Training is harder in the Rocasta safe house. We don’t have anywhere near enough space, not to mention most of the operatives I know were left in Irabelle. Kilorn, for example. Eager as he is, he’s nowhere near ready for all-out battle, and he doesn’t have an ability to lean on. He was left behind. But my trainer was not. After all, she’s Silver, and the Colonel wasn’t about to let her out of his sight.
Sara Skonos waits in the basement of our reinforced warehouse, in a room dedicated to newblood exercises. It’s dinnertime, so the other newbloods in this particular sanctuary are upstairs eating with the rest. We have the space to ourselves, not that we need much space at all.
She sits cross-legged, palms flat on a concrete floor that matches the concrete walls. Her notepad is there too, ready to be used if need be. Her eyes track my entrance, the only greeting I’ll get. As of yet, we have not found another skin healer to join us, and she remains mute. Even though I’m used to it, the sight of her sunken cheeks and missing tongue makes me cringe. As usual, she pretends not to notice and gestures to the space in front of her.
I sit as she instructs, and fight the familiar urge to run or attack.
She’s Silver. She’s everything I’ve been raised to fear, hate, and obey. But I can’t find it in myself to despise Sara Skonos the way I do Julian or Cal. It’s not that I pity her. I think . . . I understand her. I understand the frustration of knowing what is right and being ignored or punished because of it. I can’t count how many times I received half rations for looking at a Silver overseer incorrectly. For talking out of turn. She did the same, except her words were against a reigning queen. And so her words were taken away forever.
Even though she can’t speak, Sara has a way of communicating what she wants. She taps me on the knee, forcing me to meet her cloudy gray eyes. Then she dips her face and puts a hand over her heart.
I follow the motions, knowing what she wants. I match her breathing: steady, deep breaths in even succession. A calming mechanism that helps drown out all the thoughts swirling around my head. It clears my mind, allowing me to feel what I usually ignore. My ability hums beneath my skin, constant as always, but now I let myself notice it. Not to use it, but to acknowledge its existence. My silence is still new to me, and I have to get to know it like any other skill.
After long minutes of breathing, she taps me again, making me look up. This time she points at herself.
“Sara, I’m really not in the right mood,” I start to tell her, but she draws one hand through the air in a chopping motion. Shut up, plain as day.
“I mean it. I could hurt you.”
She scoffs deep in her throat, one of the only true vocalizations she can make. It almost sounds like laughter. Then she taps her lips, smirking darkly. She’s been hurt far worse.
“Fine, I warned you,” I sigh. I wiggle a little, settling deeper into my position. Then I furrow my brow, letting the ability swim around me, deepening, expanding. Until it touches her. And silence descends.
Her eyes widen when it hits. A twinge at first. At least I hope it’s just a twinge. I’m only practicing, and I don’t intend to pummel her into submission. I think of Mare, able to call up storms, while Cal can make infernos, but both find it difficult to have a simple conversation without exploding. Control takes more practice than brute force.
My ability deepens, and she holds up one finger to denote the level of discomfort. I try to keep the silence in place, constant but steady. It’s like holding back a tide. I don’t know what it feels like to be silenced. The Silent Stone didn’t work on me in Corros Prison, but it stifled, drained—and slowly killed—all the people around me. I can do the same. After about a minute, she puts up a second finger.
“Sara . . . ?”
With her other hand she gestures for me to continue.
I remember our session yesterday. She was on the floor at five, though I knew I could push harder. But incapacitating our only skin healer is neither smart nor something I want to do.
A flush paints her cheeks, but the door to the basement swings open before she can hold up another finger.
My concentration and my silence break, drawing a relieved gasp from her. Both of us whirl to face our disrupter. While she breaks into a rare smile, I scowl.
“Jacos,” I mutter in his direction. “We’re training, in case you haven’t noticed.”
One side of his mouth twitches, begging to pull into a sneer of his own, but Julian refrains. Like the rest of us, he looks better here in Rocasta. Supplies are easier to come by. Our clothes are higher quality, quilted and lined against the cold. The food is heartier, the rooms warmer. Julian’s color has returned, and his gray-flecked hair looks glossier. He’s Silver. He was born to thrive.
“Oh, how foolish of me. I thought you were down here sitting on cold concrete for the fun of it,” he replies. Clearly no love lost between us. Sara glares at him, a weak reproach, but it softens him anyway. “My apologies, Cameron,” he adds quickly. “I just wanted to tell Sara something.”
Sara quirks an eyebrow, a question. When I get up to go, she stops me and, with a dip of her head, asks Julian to continue. He always obeys where she is concerned.
“There’s been an exodus from court. Maven expelled dozens of nobles, mostly his father’s old advisers and those who might still harbor loyalties to Cal. It’s . . . I didn’t believe the intelligence report at first. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
Julian and Sara hold each other’s gaze, both pondering what this means. I don’t care at all about a few Silver lords and ladies, old friends of Julian and Sara’s. “And Mare?” I wonder aloud.
“She’s still there, still a prisoner. And any further fractures we may have expected from the rebelling houses . . .” He sighs, shaking his head. “Maven is already at war, and now he prepares for a storm.”
I shift on the floor, moving my weight into a more comfortable position. He’s right. Cold concrete isn’t pleasant. Good thing I’m used to it. “We already knew rescuing her was impossible. What else does this do for us?”