Traitors

  “Not particularly,” I lied. “Although, it might be a good idea for you to move your plants somewhere remote, until the war blows over.” I wanted to take him with us, but I knew he wouldn’t want to leave his mother, especially not when she’d taken a turn for the worse.

  Sarrask frowned, scraping back his chair. “Why?”

  “Queen Gianne is about to take the war to the next level,” Navan replied. “She’s planning to attack the North. We’re leaving now, if either of you wants to come with us.”

  I hadn’t expected him to offer a place to either of his two brothers, but maybe he already knew that neither of them would accept. Kaido was dutybound to his parents, while Sarrask was dutybound to his nation. Even so, I flashed a hopeful glance in Kaido’s direction, but his face was unreadable.

  “I think not, Navan,” Kaido said bluntly. “I will do as Riley has recommended and seek alternative accommodations for myself and my plants, but I will not be leaving the South. I cannot, as you well know.”

  “Forget them, Kaido,” Navan urged. “Lorela and Jareth don’t care about you. Come with us. Forget what you think you owe them, because you don’t owe them anything.”

  Kaido dipped his head. “I do, Navan. You will never understand. I would not expect you to,” he replied quietly. “If I take away my core reason for being, what remains? I must stay and see to it that our mother is safe and well. No matter what she has done, or what she thinks of me, that does not change the fact that she gave us all life. That should grant her a sliver of respect, even from you.”

  “You do whatever you feel you have to, Kaido, but you’re making a mistake. You should come with us and forget all of this,” Navan insisted, shaking his head.

  Kaido smiled. “You must do what you have to do, as I must. That is all there is to it.”

  Sarrask nodded. “I won’t be coming with you, either. I made my choice today, on the way back from the chapel,” he explained solemnly. “The ceasefire made me realize that I wasn’t doing enough to bring peace to Vysanthe. So I sent in my papers to join the fighting. Kaido and I are both heading back to the front line.”

  “What? Why?” I gasped, dreading the idea of either of them entering the fray.

  “Navan might be able to forget his ties to this planet, but I can’t. My loyalty will always remain with the South, even if a crazy ruler sits on the throne. We can’t choose our queen, but we can choose to restore peace, and hope that, one day, someone better sits in her place. The only way to do that is to win the war… and that is what I’m going to help do.”

  Navan sighed wearily. “You’re both idiots for doing this. You should get out while you still have the chance.”

  Sarrask squared up to his brother. “I don’t want to fight with you, Navan, since I’m guessing this is going to be a goodbye. But the truth is, I won’t run from my responsibilities here. You can disappear into the depths of the universe, but always know that you deserted your home in her time of need.”

  “I’m not deserting anyone!”

  “I hope you can tell yourself that when the guilt kicks in,” Sarrask murmured.

  I stepped up beside Navan. “Your loyalty should be to a united Vysanthe, not one that’s split apart by two warring queens.”

  “That’s not realistic, Riley. You haven’t been here long, so I don’t expect you to understand the history of our planet,” Sarrask replied, not unkindly. “Even before the queens came along, a truly united Vysanthe didn’t exist. There were royalists and anti-royalists, loyalists and defectors, anti-monarchists and anti-parliament. There has never been a united Vysanthe, and there never will be. The reality is, it’s kill or be killed. I know which side I want to be on.”

  “A few disagreements have to be better than a nation that’s completely split down the middle, with one side forbidden from setting foot in the other?” I countered, knowing how well that worked out for countries on Earth. “This war won’t stop until one side has completely obliterated the other. You have to know that!”

  Sarrask smiled sadly. “I believe it will end when Brisha is taken down,” he reasoned. “It doesn’t matter what I think is best in the long run, because it’s out of my hands. The only thing I can do now is join the side I believe in, and hope to Rask we end this war quickly so that the violence will stop with fewer lives lost.”

  Mort snorted rudely. “I hate to break up your pity party, but if we want to beat the tide, we’re going to have to get running, if you catch my drift,” he said. “Airstrikes, as you well know, wait for no man. So, say a quick farewell and spare me the sappy goodbyes—I didn’t bring any anti-nausea meds with me, and I’d hate to spew all over this quaint kitchen.”

  Mort was right, but I hated the thought of leaving these two to rejoin the Southern fight, especially if Sarrask thought that killing Brisha was the only way to cease the fighting.

  “Stay safe, okay?” I demanded, pulling Kaido into an awkward hug. He squirmed against me, desperate to be free of my grip. Still, I wasn’t breaking away until I was good and ready.

  “I will, if you let me go!” he mumbled, gasping with relief as I released him. “I apologize if my behavior seems rude, Riley, but you must know I detest physical contact.”

  “If you were a plant, he’d be all over you,” Sarrask teased, breaking the tension.

  “I would not!” Kaido protested, but Sarrask ignored him.

  He moved toward me and wrapped me in a tight embrace, practically squeezing the air out of my lungs. “You take care of yourself out there, Riley. Don’t take any crap from anyone. You’re one of a kind—never forget that,” he murmured close to my ear, before letting me go.

  “Yeah, well, don’t you go getting yourselves killed on the front line!” I retorted, my cheeks flushing.

  He grinned. “I’ll try not to. Besides, I’ve got Jumpy McGee over here to watch my back.”

  “I can definitely vouch for that,” I said, flashing an affectionate look at Kaido, who seemed utterly confused as to who ‘Jumpy McGee’ was supposed to be. After witnessing his skills on the battlefield firsthand, I knew Sarrask would be okay as long as he stuck with his talented brother.

  Navan hugged his brothers, and then Ronad made his rounds, until everyone had said their brief goodbyes. It was bittersweet, not knowing when or if we might see the two Idraxes again. I just hoped they survived the war and lived long enough to see a more peaceful Vysanthe, one way or another.

  I knew whom I’d be rooting for, if I had to pick sides, but I wasn’t about to admit it out loud. More than anything, I was rooting for the people. If I’d had my way, I would have put the two queens in a ring and made them fight it out between themselves, but that really wasn’t realistic.

  “Are you done?” Mort grumbled impatiently.

  “Watch your mouth, skinbag, or we’ll drop you off back on Mallarot!” Navan warned.

  He scoffed. “I’d like to see you try. They wouldn’t take me!”

  With the two of them arguing out the door, we made our way around the back of the cottage, where the ship Navan had borrowed from Brisha squatted on a makeshift driveway. Ronad had managed to rid it of unwanted cameras and trackers, while we’d been busy worrying about wedding preparations, making it shipshape and ready to fly. Navan took the helm, turning on the invisibility shield as the ship lifted into the sky.

  It was time to push through to the North, save our friends, and get the hell out of Vysanthe while we still had the chance.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  We reached the border an hour later, only to find it in total disarray. The shimmering barrier that separated the North and the South was blinking off and on, with whole sections crackling and sparking. It looked like someone had tried to repair it, succeeding to some extent.

  I walked from window to window to get a better look at our surroundings, grateful for the change of clothes I’d found in the cargo-hold of Navan’s military ship. It was an infantry uniform, and much too big for me, but I’d made it work wit
h belts and ties, sticking to just the pants and t-shirt instead of the full garb. If we were forced to fight, I didn’t feel like taking on an enemy in an elegant gown.

  All around, gunships hovered in the darkness like weird, deep-sea creatures, their windows lit up as a warning that they were waiting for the ceasefire to end.

  On the ground in the Southern half, silver tents were arranged in clusters, the arched canvas roofs making them look like beetles resting on the dirt. I guessed that was where the front-line infantry was staying, using the ceasefire to rest up for the following sunset. Part of me wondered if they were simply sharpening their blades and cleaning their guns, suspecting the fight would come much sooner than that.

  Navan kept the vessel low to the ground and moved it down the mountain range, away from the tents and gunships. Finding a narrow gap in the flickering barrier, he waited for the moment it crackled away before driving the ship through the border and into the Northern territories. Even if the systems picked up on our invisibility shield, the fact that we were riding in one of Brisha’s military ships would hopefully protect us from scrutiny.

  As we soared toward Nessun, I realized we were already too late. Up ahead, six Titans stomped through the settlements as if they were toy towns. They were taller than the tallest spire of Brisha’s palace, crushing homes and ships underfoot, while tiny dots tried to run for safety beneath their brutal gait. My stomach turned, bile rising in my throat. Towns had been razed to the ground, entire streets set on fire, and in the moonlight, I could see the scattered forms of countless dead, the ash of their corpses floating in the wind.

  I understood now. We hadn’t been able to get through to Brisha’s control room because they were too busy to accept our call. And there had been no ships on the Northern side because they were already deep into battle with the Titans.

  I covered my mouth as a Titan grasped one of the ant-like coldbloods, who was trying to run away, and lifted her in its vast palm. The beast crushed the poor woman, squeezing so hard her head popped off. I looked away, struggling to hold on to the contents of my stomach.

  The Titans were remarkably humanoid despite their size. Their long, silver hair was braided down their backs, intertwined with what seemed to be ribbons of flesh and trophies, probably taken from their enemies. Across their bright white bodies, metal plates and jeweled adornments blended with their skin. One had an entire arm made of silver plates and spikes, with only a scrap of flesh poking through, while a golden tattoo arced across the bare chest of another, though each piece of the tattoo looked as though it had been smelted onto his flesh, the molten metal melding to his body.

  Our armor gift would’ve gone straight into their museum of enemy artifacts or been wrapped around one of their braids. If they’d wanted to wear it, it would barely have covered an elbow.

  Brisha’s fighter ships were locked in an aerial assault on the Titans. Their floodlights illuminated everything below as they fired at the enemy from above, before wheeling away to let the next wave of gunships approach. It didn’t seem to be doing much good, however, the artillery pinging off the metal pieces. Even when they hit flesh, the Titans barely seemed bothered, ignoring the rivulets of golden blood trickling down their bodies.

  A female Titan, who had implanted bronze plates where a bra might have gone, snatched a fighter ship from the sky, King-Kong style, hurling it against the ground. It exploded at the Titan’s feet, but she just laughed, shielding her eyes against the blast as it consumed a group of escaping civilians.

  Watching the devastation, I had no idea how we were going to find the others in all this mess and manage to get away without getting swatted out of the sky ourselves. Nessun was close by, and it looked as though the Titans had already made it there, as well.

  I sprinted into the cockpit and took up the seat next to Navan, my eyes fixed on the windshield and the battle raging up ahead. As soon as we surged up and over the protective walls of Nessun, I knew this was where the Titans had begun their assault. The ones who had branched out into the neighboring towns and villages had simply gotten bored, by the looks of it, leaving five of their comrades to finish the job of crushing and destroying everything in the North’s capital.

  A large fleet hovered over the center of the city while a smaller group lingered above the palace, protecting it. I knew Brisha would be down in the control room, instructing her aerial fleet and her infantry on what to do next. There was no way she would hide away in her palace, doing nothing, while the fighting raged on and her people were being mercilessly slaughtered. She just wasn’t that kind of queen.

  “We should get to Brisha first,” I suggested, pointing to the palace. “She’ll be able to tell us where everyone is, so we won’t end up searching aimlessly for the next hour in the middle of a warzone.”

  Navan nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “You realize she’s not just going to let us go, don’t you?” Ronad chimed in anxiously. “It’s not going to be a case of, ‘Here are all your friends, please feel free to run away.’”

  I flashed him a look. “It’s better than us searching everywhere, with no idea where they might be.”

  Mort plopped himself down in one of the cockpit chairs, his flesh oozing over the sides. “Well, if you want my opinion, I say we forget about your pals and vamoose before we end up as pretty little hair ribbons in a Titan’s war braid.”

  “We’re not leaving without our friends, Mort,” I snapped.

  “Well, I’m not coming with you. This is your funeral, not mine. I will not meet my end under the diseased toes of a Titan. Death by athlete’s foot? No thanks!” he retorted.

  I rolled my eyes in exasperation. “You’re coming with us whether you like it or not, Mort. If we leave you here on the ship, you’ll just steal it, and there’s no way I’m letting that happen.”

  “Am I that transparent?” he muttered. “I can make myself transparent if I pull my skin enough—do you want to see?”

  I grimaced. “Please, for once, could you stay focused?”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to have a little fun before you get me killed, princess.” He pouted, putting his feet up on the dashboard, his flesh pooling.

  A transmission came through a moment later, as we reached the perimeter of the palace. I guessed we’d set off a sensor of some sort, leaving us open to detection, even through the ship’s cloak.

  “State your business here,” a gruff voice said.

  “We’re here to see the queen. Tell her it’s Navan Idrax, returning from his rescue mission. We’re not the enemy,” Navan replied.

  “Yeah, that’s just what the enemy would say,” Mort muttered.

  “Give me a minute,” the voice said, and a video stream came through on the ship’s monitors. A grizzled guard peered through the camera, observing each one of us. “You got any identification on you?”

  Navan patted his pockets and pulled out the ID band that we’d used in the training center. I’d taken mine off a long time ago, but I presumed Navan had been forced to keep his, given his former position in Brisha’s infantry. He flashed it up at the monitor, where the guard scanned it.

  “Okay, you’re clear to descend. Set your ship down in the gardens,” he said, and the video stream blinked off.

  Even as we approached the palace walls, I felt a little nervous that the clustered group of ships might suddenly open fire on us. To my relief, they let us descend unhindered. Navan set us down in the palace gardens, a short distance from the spot where Bashrik had kissed Angie for the first time, and I’d tackled Yorrek to the floor. I wondered where the cantankerous old alchemist was now. No doubt he was tucked away in a bunker of his own design, waiting out the war.

  “Mort, can you be a little more… coldblood?” I asked as the ship came to a standstill.

  He pulled a face. “I’m tired of being coldbloods. They’re boring.”

  “I don’t care if they’re boring. I need you to look like one!”

  He gri
nned, before morphing into a warped version of me. “How about this instead? I could really get used to the way this feels. So young, so slinky, so—”

  “Dead, if you don’t do as she says!” Navan warned.

  With a reluctant sigh, he shifted into the body of a generic coldblood guard, his uniform matching the green and silver of Brisha’s army. “This doesn’t mean I won’t use the other one in private,” he taunted, before getting up out of his seat and moving toward the hatch.

  “What you do in private is no concern of mine,” I shot back, following him out into the main space of the ship.

  The four of us made our way into the palace. Several guards manned every door, each one armed to the teeth, but they seemed to be aware of who we were and let us through without much hassle. One even took us to a spiral stairwell that led down to the queen’s underground control room, where he said the queen was waiting for us.

  “Riley!” a cry rang out as we emerged.

  Two figures darted toward me, with another trailing behind. “Angie, Lauren!” I shrieked, wrapping them in my arms when they sprinted into my welcome embrace. They were still wearing their medical uniforms, while Bashrik was wearing the emblem of the aerial fleet. It was a relief not to see him in the air with the rest of the gunships, avoiding the grasp of the Titans.

  “You’re safe!” Angie sobbed, holding me at arm’s length so she could get a good look at me. “Thank God you’re okay. We kept trying to get in touch, but the comms were down, and then the Titans came… It’s been crazy.”

  “How did you get here?” Lauren asked. “When Navan didn’t come straight back, we got so worried about you!”

  “It’s a long story,” I said, sighing. “We found out about the Titans a couple of hours ago and wanted to get here to tell Brisha before they struck. But we were too late.” I lowered my voice. “Anyway, we’re here to get you and get the hell off this planet.”