“Ptolemus!” I bark, forgetting every fear but one as he rounds the corner.
His blood stands out sharply against black steel armor, silver spattered down his chest like paint. I can taste the iron in it, a sharp tang of metal. Without thinking, I yank on his armor, pulling him through the air with it. Before he can collapse, I brace my torso against his, keeping him on his feet. He’s almost too weak to stand, let alone run. Icy-cold terror trails fingers down my spine.
“You’re late,” I whisper, earning a pained grin. Still alive enough for a sense of humor.
Wren works swiftly, pulling off his plates of armor, but she’s not faster than me. With another jerk of my hand, it falls from his body in a few clattering echoes. My eyes fly to his bare chest, expecting to see an ugly wound. Nothing there but a few shallow cuts, none of them serious enough to level someone like Ptolemus.
“Blood loss,” Wren explains. The skin healer pushes my brother to his knees, holding his left arm aloft, and he whimpers from the pain of it. I keep steady at his shoulder, crouching with him. “I don’t have time to heal this.”
This. I trail my gaze along his arm, over white skin gray and black with fresh bruises. It ends in a bloody, blunt stump. His hand is gone. Cut clean through the wrist. Silver blood pulses sluggishly from the severed veins, despite his meager attempts to wrap the wound.
“You have to,” Ptolemus grinds out, his voice hoarse with agony.
I nod fervently. “Wren, it’ll only take a few minutes.” No magnetron is a stranger to a lost finger. We’ve been playing with knives since we could walk. We know how quickly a digit can be regrown.
“If he ever wants to use that hand again, you’ll do as I say,” she replies. “It’s too complicated to do quickly. I have to seal the wound for now.” He makes another strangled noise, choking on the thought and the pain.
“Wren!” I plead.
She doesn’t back down. “For now!” Her beautiful eyes, gray Skonos eyes, bore into mine with urgency. I see fear in her, and no wonder. A few minutes ago she watched me murder four guards and free a prisoner of the crown. She is also complicit in the treason of House Samos.
“Fine.” I squeeze Tolly’s shoulder, imploring him to listen. “For now. The second we’re in the clear, she’ll fix you.”
He doesn’t reply, only nodding as Wren gets to work. Tolly turns his head, unable to watch the skin grow over his wrist, sealing up the veins and bones. It happens quickly. Blue-black fingers dance across his pale flesh as she knits him together. Skin growth is easy, or so I’m told. Nerves, bones, those are more complex.
I do my best to distract him from the blunt end of his arm. “So who did it?”
“Another magnetron. Lakelander.” He forces out each word. “Saw me breaking off to leave. Sliced me before I knew what was happening.”
Lakelanders. Frozen fools. All stern in their hideous blue. To think Maven traded the might of House Samos for them. “I hope you repaid the favor.”
“He no longer has a head.”
“That’ll do.”
“There,” Wren says, finishing up the wrist. She runs her hands along his arm and down his spine to the small of his back. “I’ll stimulate your marrow and kidneys, raise your blood production as much as I can. You’ll still be weak, though.”
“That’s fine. As long as I can walk.” He already sounds stronger. “Help me up, Evie.”
I oblige, bracing his good arm over my shoulder. He’s heavy, almost deadweight. “Ease up on the desserts,” I grumble. “Come on now, move with me.”
Tolly does what he can, forcing one foot after the other. Nowhere near fast enough for my taste. “Very well,” I mutter, reaching out to his discarded armor. It flattens and re-forms into a sheet of rippled steel. “Sorry, Tolly.”
I push him down onto it, using my ability to hold up the sheet like a stretcher.
“I can walk . . . ,” he protests, but weakly. “You need your focus.”
“Then focus for both of us,” I shoot back. “Men are useless when injured, aren’t they?”
Keeping him elevated takes a corner of my ability, but not all of it. I sprint as fast as I can, one hand on the sheet. It follows on an invisible tether, flanked by Wren on the other side.
Metal sings on the edge of my perception. I note each piece as we press on, filing them away on instinct. Copper wiring—a garrote with which to strangle. Door locks and hinges—darts or bullets. Window frames—iron hilts with glass daggers. Father used to quiz me on such things, until it became second nature. Until I couldn’t enter a room without marking its weapons. House Samos is never caught off guard.
Father devised our swift getaway from Archeon. Through the barracks and down the northern cliffs to boats waiting in the river. Steel boats, specially made, fluted for speed and silence. Between Father and me, they’ll cut through the water like needles through flesh.
We’re behind schedule, but only by a few minutes. In the chaos, it will take hours before anyone in Maven’s court realizes House Samos has disappeared. I don’t doubt other houses will take the same opportunity, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Maven is not the only person with an escape plan. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if every house has one of its own. The court is a powder keg with an increasingly short fuse and a spitfire king. You’d have to be an idiot not to expect an explosion.
Father felt the winds shift the moment Maven stopped listening to him, as soon as it became clear that allying to the Calore king would be our downfall. Without Elara, no one could hold Maven’s leash. Not even my father. And then the Scarlet Guard rabble became more organized, a real threat rather than an inconvenience. They seemed to grow with each passing day. Operating in Piedmont and the Lakelands, whispers of an alliance with Montfort far to the west. They’re much larger than anyone anticipated, better organized and more determined than any insurrection in memory. All the while, my wretched betrothed lost his grip. On the throne, on his sanity, on anything but Mare Barrow.
He tried to let her go, or so Elane told me. Maven knew as well as any of us what a danger his obsession would become. Kill her. Be done. Be rid of her poison, he used to mutter. Elane listened undetected, quiet in her corner of his private quarters. The words were only words. He could never part with her. So it was easy to push her into his path—and push him off course. The equivalent of waving a red flag in front of a bull. She was his hurricane, and every nudge pulled him deeper into the eye of the storm. I thought she was an easy tool to use. A distracted king makes for a more powerful queen.
But Maven shut me out of a place that was rightfully mine. He didn’t know to look for Elane. My lovely, invisible shadow. Her reports came later, under the cover of night. They were very thorough. I feel them still, whispered against my skin with only the moon to listen. Elane Haven is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in any capacity, but she looks best in moonlight.
After Queenstrial, I promised her a consort’s crown. But that dream disappeared with Prince Tiberias, as most dreams do with the harsh break of day. Whore. That’s what Maven called her after the attempt on his life. I almost killed him where he stood.
I shake my head, refocusing on the task at hand. Elane can wait. Elane is waiting, just as my parents promised. Safe in our home, tucked away in the Rift.