“What happens if we free Julian and the others?” I lean forward in my chair. “Can you see that?”
If he’s lying, I can’t tell. “No. I see only the current path, and however far it leads. For example, I see you now, surviving the Pitarus trap, only to die four days on. You wait too long to assault Corros. Oh wait, it’s changed now that I’ve told you.” Another strange, sad smile. “Hmm.”
“This is nonsense,” Cal growls, untangling his hand from mine. He stands up from the table, slow and deliberate as rolling thunder. “People go crazy listening to predictions like yours, ruined by knowledge of an uncertain future.”
“We have no proof but your word,” Farley chimes in. For once, she finds herself in agreement with Cal, and it surprises them both. She kicks back her chair, actions fast and violent. “And a few party tricks.”
Party tricks. Predicting what we’re going to say, reading Farley’s attacks before she makes them, those are no such thing. But it’s easier to believe Jon is an impossibility. It’s why everyone believed Maven’s lies about me, about newbloods. They saw my power with their own eyes, and chose to trust what they could understand, rather than what was true. I’ll make them pay for their foolishness, but I won’t make their mistake. Something about Jon rattles me, and instinct tells me have faith, not in the man, but at least in his visions. What he says is true, though his reason for telling us might be less than honorable.
His maddening smile flags, twisting into a scowl that betrays a quick temper. “I see the crown dripping blood. A storm without thunder. Shadow twisting on a bed of flames.” Cal’s hand twitches at his side. “I see lakes flooding their shores, swallowing men whole. I see a man with one red eye, his coat blue, his gun smoking—”
Farley beats a fist against the table. “Enough!”
“I believe him.” The words taste strange.
I can’t trust my own friends, but here I am, allying myself with a cursed stranger. Cal looks at me like I’ve grown a second head, his eyes screaming out a question he doesn’t dare ask aloud. I can only shrug, and avoid the searing weight of Jon’s red eyes. They rove over me, examining every inch of the lightning girl. For the first time in ages, I wish for silk and silver armor, to look like the leader I pretend to be. Instead, I shiver in my threadbare sweater, trying to hide the scars and bones beneath. I’m glad he cannot see my brand, but something tells me he knows about it anyway.
Buck up, Mare Barrow. With a great swell of strength, I lift my chin and shift in my chair, effectively turning my back on the others. Jon smiles in the ashen light.
“Where is Corros Prison?”
“Mare—”
“You can drop me off on the way,” I shoot back at Cal, not bothering to watch the verbal blow land. “I’m not leaving them to become Elara’s puppets. And I won’t abandon Julian, not again.”
The lines on Jon’s face deepen, speaking of many painful decades. He’s younger than I thought, hiding youth beneath the wrinkles and the gray hair. How much has he seen, to make him this way? Everything, I realize. Every horrible or wonderful thing that could ever happen. Death, life, and everything in between.
“You’re exactly who I thought you would be,” he murmurs, covering my hands with his own. Veins web beneath his skin, blue and purple and full of red blood. The sight of them brings me such comfort. “I’m grateful to have met you.”
I offer up a thin but obliging smile, the best I can do. “Where is the prison?”
“They won’t let you go alone.” Jon glances over my shoulder. “But we both know that, don’t we?”
A warm blush rises to my cheeks and I have to nod.
Jon mirrors the action before his gaze shifts, landing on the table. The dreamy look returns and he pulls his hands away. He stands up on wavering feet, still watching something we cannot see. Then he sniffs and pulls up his collar, gesturing for us to do the same.
“Rain,” he warns, seconds before a downpour slams into the roof above us. “Pity we must walk.”
I feel like a drowned rat by the time we reach the jet, having hiked straight through mud and torrential rain. Jon keeps us at a steady pace, even slowing us once or twice, to “line things up,” as he said. A few seconds after the jet comes into view, I realize what he meant. Gareth tumbles out of the sky, a slowing meteor of wet clothes and blood. He touches down fine, and the bundle in his arms, a baby by the looks of it, springs into midair, transforming before our eyes. Nanny’s feet hit the ground hard and she stumbles, dropping to one aged knee. Shade jumps to her side, holding her steady, while Farley pulls Gareth’s arm over her shoulder. He gladly puts his weight on her, leaning to compensate for a useless leg dripping blood.
“Ambush in Pitarus,” he growls, both in anger and pain. “Nanny got away clean, but they surrounded me. Had to upend a city block before I could break off.”
Even though Jon assured us there would be no pursuit, I can’t help but watch the darkening sky. Every twist of cloud looks like another airjet, but I hear and feel nothing except the distant shivers of thunder.
“They’re not coming, Miss Barrow,” Jon says over the rain. His mad smile has returned.
Gareth glances at him, confused, but nods along. “I don’t think anyone followed,” he says, trailing into a growl of pain.
Farley adjusts her grip on Gareth, taking on almost his entire weight. Even though she helps him toward the jet, her focus is on Jon. “Was the little beast there?”
Gareth nods. “Sentinels were, so the king couldn’t have been far.”
She curses, but I don’t know who she’s angrier at. Maven for ambushing our friends, or Jon for being right.
“Leg looks worse than it is,” Jon calls over the rain. He points at Gareth as Farley helps him up the ramp and onto the jet. Then his finger waves to Nanny, still crouched against Shade. “She’s bone tired and cold. Blankets should do.”
“I’m not some old coot to be wrapped up and shut away,” Nanny snarls from the ground. She gets to her feet as quickly as she can, burning a glare at Jon. “Let me walk, Shade, or I’ll scold you into oblivion.”
“Your call, Nanny,” Shade mumbles, fighting a smirk as she struts by him. He gives her enough room to move, but is never more than an arm’s length away. Nanny proudly stalks into the jet, her head held high and back ramrod straight.
“You did that on purpose,” Cal growls as he shoulders past Jon. He doesn’t bother to look back, even when Jon barks a laugh at his retreating form.
“And it worked,” he says, low enough so that only I can hear.
Trust the vision, not the man. A good lesson to learn. “Cal’s got a thing against mind games,” I warn, raising one pointed hand. A spark of lightning runs down my finger. The threat is plain as day. “And so do I.”
“I don’t play games.” Jon shrugs, tapping the side of his head. “Even when I was boy. This made it a bit hard to find competition, you see.”
“That’s not—”
“I know what you meant, Miss Barrow.” His placid smile, once unsettling, has become frustrating. I spin on my heel, making for the jet, but after a few quick steps, I realize Jon isn’t following.
He stares into the rain, but his eyes are wide and bright. A vision has not taken hold. He’s just standing still, enjoying the feel of cold, clean water washing the ash from his skin.
“This is where I leave you.”
The pulse of the jet spooling to life echoes in my rib cage, but it feels distant, unimportant. I can only stare at Jon. In the dimming light of the rainstorm, he looks like he’s fading away. Gray as the ash, gray as the rain, fleeting as both.
“I thought you were going to help us with the prison?” Desperation floods my voice, and I let it. Jon doesn’t seem to mind, so I try another tactic. “Maven’s hunting for you too. He’s killing all of us, and he’ll kill you when he gets the chance.”
That makes him laugh so hard he doubles. “You think I don’t know the moment I die? I do, Miss Barrow, and it
will not be at the king’s hands.”
My teeth gnash together in irritation. How can he leave? All the others chose to fight. Why won’t he? “You know I can make you come with us.”
In the gray downpour, my lightning seems to spark twice as brightly. Purple-white, hissing in the rain, it twists between my fingers and sends shivers of pleasure up my spine.
Again, Jon smiles. “I know you can, and I know you won’t. But take heart, Miss Barrow. We will meet again.” He tips his head, thinking. “Yes, yes, we will.”
I’m only doing what I promised. I’m giving him a choice. Still, it takes all I have not to drag him onto the jet. “We need you, Jon!”
But he’s already begun to back away. Every step makes him harder to see. “Trust me when I say you don’t! I leave with you these instructions—fly to the outskirts of Siracas, to Little Sword Lake. Protect what you find there, or your imprisoned friends are as good as dead.”
Siracas, Little Sword Lake. I repeat the words until they commit to memory.
“Not tomorrow, not tonight, but now. You must fly now.”
The roar of the jet expands, until the air itself vibrates with strain. “What are we looking for?” I shout over the din, putting up one hand to shield my face from the spinning rain. It stings but I squint through it, if only to see the last silhouette of the gray man.
“You’ll know!” comes out of the rain. “And tell Diana, when she doubts. Tell her the answer to her question is yes.”
“What question?” But he ticks a finger, almost scolding.
“Attend to your own fate, Mare Barrow.”
“And that is?”
“To rise. And rise alone.” It echoes like the howl of a wolf. “I see you as you could become, no longer the lightning, but the storm. The storm that will swallow the world entire.”
For a split second, it looks like his eyes are glowing. Red against gray, burning through me, to look into every future. His lips curve into that maddening smile, letting his teeth gleam in the silver light. And then he’s gone.
When I stomp aboard the jet alone, Cal has the good sense to let me simmer in my anger. Only despair drowns out my rage. Rise alone. Alone. I dig my nails into my palm, trying to chase the sadness with pain. Fates can change.
Farley is not so tactful as Cal. She looks up from bandaging Gareth’s leg, her fingers sticky with scarlet blood, and sneers. “Good, we didn’t need the old loon anyways.”
“That old loon could’ve won this war outright.” Shade cuffs her lightly on the shoulder, earning a dark glare. “Think of what he can do with his ability.”
From the pilot’s seat, Cal glowers. “He’s done enough.” He watches me take the chair next to him, seething all the while. “You really want to storm a secret prison built for people like us?”
“Would you rather let Julian die?” No answer but for a low hiss. “That’s what I thought.”
“All right, then,” he sighs, easing the jet into a crawl. The wheels bump beneath us, rolling over uneven road. “We have to regroup, get a plan together. Anyone who wants to come is welcome, but no kids.”
“No kids,” I agree. My mind flashes to Luther and the other newblood children back at the Notch. Too young to fight, but not young enough to be spared from Maven’s hunt. They won’t like being left behind, but I know how Cal cares for them. He won’t allow any of them to see the wrong side of a gun.
“Whatever you’re talking about, I’m in.” Gareth looks at us around Farley, his teeth gritted against the pain in his leg. “Though I’d like to know what it is I’m signing up for.”
Scoffing, Nanny swats at him one bony hand. “Just because you’re shot in the leg doesn’t mean you can stop paying attention. It’s a prison break.”
“Too right, Nan,” Farley agrees. “And a goose chase if you ask me. Going on the word of a madman.”
That stills even Nanny’s jokes. She fixes me with a stare only a grandmother could summon. “Is that true, Mare?”
“Madman’s a bit harsh,” Shade mutters, but he doesn’t deny what they’re all thinking. I’m the only one who believes Jon, and they trust me enough to follow that faith. “He was right about Pitarus, and everything else he said. Why would he lie about the jail?”
Rise and rise alone.
“He didn’t lie!”
My shout silences them all, until there’s only the rumble of jet engines. They rise to a familiar dull roar that shudders through the craft, and soon the pavement beneath us falls away. Rain spatters against the windows, making it impossible to see, but Cal’s too good to let us drop. After a few moments, we burst through the gunmetal clouds and into bright midday sun. It’s like throwing off an iron weight.
“Take us to Little Sword Lake,” I murmur. “Jon said we would find something there, something that will help.”
I expect more arguments, but no one dares cross me. It’s not wise to annoy a lightning girl when you’re flying in a metal tube.
Thunder rolls beneath us, in the clouds below, a harbinger of the lightning churning in the rainstorm. Great bolts strike the land, and I feel each one as an extension of myself. Fluid but sharp as glass, burning through everything in their way. The Little Sword is not far, on the northern edge of the storm, and it reflects the steadily clearing sky like a mirror. Cal circles once, high enough and deep enough in the clouds to hide our presence, before he spots a runway half-buried in the forested hills around the lake. When we touch down, I all but leap from my seat, though I have no idea what I’m looking for.
Shade is close behind me as I sprint down the jet ramp, eager to get to the lake. It’s a mile north, if memory serves, and I let my inner compass take hold. But I barely make it to the tree line before a familiar sound stops me cold.
The click of a gun.
TWENTY-TWO
She’s holding the pistol wrong. Even I know that. It’s too big for her, made of shimmering black metal, with a barrel nearly a foot long. Better suited to a trained soldier rather than a shivering, slight teenage girl. A soldier, I realize with cold clarity. A Silver. It’s the same kind of gun a Sentinel shot me with, so long ago in the cells deep beneath the Hall of the Sun. The bullet felt like a blow from a hammer and went straight through my spine. I would’ve died if not for Julian and a blood healer under his control. In spite of my ability, I raise my hands, palms open in surrender. I’m the lightning girl, but I’m not bulletproof. But she takes this as a threat instead of submission, and tenses, her finger itching too close to the trigger.
“Don’t move,” she hisses, daring to take another step toward me. Her skin, the dark, rich color of blackwood bark, offers her perfect camouflage in the forest. And yet, I see the red bloom beneath, and the tiny scarlet veins webbing the whites of each eye. I gasp to myself. She’s Red. “Don’t bleeding think about it.”
“I won’t,” I tell her, tipping my head. “But I can’t speak for him.”
Her brows furrow in confusion. She doesn’t have time to be afraid. Shade appears behind her, solidifying out of thin air, and wraps her up in an expert military hold. The gun falls from her grasp, and I snatch it before it can hit the rocky ground. She fights, snarling, but with Shade’s arms firmly locked behind her head, she can’t do much more than sink to her knees. He follows, keeping her firmly in hand, his mouth set in a grim line. A scrawny girl is no match for him.
The gun feels foreign in my hand. It’s not my chosen form of weapon—I’ve never even shot one before. I almost laugh at that. To come so far without even firing a gun.
“Get your Silver hands off me!” she growls, struggling against Shade’s grip. She’s not strong, but slippery, with long, lean muscles. Keeping her still is like holding on to an eel. “I won’t go back, I won’t! You’ll have to kill me!”
Sparks crackle in my empty hand, while the other still clutches the gun. The sight of my lightning freezes her immediately. Only her eyes move, widening in fear.
Her tongue darts out, wetting dry and cracked lips
. “Knew I recognized you.”
Cal’s heat outruns his body, enveloping me in a pocket of warmth moments before he skids to my side. His fingertips burn blue with fear, but his flames recede at the sight of the girl.
“I got you a present,” I mutter, pressing the gun into his hand. He glares at it, seeing exactly what I saw.
“How did you get this?” he asks, dropping to a crouch so he can look her in the eye. His manner, cold and firm, takes me back to the last time I watched him interrogate someone. The memory of Farley’s screams and frozen blood still turns my stomach. When she doesn’t answer, he tightens, a coil of hard muscle. “This gun? How?!”
“I took it!” she rages back, squirming. Her joints crack with the action.
I wince with her, and lock eyes with my brother. “Let her be, Shade. I think we can handle this fine.”
He nods, glad to let go of the wriggling teenager, and releases her. She pitches forward, but catches herself before eating dirt. She skirts away from Cal’s attempt to help. “Don’t touch me, Lordy.” She looks liable to bite, her teeth bared and gleaming.
“Lordy?” he mutters under his breath, now just as confused as the girl.
Above her, Shade narrows his eyes in realization. “Lordy. High lords—Silvers. It’s slum slang,” he explains for our benefit. “What Town are you from?” he asks her, his tone much kinder than Cal’s. It takes her off guard, and she glances at him, her black eyes darting in fear. But she keeps looking back at me, transfixed by the thin spindles of sparks between my fingers.
“New Town,” she finally replies. “They took me from New Town.”
Now it’s my turn to bend, so I can look at her fully. She seems like my opposite, long and lean where I am short, her braided hair a gleaming oil black while mine fades from brown to splinters of gray. She’s younger than me; I can see it in her face. Maybe fifteen or sixteen, but her eyes speak of weariness beyond her short years. Her fingers are long and crooked, probably broken by machinery too many times to count. If she’s from the New Town slum, she’s a techie, doomed to work the factories and assembly lines of a city born in smoke. There are tattoos on her neck, but nothing so superfluous as Crance’s anchor. Numbers, I realize. NT-ARSM-188907. Big and blocky, two inches high, wrapping halfway around her throat.