The Haven girl blinks back into existence, suddenly visible again, while the churning wind dies in Oliver’s hands. Evangeline’s knives drop out of the air and even I feel a calm blanket of nothing fall over me, blotting out my electrical sense.
He is Rane Arven, the instructor, the executioner, the silence. He can reduce a Silver to what they hate most: a Red. He can turn their abilities off. He can make them normal.
While I gawk, Maven pulls me into place behind him, with Cal at the head of our line. Evangeline leads the line next to us and for once she doesn’t seem concerned with me. Her eyes stay on Cal as he settles in, looking quite at home in his place of authority.
Arven doesn’t waste time introducing me. In fact, he barely seems to notice I’ve joined his session.
“Laps,” he says, his voice rough and low.
Good. Something I can actually do.
We set off in our lines, circling the room at an easy pace in blissful quiet. I push myself faster, enjoying the exercise I missed so much, until I’m speeding right past Evangeline. Then it’s just Cal next to me, setting the pace for the rest of them. He quirks a smile at me, watching me run. This is something I can do, something I even enjoy.
My feet feel strange on the cushioned floor, bouncing with every step, but the blood pounding in my ears, the sweat, the pace are all familiar. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m back in the village, with Kilorn or my brothers or just by myself. Just free.
That is until a section of the wall swings out, catching me in the stomach.
It knocks me to the floor, sending me sprawling, but it’s my pride that really hurts. The pack of runners pulls away and Evangeline smirks over her shoulder, watching me fall behind. Only Maven slows his pace, waiting for me to catch up.
“Welcome to training.” He chuckles, watching me pry myself off the obstacle.
All over the room, other parts of the wall shift, forming barriers for the runners. Everyone else takes it in stride; they’re used to this. Cal and Evangeline lead the pack, moving over and under each obstacle as it appears before them. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the Provos telky directing the pieces of wall, making them move. He even seems to be smirking at me.
I fight back the urge to snap at the telky and push myself back into a jog. Maven runs next to me, never more than a step away, and it’s strangely infuriating. My pace quickens, until I’m sprinting and hurdling to the best of my ability. But Maven isn’t like the Security at home—it’s hard to leave him in the dust.
By the time we finish laps, Cal is the only one who hasn’t broken a sweat. Even Evangeline looks ragged, though she tries her best to hide it. My breath comes in heavy pants, but I’m proud of myself. Despite the rough start, I managed to keep up.
Instructor Arven surveys us for a moment, his eyes lingering on me, before turning to the telky. “Targets please, Theo,” he says, again barely a whisper. Like drawing away a curtain to reveal the sun, I feel my abilities rushing back.
The telky assistant waves a hand, sliding away a section of the floor, revealing the strange gun I saw from the window of Blonos’s classroom. I realize it’s not a gun at all but a cylinder. Only the telky’s power makes it move, not some greater, strange technology. The abilities are all they have.
“Lady Titanos,” Arven murmurs, making me shudder. “I understand you have an interesting ability.”
He’s thinking of the lightning, the purple-white bolts of destruction, but my mind strays to what Julian said yesterday. I don’t just control, I can create. I am special.
Every eye turns to me, but I set my jaw, trying to will myself into being strong. “Interesting, but not unheard of, Instructor,” I say. “I’m very eager to learn about it, sir.”
“You may start now,” the instructor says, and the telky behind him tenses.
On cue, one of the ball targets flies into the air, faster than I thought possible.
Control, I tell myself, repeating Julian’s words. Focus.
This time, I can feel the pull as I suck the electricity from the air—and from somewhere inside myself. It manifests in my hands, shining to life in little sparks. But the ball smacks the floor before I can throw it, its sparks bleeding into the floor and disappearing. Evangeline snickers behind me, but when I turn to glare at her, my eyes find Maven instead. He barely nods, urging me to try again. And next to him, Cal crosses his arms, his face dark with an emotion I can’t place.
Another target rockets up, turning over in the air. The sparks come sooner now, alive and bright as the target reaches its zenith. Like before in Julian’s classroom, I ball my fist and, feeling the power rage through me, I throw.
It arcs in a beautiful display of destructive light, clipping the side of the falling target. It shatters under my power, smoking and sparking as it hits the floor with a crash.
I can’t help but grin, pleased with myself. Behind me, Maven and Cal clap, as do a few of the other kids. Evangeline and her friends certainly do not—they look almost insulted by my victory.
But Instructor Arven doesn’t say anything, not bothering to congratulate me. He simply looks over me, to the rest of the unit. “Next.”
The instructor runs the class ragged, forcing us through round after round of exercises meant to fine-tune our abilities. Of course, I fall behind in all of them, but I can also feel myself improving. By the time the session ends, I’m dripping sweat and sore all over. Julian’s lesson is a blessing, allowing me to sit and recover my strength. But even the session that morning cannot entirely drain me—midnight is coming. The faster time passes, the closer to midnight I get. The closer to taking the next step, to taking control of my fate.
Julian doesn’t notice my unease, probably because he’s elbow deep in a pile of newly bound books. Each one is about an inch thick and neatly labeled with a year, but nothing else. What they could possibly be, I don’t know.
“What are these?” I ask, picking up one. Inside it’s a mess of lists: names, dates, locations—and causes of death. Most just say blood loss, but there’s also disease, suffocation, drowning, and some more specific and gruesome details. My blood runs cold in my veins as I realize exactly what I’m reading. “A death list.”
Julian nods. “Every person who ever died fighting in the Lakelander War.”
Shade, I think, feeling my meal churn in my stomach. Something tells me he won’t get his name in one of these. Deserters don’t get the honor of a line of ink. Angry, I let my mind reach out to the desk lamp illuminating my reading. The electricity in it calls to me, as familiar as my own pulse. With nothing more than my brain, I turn it on and off, blinking in time with my ragged heartbeat.
Julian notes the flashing light, lips pursed. “Something wrong, Mare?” he asks dryly.
Everything is wrong.
“I’m not a fan of the schedule change,” I say instead, letting the lamp be. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth either. “We won’t be able to train.”
He only shrugs, his parchment-colored clothes shifting with the motion. They look dirtier somehow, like he’s turning into the pages of his books. “From what I hear, you need more guidance than I can give you.”
My teeth grind together, chewing on the words before I can spit them out. “Did Cal tell you what happened?”
“He did,” Julian replies evenly. “And he’s right. Don’t fault him for it.”
“I can fault him for whatever I want,” I snort, remembering the war books and death guides all over his room. “He’s just like all the others.”
Julian opens his mouth to say something, but thinks better of it at the last moment and turns back to his books. “Mare, I wouldn’t exactly call what we do training. Besides, you looked very good in your session today.”
“You saw that? How?”
“I asked to watch.”
“Wha—?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, looking straight through me. His voice is suddenly melodic, humming with deep, soothing vibrations. Exhaling, I realize he’s right.
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeat. Even though he isn’t speaking, the echo of Julian’s voice still hangs in the air like a calming breeze. “So, what are we working on today?”
Julian smirks, amused with himself. “Mare.”
His voice is normal again, simple and familiar. It breaks apart the echoes, wiping them away from me in a lifting cloud. “What—what the hell was that?”
“I take it Lady Blonos hasn’t spoken much about House Jacos in Lessons?” he says, still smirking. “I’m surprised you never asked.”
Truly, I’ve never wondered about Julian’s ability. I always thought it would be something weak, because he doesn’t seem as pompous as the others—but it looks like that isn’t true at all. He’s much stronger and more dangerous than I ever realized.
“You can control people. You’re like her.” The thought of Julian, a sympathizer, a good person, being at all like the queen makes me shake.
He takes the accusation in stride, shifting his attention back to his book. “No, I’m not. I have nowhere near her strength. Or her brutality.” He heaves a sigh, explaining. “We’re called singers. Or at least we would be, if there were any more of us. I’m the last of my house, and the last of, well, my kind. I can’t read minds, I can’t control thoughts, I can’t speak in your head. But I can sing—as long as someone hears me, as long as I can look into their eyes—I can make a person do as I wish.”
Horror bleeds through me. Even Julian.
Slowly, I lean back, wanting to put some distance between him and myself. He notices, of course, but doesn’t look angry.
“You’re right not to trust me,” he murmurs. “No one does. There’s a reason my only friends are written words. But I don’t do it unless I absolutely need to, and I’ve never done it with malice.” Then he snorts, laughing darkly. “If I really wanted, I could talk my way to the throne.”
“But you haven’t.”
“No. And neither did my sister, no matter what anyone else might say.”
Cal’s mother. “No one seems to say anything about her. Not to me, anyways.”
“People don’t like to talk about dead queens,” he snaps, turning away from me in a smooth motion. “But they talked when she was alive. Coriane Jacos, the Singer Queen.” I’ve never seen Julian this way, not once. Usually he’s quiet, calm, a little obsessed maybe, but never angry. Never so hurt. “She wasn’t chosen by Queenstrial, you know. Not like Elara, or Evangeline, or even you. No, Tibe married my sister because he loved her—and she loved him.”
Tibe. Calling Tiberias Calore the Sixth, King of Norta, Flame of the North, anything with less than eight syllables seems preposterous. But he was young once too. He was like Cal, a boy born to become a king.
“They hated her because we were from a low house, because we didn’t have strength or power or any other silly thing those people uphold,” Julian rails on, still looking away. His shoulders heave with each breath. “And when my sister became queen, she threatened to change all that. She was kind, compassionate, a mother who could raise Cal to be the king this country needed to unite us all. A king who wouldn’t be afraid of change. But that never came to be.”
“I know what it’s like to lose a sibling,” I murmur, remembering Shade. It doesn’t seem real, like maybe everyone is just lying and he’s at home now, happy and safe. But I know that isn’t true. And somewhere, my brother’s decapitated body lies as proof of that. “I only found out last night. My brother died at the front.”
Julian finally turns back around, his eyes glassy. “I’m sorry, Mare. I didn’t realize.”
“You wouldn’t. The army doesn’t report executions in their little books.”
“Executed?”
“Desertion.” The word tastes like blood, like a lie. “Even though he never would.”
After a long moment of silence, Julian puts a hand on my shoulder. “It seems we have more in common than you think, Mare.”
“What do you mean?”
“They killed my sister, too. She stood in the way, and she was removed. And”—his voice drops—“they’ll do it again, to anyone they have to. Even Cal, even Maven, and especially you.”
Especially me. The little lightning girl.
“I thought you wanted to change things, Julian.”
“I do indeed. But these things take time, planning, and too much luck to count on.” He stares me up and down, like somehow he knows I’ve already taken the first step down a dark path. “I don’t want you getting in over your head.”
Too late.