be tempted to ask about the countries beneath us. He’s on the other airjet, the Laris jet striped yellow, with the rest of the Calore and Samos representatives, as well as their guards. Not to mention their baggage. Apparently a would-be king and a princess require a good deal of clothes. They trail behind us, visible from the left-side windows, metal wings flashing as we chase the sun.
Ella told me she came from the Prairie lands before Montfort. The Sandhills. Raider country. More terms I don’t really understand. She isn’t here to explain, left behind at the Piedmont base with Rafe. Tyton is the only electricon coming with us. Besides me, of course. He’s Montfort-born. I suspect he has a family to visit, and friends too. He sits near the rear of the jet, sprawled across two empty seats, his nose buried in a tattered book. As I look at him, he feels my gaze, and he meets my eyes for a brief second. He blinks, gray orbs calculating. I wonder if he can feel the tiny pulses of electricity in my brain. Does he know what each one means? Can he distinguish between bursts of fear or excitement?
Could I, one day?
I hardly know the depth of my own abilities. It’s the same for all newbloods I’ve met and helped train. But maybe not in Montfort. Maybe they understand what we are, and how much we can do.
The next thing I know, someone nudges my arm, jolting me out of an uneasy sleep. Dad points at the rounded window between us, set into the curved wall behind our seats.
“Never thought I’d see anything like that,” he says, rapping the thick glass.
“What?” I ask, adjusting myself. He snaps the buckle on my belts, giving me full range of motion to turn and look out.
I have seen mountains before. In the Greatwoods, from the Notch. Green ranges fading into autumn’s fire and then winter’s barren, bone-branched chill. In the Rift, where hunched ridges ripple into the horizon, rising and falling like leafy waves. In Piedmont, deep in the backcountry, their slopes shifting into blue and distant purple, glimpsed only from the windows of a jet. All of them were part of the Allacias, the long line of ancient mountains marching from Norta to the Piedmont interior. But I have never seen mountains like the ones before us. I don’t think they can even be called mountains at all.
My jaw hangs open, eyes glued to the horizon as the jet arcs toward the north. The flat Prairie lands end abruptly, their western edge punctured by the wall of a vast and sheer mountain range, bigger than anything I’ve ever seen before. The slopes rise like knife edges, too sharp, too high, rows upon rows of jagged, gigantic teeth. Some of the peaks are bare, without trees. As if trees can’t grow up there. A few mountains in the distance are capped in white. Snow. Even though it’s summer.
I draw in a shaky breath. What kind of country have we come to? Do Silvers and Ardents rule so completely, with enough strength to build an impossible land like this? The mountains put a fear in me, but a little excitement too. Even from the air, this country feels different. The Free Republic of Montfort stirs something in my blood and bone.
Next to me, Dad puts a hand to the glass. His fingers brush over the silhouette of the range, tracing the peaks. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, so low only I can hear. “I hope this place is good to us.”
It’s cruel to give hope where none should be.
My father said that once, in the shadow of a stilt house. He sat in a chair, missing a leg. I used to think he was broken. I know better now. Dad is as whole as the rest of us, and always has been. He just wanted to protect us from the pain of wanting what we could not have. Futures we would never be allowed. Our fates have been quite different. And it seems my father has changed with them. He can hope.
With a deep breath, I realize the same. Even after Maven, my long months of imprisonment, all the death and destruction I’ve seen or caused. My broken heart, still bleeding inside me. The unending fear for the people I love, and the people I want to save. It all remains, a constant weight. But I won’t let it drown me.
I can still hope too.
SIX
Evangeline
The air is strange. Thin. Oddly clean, as if removed from the rest of the world.
I smell it around the edges of my iron, my silver, my chrome. And of course the metallic tang of the jets, their engines still hot from the journey. The feel of them is overpowering, even after long hours cramped in the belly of a Laris carrier. So many plates and pipes and screws. On the flight, I spent longer than I care to admit counting rivets and tracing metal seams. If I tore there, or there, or there, I could send Cal or Anabel or anyone I wished plummeting to their death. Even myself. I had to sit near a Haven lord for much of the trip, and his snore rivaled thunder. Jumping out of a jet almost seemed like a better choice.
Despite the time of year, the air is colder than I expected, and goose bumps rise beneath the sheer silk draped around my shoulders. I took care to dress as a princess should, even though now I suffer the chill for it. This is my first state visit, both as a representative of the Rift and as the future queen of Norta. If that cursed future comes to pass, I must look the part, impressive and formidable down to my painted toes. I have to be prepared. I am well beyond the bounds of the world I understand. I inhale again, sucking down an oddly shallow breath. Even breathing here is unfamiliar.
It isn’t late enough for sunset, but the mountains are so tall, and already the light wanes. Long shadows race across the landing field cut deep into the valley. I feel as if I could touch the sky. Run my jeweled claws across the clouds and make the sky bleed red starlight. Instead I keep my hands at my sides, my many rings and bracelets hidden beneath the folds of my skirt and sleeves. Decoration only. Pretty, useless, silent things. Just like my parents want me to be.