Samson sweeps through it all with abandon. He pulls me through useless memories, drawn up only to subject me to more pain. Shadows jump through the thoughts. Moving images behind every painful moment. Samson spools through them, too fast for me to truly grasp. But I gather enough. The Colonel’s face, his scarlet eye, his lips forming words I can’t hear. But surely Samson can. This is what he’s looking for. Intelligence. Secrets he can use to crush the rebellion. I feel like an egg with a cracked shell, slowly seeping my innards. He pulls whatever he wants from me. I don’t even have the ability to feel ashamed at what else he finds.
Nights spent curled against Cal. Forcing Cameron to join our cause. Stolen moments rereading Maven’s sickening notes. Memories of who I thought the forgotten prince was. My cowardice. My nightmares. My mistakes. Every selfish step I took that led me here.
Look what you did. Look what you did. Look what you did.
Maven will know it all soon enough.
This was always what he wanted.
The words, scrawled in his looping hand, burn through my thoughts.
I miss you.
Until we meet again.
FOUR
Cameron
I still can’t believe we survived. I dream about it sometimes. Watching them drag Mare away, her body held tightly between a pair of gigantic strongarms. They were gloved against her lightning, not that she tried to use it after she made her bargain. Her life for ours. I didn’t expect King Maven to follow through. Not with his exiled brother on the line. But he kept his deal. He wanted her more than the rest.
Still, I wake up from the usual nightmares, afraid he and his hunters have returned to kill us. The snores from the rest of my bunk room chase the thoughts away.
They told me the new headquarters was a bleeding ruin, but I expected something more like Tuck. A once-abandoned facility, isolated but functional, rebuilt in secret with all the amenities a burgeoning rebellion might need. I hated Tuck on sight. The block barracks and guard-like soldiers, even if they were Red, reminded me too much of Corros Prison. I saw the island as another jail. Another cell I was being forced into, this time by Mare Barrow instead of a Silver officer. But at least on Tuck I had the sky above me. A clean breeze in my lungs. Compared to Corros, compared to New Town, compared to this, Tuck was a reprieve.
Now I shiver with the rest in the concrete tunnels of Irabelle, a Scarlet Guard stronghold on the outskirts of the Lakelander city of Trial. The walls feel frozen to the touch, and icicles dangle from rooms without a heat source. A few of the Guard officers have taken to following Cal around, if only to take advantage of his radiating warmth. I do the opposite, avoiding his lumbering presence as best I can. I have no use for the Silver prince, who looks at me with nothing but accusation.
As if I could have saved her.
My barely trained ability was nowhere near enough. And you weren’t enough either, Your Bleeding Highness, I want to snap at him every time we cross paths. His flame was no match for the king and his hunters. Besides, Mare offered the trade and made her choice. If he’s angry at anyone, it should be her.
The lightning girl did it to save us, and for that I am always thankful. Even if she was a self-centered hypocrite, she doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her.
The Colonel gave the order to evacuate Tuck the moment we were able to radio back to him. He knew any interrogation of Mare Barrow would lead directly to the island. Farley was able to get everyone to safety, either in boats or the massive cargo jet stolen from the prison. We were forced to travel overland ourselves, hightailing from the crash site to rendezvous with the Colonel across the border. I say forced because, once again, I was told what to do and where to go. We had been flying to the Choke in an attempt to rescue a legion of child soldiers. My brother was one of them. But our mission had to be abandoned. For now, they told me every time I got enough courage to refuse another step away from the war front.
The memory makes my cheeks burn. I should’ve kept going. They wouldn’t have stopped me. Couldn’t have stopped me. But I was afraid. So close to the trench line, I realized what it meant to march alone. I would have died in vain. Still, I can’t shake the shame of that choice. I walked away and left my brother yet again.
It took weeks for everyone to reunite. Farley and her officers arrived last of all. I think her father, the Colonel, spent every day she was gone pacing the frigid halls of our new base.
At the very least, Barrow’s making her imprisonment useful. The distraction of such a prisoner, not to mention the boiling mess of Corvium, has stalled any troop movements around the Choke. My brother is safe. Well, as safe as a fifteen-year-old can possibly be with a gun and a uniform. Safer than Mare certainly is.
I don’t know how many times I’ve seen King Maven’s address. Cal took over a corner of the control room to play it again and again once we arrived. The first time we saw it, I don’t think any of us dared to breathe. We all feared the worst. We thought we were about to watch Mare lose her head. Her brothers were beside themselves, fighting tears, and Kilorn couldn’t even look, hiding his face in his hands. When Maven declared execution was too good for her, I think Bree actually fainted in relief. But Cal looked on in deafening silence, his brows knit together in focus. Deep down he knew, like we all did, that something much worse than death waited for Mare Barrow.
She knelt before a Silver king and stood still while he put a collar around her throat. Said nothing, did nothing. Let him call her a terrorist and murderer before the eyes of our entire nation. Part of me wishes she’d snapped, but I know she couldn’t put a toe out of line. She just glared at everyone around her, eyes sweeping back and forth between the Silvers crowding her platform. They all wanted to get close to her. Hunters around a trophy kill.
In spite of the crown, Maven didn’t look so kingly. Tired, maybe sick, definitely angry. Probably because the girl next to him had just murdered his mother. He tugged at Mare’s collar, forced her to walk inside. She managed one last look over her shoulder, eyes wide and searching. But another tug turned her around for good, and we haven’t seen her face since.
She’s been there, and I’ve been here, rotting, freezing, spending my days rewiring equipment older than I am. All of it a bleeding waste.
I steal one last minute in my bunk to think about my brother, where he might be, what he’s doing. Morrey. My twin in nothing but appearance. He was a soft boy in the hard alleys of New Town, constantly sick from the factory smoke. I don’t want to imagine what military training has done to him. Depending on who you ask, techie workers were either too valuable or too weak for the army. Until the Scarlet Guard started their meddling, killed a few Silvers, and forced the old king into some meddling of his own. We were both conscripted, even though we had jobs. Even though we were only fifteen. The bloody Measures enacted by Cal’s own father changed everything. We were selected, told to be soldiers, and we were marched away from our parents.
They split us up almost immediately. My name was on some list and his wasn’t. Once, I was grateful I was the one sent to Corros. Morrey would have never survived the cells. Now I wish we could trade places. Him free, and me on the lines. But no matter how many times I petition the Colonel for another attempt at the Little Legion, he always turns me away.
So I might as well ask again.
The tool belt is a familiar weight around my hips, thunking with every step. I walk with purpose, enough to deter anyone who might bother to stop me. But for the most part, the halls are empty. No one is around to watch me stalk past, gnawing on a breakfast roll. More captains and their units must be out on patrol again, scouting Trial and the border. Looking for Reds, I think, the ones lucky enough to make it north. Some come here to join up, but they’re always of military age or workers with skills useful to the cause. I don’t know where the families are sent: the orphans, the widows, the widowers. The ones who would only be in the way.
Like me. But I get underfoot on purpose. It’s the only way to get any kind of attention.