There’s a commotion as several dozen armed warriors push their way into the griffin stable and confront Sefi. They gesture wildly at us. Their accents thicker than the Nagal I learned with Mickey’s uploads and my studies at the Academy, but I understand enough to glean that the newer group of warriors is shouting that we should be in chains, and something about heretics. Sefi’s women are
shouting back, saying we are friends of Ragnar, and they point feverishly to the Gold of our hair.
They don’t know how to treat us, or Cassius, who several of the warriors pull away from us like dogs fighting for scrap meat. The arrow’s still in his neck. Whites of his eyes huge. He reaches for me in terror as the Obsidians drag him across the floor. His hand grasps mine, holds for a moment, and then he’s gone down a torch-lit hall, borne away by half a dozen giants. The rest cluster around us, huge iron weapons in hand, the stink of their furs thick and nauseating. Quieting only when an old stout woman with a hand-shaped tattoo on her forehead pushes through their ranks to speak with Sefi.
One of her mother ’s warchiefs. She gestures upward toward the ceiling with large hand motions.
“What is she saying?” Holiday asks.
“They’re talking about Phobos. They see the lights from the battle. They think the Gods are fighting. These ones think we should be prisoners, not guests,” Mustang says. “Let them take your weapons.”
“Like hell.” Holiday steps back with her rifle. I grab the barrel and push it down, handing them my razor. “This is bloody spectacular,” she mutters. They shackle our arms and legs with great iron manacles, taking care not to touch our skin or hair, and jerk us toward a tunnel by the Spires guards, away from Sefi’s Valkyrie. But as we go, I catch sight of Sefi watching after us, a strange, conflicted look on her white face.
—
After being dragged down several dozen dimly lit stairwells, we’re shoved into a windowless cell of carved stone and stifling, smoky air. Seal oil smolders in iron braziers stinging our eyes. I trip on a raised flagstone and fall to the floor. There, I slam my chains against the stone. Feeling the anger. The helplessness. All the things happening so fast, whipping me around, so I can’t tell which way’s up. But I can think long enough to grasp the futility of my actions, my plans. Mustang and Holiday watch me in heavy silence. One day into my grand plan and Ragnar is already dead.
Mustang speaks more softly. “Are you all right?”
“What do you think?” I ask bitterly. She says nothing in reply, not the fragile sort of person to take offense and whimper out how she’s just trying to help. She knows the pain of loss well enough. “We need to have a plan,” I say mechanically, trying to force Ragnar out my mind.
“Ragnar was our plan,” Holiday says. “He was the entire sodding plan.”
“We can salvage it.”
“And how the hell you expect to do that?” Holiday asks. “We don’t have weapons anymore. And they don’t exactly look tickled Pink to see us. They’re probably going to eat us.”
“These ones aren’t cannibals,” Mustang says.
“You’re willing to bet your leg on that, missy?”
“Alia is the key,” I say. “We can still convince her. It will be difficult without Ragnar, but that’s the only way. Convince her that he died trying to bring their people the truth.”
“Didn’t you hear him? He said words wouldn’t work.”
“They still can.”
“Darrow, give yourself a moment,” Mustang says.
“A moment? My people are dying in orbit. Sevro is at war, and he’s depending on us to bring him
an army. We don’t have the luxury of taking a bloodydamn moment.”
“Darrow…” Mustang tries to interrupt. I keep going, methodically sorting through the options, how we must hunt down Aja, rejoin with the Sons. She puts a hand on my arm. “Darrow. Stop.” I
falter. Losing track of where I was, slipping away from the comfort of logic and falling straight into the emotion of it all. Ragnar ’s blood is under my nails. All he wanted was to come home to his people and lead them out of darkness like he saw me doing with mine. I robbed him of that choice by leading the attack on Aja. I don’t cry. There isn’t time for it, but I sit there with my head in my hands. Mustang touches my shoulder.
“He smiled in the end,” she says softly. “Do you know why? Because he knew what he was doing
was right. He was fighting for love. You’ve made a family of your friends. You always have. It made Ragnar a better man to know you. So you didn’t get him killed. You helped him live. But you have to live now.” She sits next to me. “I know you want to believe the best in people. But think how long it took for you to get through to Ragnar. To win over Tactus or me. What can you do in a day? A week?
This place…it’s not our world. They don’t care about our rules or our morality. We will die here if we do not escape.”
“You don’t think Alia will listen.”