I’m beginning to think this has all been a dream, or a hallucination, or worse. But can you feel tired in dreams? Because I certainly do. My exhaustion is bone-deep, in every muscle and nerve. My heart is another wound entirely, still bleeding from betrayal and failure. When I open my eyes, finding cramped, gray walls, everything I want to forget comes rushing back. It’s like Queen Elara is in my head again, forcing me to relive my worst memories. As much as I try, I can’t stop them.
My quiet maids were executed, guilty of nothing but painting my skin. Tristan, speared like a pig. Walsh. She was my brother’s age, a servant from the Stilts, my friend—one of us. And she died cruelly, by her own hand, to protect the Guard, our purpose, and me. Even more died in the tunnels of Caesar’s Square, Guardsmen killed by Cal’s soldiers, killed by our foolish plan. The memory of red blood burns, but so does the thought of silver. Lucas, a friend, a protector, a Silver with a kind heart, executed for what Julian and I made him do. Lady Blonos, decapitated because she taught me how to sit properly. Colonel Macanthos, Reynald Iral, Belicos Lerolan. Sacrificed for the cause. I almost retch when I remember Lerolan’s twin boys, four years old, killed in the explosion that followed the shooting. Maven told me it was an accident—a punctured gas line, but now I know better. His evil runs too deep for such coincidence. I doubt he minded throwing a few more bodies on the blaze, if only to convince the world the Guard was made of monsters. He’ll kill Julian too, and Sara. They’re probably dead already. I can’t think of them at all. It’s too painful. Now my thoughts turn back to Maven himself, to cold blue eyes and the moment I realized his charming smile hid a beast.
The bunk beneath me is hard, the blankets thin, with no pillow to speak of, but part of me wants to lie back down. Already my headache returns, throbbing with the electric pulse of this miracle boat. It is a firm reminder—there is no peace for me here. Not yet, not while so much more must be done. The list. The names. I must find them. I must keep them safe from Maven and his mother. Heat spreads across my face, my skin flushing with the memory of Julian’s little book of hard-won secrets. A record of those like me, with the strange mutation that gives us Red blood and Silver abilities. The list is Julian’s legacy. And mine.
I swing my legs over the side of the cot, almost thwacking my head on the bunk above me, and find a neatly folded set of clothing on the floor. Black pants that are too long, a dark red shirt with threadbare elbows, and boots missing laces. Nothing like the fine clothes I found in a Silver cell, but they feel right against my skin.
I barely have the shirt over my head when my compartment door bangs open on great iron hinges. Kilorn waits expectantly on the other side, his smile forced and grim. He shouldn’t blush, having seen me in various stages of undress for many summers, but his cheeks redden anyway.
“It’s not like you to sleep so long,” he says, and I hear worry in his voice.
I shrug it off and stand on weak legs. “I guess I needed it.” An odd ringing in my ears takes hold, piercing but not painful. I shake my head back and forth, trying to get rid of it, looking like a wet dog in the process.
“That’ll be the banshee scream.” He crosses to me and takes my head in gentle but callused hands. I submit to his examination, sighing in annoyance. He turns me sideways, glancing at ears that ran red with blood however long ago. “You’re lucky it didn’t hit you head-on.”
“I’m a lot of things, but I don’t think lucky is one of them.”
“You’re alive, Mare,” he says sharply, pulling away. “That’s more than many can say.” His glare brings me back to Naercey, when I told my brother I didn’t trust his word. Deep in my heart, I know I still don’t.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter quickly. Of course I know others have died, for the cause and for me. But I’ve died too. Mare of the Stilts died the day she fell onto a lightning shield. Mareena, the lost Silver princess, died in the Bowl of Bones. And I don’t know what new person opened her eyes on the Undertrain. I only know what she has been and what she has lost, and the weight of it is almost crushing.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going, or is that another secret?” I try to keep the bitterness from my voice but fail miserably.
Kilorn is polite enough to ignore it and leans back against the door. “We left Naercey five hours ago, and we’re headed northeast. That’s honestly all I know.”
“And that doesn’t bother you at all?”
He only shrugs. “What makes you think the higher-ups trust me, or you, for that matter? You know better than anyone how foolish we’ve been, and the high cost we’ve paid.” Again, I feel the sting of memory. “You said yourself, you can’t even trust Shade. I doubt anyone’s going to be sharing secrets anytime soon.”
The jab doesn’t hurt as much as I expected it to. “How is he?”
Kilorn tosses his head, gesturing out to the hallway. “Farley carved out a nice little medical station for the wounded. He’s doing better than the others. Cursing a lot, but definitely better.” His green eyes darken a bit, and he turns his gaze away. “His leg—”
I draw in a startled breath. “Infected?” At home in the Stilts, infection was as bad as a severed arm. We didn’t have much medicine, and once the blood went bad, all you could do was keep chopping, hoping to outrun fever and blackened veins.
To my relief, Kilorn shakes his head. “No, Farley dosed him good, and the Silvers fight with clean bullets. So that’s big of them.” He laughs darkly, expecting me to join him. Instead, I shiver. The air is so cold down here. “But he’ll definitely be limping for a while.”
“Will you take me to him or do I have to figure out the way myself?”
Another dark laugh and he extends his arm. To my surprise, I find that I need his support to help me walk. Naercey and the Bowl of Bones have certainly taken their toll.
Mersive. That’s what Kilorn calls the strange underwater boat. How it manages to sail beneath the ocean is beyond both of us, though I’m sure Cal will figure it out. He’s next on my list. I’ll find him after I make sure my brother is still breathing. I remember Cal being barely conscious when we escaped, just like me. But I don’t suppose Farley will set him up in the medical station, not with injured Guardsmen all around. There’s too much bad blood and no one wants an inferno in a sealed metal tube.
The banshee’s scream still rings in my head, a dull whine that I try to ignore. And with every step, I learn about new aches and bruises. Kilorn notes my every wince and slows his pace, allowing me to lean on his arm. He ignores his own wounds, deep cuts hidden beneath yet another set of fresh bandages. He always had battered hands, bruised and cut from fishing hooks and rope, but they were familiar wounds. They meant he was safe, employed, free from conscription. If not for one dead fish master, little scars would be his only burden.
Once that thought would have made me sad. Now I feel only rage.
The main passage of the mersive is long but narrow, divided by several metal doors with thick hinges and pressurized seals. To close off portions if need be, to stop the entire vessel from flooding and sinking. But the doors give me no comfort whatsoever. I can’t stop thinking about dying at the bottom of the ocean, locked in a watery coffin. Even Kilorn, a boy raised on water, seems uncomfortable. The dim lights set into the ceiling filter strangely, cutting shadows across his face to make him appear old and drawn.
The other Guardsmen aren’t so affected, coming and going with great purpose. Their red scarves and shawls have been lowered, revealing faces set in grim determination. They carry charts, trays of medical supplies, bandages, food, or even the occasional rifle down the passage, always hurrying and chattering to each other. But they stop at the sight of me, pressing back against the walls to give me as much room as possible in the narrow space. The more daring ones look me in the eye, watching me limp past, but most stare at their feet.
A few even seem afraid.