Provos is so focused on me, he doesn’t notice the barrel-chested Red soldier a few yards away. He shoots him through the head with an armor-piercing round. It isn’t pretty. Silver spatters across my ruined gown.
“Mare!” he shouts, hurrying to my side. I recognize his voice, his dark brown face—and his electric-blue eyes. Four other Guardsmen move with him. They circle up, protective. With strong hands, he hoists me to my feet.
Forcing a breath, I shiver in relief. When my brother’s smuggling friend became a true soldier, I don’t know, and now isn’t the time to ask. “Crance.”
One hand still on his gun, he raises the radio clawed in his other fist. “This is Crance. I have Barrow in the Square.” The hiss of empty feedback is not promising. “Repeat. I have Barrow.” Cursing, he tucks the radio back into his belt. “Channels are a mess. Too much interference.”
“From the storm?” I glance up again. Blue, white, green. I narrow my eyes and throw another bolt of purple into the crash of blinding color.
“Probably. Cal warned us—”
Air hisses through my teeth. I grab him tightly, making him flinch. “Cal. Where is he?”
“I have to get you out—”
“Where?”
He sighs, knowing I won’t ask again.
“He’s on the ground. I don’t know where exactly! Your rendezvous point is the main gate,” he shouts in my ear, making sure he can be heard. “Five minutes. Grab the woman in green. Take this,” he adds, shrugging out of his heavy jacket. I pull it over my tattered dress without argument. It feels weighted. “Flak jacket. Semibulletproof. It’ll give you some cover.”
My feet carry me away before I can even say thank you, leaving Crance and his detail in my wake. Cal is here somewhere. He’ll be hunting Maven, just like me. The crowd surges, a swiftly changing tide. If not for the Guardsmen pushing through the fray, I could force my way through. Blast everyone in front of me, clear a path across the Square. Instead I rely on my old instincts. Dancing steps, agility, predicting every pulsing wave of the chaos. Lightning trails in my wake, staving off any hands. A strongarm knocks me sideways, sending me careening through arms and legs, but I don’t return to fight him. I keep moving, keep pushing, keep running. One name screams through my head. Cal. Cal. Cal. If I can get to him, I’ll be safe. A lie maybe, but a good lie.
The smell of smoke gets stronger as I push on. Hope flares. Where there’s smoke, there’s a fire prince.
Ash and soot streak the white walls of the Treasury Hall. One of the airjet missiles took a chunk out of the corner, slicing through marble like butter. It lies in a pile of rubble around the entrance, forming good cover. The Sentinels make full use of it, their ranks bolstered by the Lakelanders and a few of the purple-uniformed Treasury guards. Some of them fire into the oncoming Guardsmen, using bullets to defend their king’s escape, and many more utilize their abilities. I dart around a few bodies frozen solid on their feet, the violent work of a Gliacon shiver. Another few are alive but on their knees, bleeding from the ears. Marinos banshee. The evidence of so many deadly Silvers is all around. Corpses speared by metal, necks broken, skulls caved in, mouths dripping water, a particularly gruesome body that seems to have choked on the plants growing out of its mouth. As I watch, a greeny throws a handful of seeds at an attacking swath of Scarlet Guard. Before my eyes, the seeds burst like grenades, spitting vines and thorns in a verdant explosion.
I don’t see Cal here, or any other faces I recognize. Maven is already in the Treasury, headed for the train.
Clenching a fist, I throw everything I can at the Sentinels. My lightning crackles along the rubble, sending them scurrying back. Dimly, I hear someone shout to push forward. The Guardsmen do, continuing to fire round after round. I keep up the pressure, sending another blaze of lightning across them like a cracking whip.
“Incoming!” a voice screams.
I look up, expecting a blow from the sky. Airjets dance through the stormy clouds, chasing one another. None of them seem concerned by us.
Then someone pushes me aside, throwing me out of the way. I turn in time to see a person I recognize barrel along a cleared pathway, his head lowered, body armored on the head, neck, and shoulders. He picks up speed, legs pumping.
“Darmian!”
He doesn’t hear me, too busy crashing toward the marble blockade. Bullets ping off his armor and skin. A shiver sends a blast of icicles at his chest, but they shatter. If he’s afraid, he doesn’t show it. He never hesitates. Cal taught him that. Back at the Notch. When we were all together. I remember a different Darmian then, the one I knew. He was a quiet man compared to Nix, another newblood who shared his ability of impenetrable flesh. Nix is long dead now, but Darmian is very much alive. Roaring, he clambers over the marble blockade, careening into two Sentinels.
They fall on him with everything they have. Stupid. They might as well be shooting at bulletproof glass. Darmian responds in kind, dropping grenades with cold rhythm. They bloom in fire and smoke. Sentinels fall backward, few of them able to withstand a direct explosion.
Guardsmen vault over the rubble, following in Darmian’s wake. Many overtake him. The Sentinels are not their mission. Maven is. They flood into the Treasury, hot on the king’s trail.
As I run forward, I let my ability press on ahead. I feel the lights of the Treasury’s main hall, spiraling down into the rock beneath us. My sense jumps along the wires, deeper and deeper. Something big idles below, its engine a rising purr. He’s still here.
The marble beneath my feet is easy to scale. I scrabble over the rubble on all fours, my mind focused a hundred feet down. The next grenade blast catches me unawares. Its force blows me backward in a wave of heat. I land hard, flat on my back, gasping for breath, quietly thankful for Crance’s jacket. The explosion blazes over me, close enough to burn my cheek.
Too big for a grenade. Too controlled for natural flame.
I scramble to my feet, forcing my legs to obey as I suck down air. Maven. I should have known. He wouldn’t leave me up here. Wouldn’t run away without his favorite pet. He’s come to put the chains back on me himself.
Good luck.
Smoke follows the swirling fire, making the already dark Square hazy. It surrounds me, growing stronger and hotter with every passing second. Tensing, I send lightning through my nerves, letting it crackle over every inch. I take a step toward his silhouette, black and strange in the shifting firelight. The smoke curls, the fire shooting with raging hot blue flame. Sweat drips down my neck. My fists clench, ready to run him through with every drop of rage collected in his prison. I’ve been waiting for this moment. Maven is a cunning king, but no fighter. I’m going to rip him apart.
Lighting ripples over our heads, flashing brighter than the flame. It illuminates him as the wind picks up, blowing away the smoke to reveal—
Red-gold eyes. Broad shoulders. Callused hands, familiar lips, unruly black hair, and a face I have ached for.
Not Maven. All thoughts of the boy king disappear in an instant.
“Cal!”
The fireball hisses through the air, almost engulfing my head. I roll beneath it on instinct alone. Confusion rules my brain. He’s unmistakable. Cal, standing there in tactical armor, a red sash tied across him from waist to hip. I fight the animal need to run toward him. It takes every fiber of control to step back.
“Cal, it’s me! It’s Mare!”
He doesn’t speak, just pivots on his feet, keeping me in front of him. The fire around us churns and contracts, pulling inward with blinding speed. The heat crushes the air from my lungs, and I choke down smoke. Only lightning keeps me safe, crackling around me in a shield of electricity to keep me from burning alive.