Traitor Born

  A shadow falls across us. Through tear-blinded eyes, I realize someone is standing next to me. A girl, breathing hard. Her face is red, and she’s crying. “Quincy!” I exhale her name.

  “You have to come now! She’s asking for you!” Distress puckers Quincy’s brow as she reaches for my hand, tugging me in desperation. “Please! She’s going to jump! You have to come!” Her long blond braid whips the air wildly. Nightmarish fear is etched into every line of her face.

  “Who are you?” Reykin demands from the girl. He won’t let go of me.

  Quincy sinks to her knees. “He was only supposed to take a little. The Atom told her to give him only a few grams a day, but he found the medicine. He took it all!” She chokes on a sob. “He got so sick, and he turned blue, and we couldn’t get him to breathe. He wouldn’t breathe!” Agony and sorrow shine in her red-rimmed eyes. “She needs you! You have to come!”

  I put my hand against Reykin’s chest and push with all my might. Blindly, I stumble to my feet. Quincy takes my hand, and we run in the direction of the Sea Fortress. Soft yipping barks follow behind me. I turn back to get Rogue, but Reykin has already collected him and is only a few paces behind. I sprint ahead.

  The sandbar is still covered by water, but the tide is going out. I wade into the waist-deep surf. I’m soaked by the time I reach the stone walls of the Sea Fortress. The sentry guards posted outside appear not to know what’s transpiring within. I allow them to scan my moniker, and then I’m past them, racing across the high-walled courtyard.

  The guards won’t let Reykin through, and he shouts for me to wait, but I keep going. Once inside, I accost the first person I can find—an elderly Sun-Fated secondborn carrying a multi-tiered tray full of intricate cakes and pastries. I latch on to her arm, nearly spilling the tray. “How do I get to the top of the tower?” I demand.

  Her eyes widen, and the lines around them stretch. She starts to answer me, but Quincy’s small hand on my arm pulls me forward. She navigates hallways—a labyrinth of stone walls—with me in tow. A winding staircase with carved wooden railings spirals up the middle of the tower, its hundreds of flagstone steps covered by aqua-colored carpet. I move toward the staircase, but Quincy yells, “No, wait!”

  Near the staircase are several small hover vehicles, some of them rusted around the edges. Most look as if they are whimsical novelties made for children, resembling miniature ancient sea vessels, but a couple are larger—big enough to carry adults. Quincy goes to a two-seater parked by the wall, near a balustrade carved in the shape of a cresting wave. She climbs onto it and activates the controls. The vehicle’s dragon-shaped masthead comes to life, its eyes glowing yellow, and the vehicle lifts off the floor.

  I climb onto the glittering golden seat beside her, and she launches the vehicle forward, driving it up the steep stairs. We follow the staircase in a dizzying, ever-climbing corkscrew. Passing stained-glass windows and floors with scores of doors at breakneck speeds, Quincy urges the vehicle on ever faster, slowing only when we arrive at the top floor’s landing. I look down over the railing at the ground floor far below. A commotion is forming. People are gathering there. Reykin is one of them. He probably bullied his way in here, using his connection to Grisholm or The Virtue as a threat.

  I rush to the open door at the end of the hallway. Sunlight shines in through the stone terrace overlooking the sea. White curtains flap. The breeze is warm. I’m sweating from the run and wet with salt water, but I shiver anyway, as if chilled to my marrow. Gulls squawk and cry outside. Balmora stands barefoot on the wide, lichen-dappled wall facing the cloudless blue sky. Her beautiful hair is long and loose, flowing past her shoulders and over her white nightgown.

  In the bed at the other end of the room, my brother’s body lays against the white damask pillows. My scalp tingles as my hairs rise in horror. Someone has taken off Gabriel’s leaded glove. Apart from his moniker’s golden light, it’s obvious that he’s dead. His ashen skin sags lifelessly over his hollow cheeks.

  I ache—a stabbing pain in my chest. Bile rises in my throat and my knees weaken. Hope is a vicious thing. I allowed myself to feel it, and now it’s bent on destroying me. My ears ring as blood pounds through them. Beside me, Quincy pants hard, her chest heaving. Wringing her hands, she implores me with her eyes to do something.

  I trudge heavily toward the stone terrace, weighed down by fear, my steps echoing on the flagstone floor. “Balmora,” I say gently.

  Wind lifts her hair. “Nothing ever changes here,” Balmora says flatly, without looking at me, from her position on the wall overlooking the sea. “Clouds roll in and roll out. Waves crash in and slide out . . . on and on, day after day, year after year, and I’m always here. Alone. That never changes either. I hate this place.”

  “Please come down,” I beg.

  “He said it has to be this way.”

  “It has to be what way?” I ask apprehensively. “Gabriel was sick—out of his mind—he—” Balmora leans forward a little. I consider rushing her and pulling her off the ledge, but the risk that she’ll fall is too great. I inch closer.

  Balmora turns and gazes down at me. Wind lifts her hem and stirs her hair. Her waving gown reminds me of the flags that top each tower of the fortress. “He said he couldn’t stop your mother, but you can.” It’s like she’s in a trance. Emotionless. Withdrawn.

  “Stop her from what?”

  “From taking over the world with her monsters.”

  “What monsters?” I ask. Balmora’s foot moves, and her heel now teeters off the edge of the wall. I reach out to her, gesturing for her to take my hand and climb down. “Don’t, Balmora,” I beg. “We can change the world together—you and me.”

  “He said, ‘Tell Roselle to follow the crow to the trees in the sea.’”

  “Kipson Crow? Did he mean Agent Crow?”

  The sound of another hovercart crashing into our abandoned one rattles the air behind us. Reykin calls my name, and I hear a few of Balmora’s attendants with him. I want to scream at them to leave, but I don’t dare take my eyes from Balmora.

  “I don’t know what he meant,” she drones. “He made me promise to tell you, and then, he said, I could join him.” Her dazed eyes shift to the young girl next to me. “Good-bye, Quincy,” Balmora whispers. And steps off the ledge.

  Chapter 17

  The Heir

  I lurch forward, hoping to grab Balmora, but she’s gone. A strangled sob comes from Quincy beside me. Screams tear through the air from the secondborn attendants behind us. I force myself to look over the edge, hoping to find her clinging to a ledge, but the tide is out, and the stones that support the base of the fortress are uncovered. Balmora’s body is a mangled mess on the rocks far below.

  The wind beats my hair against the sides of my face. I turn away and catch Quincy before she can look over the balcony wall. “Don’t,” I whisper, holding her to me in a hug. I can’t tell which of us is shaking worse. Quincy whimpers softly, the quiet crying of a girl who has been taught not to show her sorrow. I gaze toward the tower. Reykin is standing on the threshold to the balcony. By the grim expression on his face, I think he witnessed what happened.

  With long strides, Reykin crosses the balcony alone and peers over the low wall. Rogue isn’t with him, and I wonder numbly where my puppy is. Reykin’s expression is blank, betraying nothing of what he’s thinking.

  Alarms peal, distant at first, but growing steadily closer. Death drones converge around us, rising to hover around the balcony. Their bone-jarring tones rattle my teeth. Reykin gets between me and them. My Halo stingers arm and behave aggressively toward the death drones. The air grows foul with the noise of drones.

  Reykin’s physical presence buffers me from the chaos. His shoulders arch around me like a shield. Carefully, he herds Quincy and me back inside the tower, away from the death drones. The Halo stingers drift with us. Armed Exo and Iono guards enter the tower bedroom. Balmora’s secondborn attendants flutter around, some crying.

>   The pit of my stomach aches when I cast a glance at Gabriel again. I’ve been wrong about so many things, but especially him. I can’t decide if he was noble or a coward. The one thing he is now is gone.

  “This way.” Reykin directs me to leave, but we’re stopped by the guards. Using his moniker, Reykin contacts Dune, and moments later, the leader of the security team gets orders from my former mentor to bring me to the Halo Palace.

  “Quincy comes with me,” I growl, trying to hold back my tears. It’s strange, this ache. If I could pinpoint its source, I might be able to do something about it, but it’s all-encompassing.

  We’re escorted from the tower. On the way out of the fortress, Reykin collects Rogue from the lap of a middle-aged secondborn woman with a gap between her teeth. The puppy is completely passive, in the grip of a serious nap. I want to bury my face in his fur, but I dare not touch him. I’m not good at loving. I’m only good at killing. Death. Destruction.

  “Sad to see him go,” the woman says with a grin. In my daze, I mistakenly think she means Gabriel. But then she holds up the puppy and hands the bundle of love to Reykin. He nods, and we cross the shallow water over the sandbar to a waiting aircraft.

  Inside the airship, I huddle next to Quincy. Reykin sits beside me. We’re so close that our thighs touch. I still hear my heart in my ears. The puppy sleeps soundly on his lap, intermittently wagging his little tail. Reykin watches me. Shame heats my cheeks. I should never have accused him of murdering my brother. Gabriel did that himself. All I want to do is lay my head against Reykin’s shoulder and sob for the brother I once loved. That Gabriel was worthy of my tears, but I know my brother wasn’t that boy anymore.

  “I’m sorry I accused you,” I croak. “I thought . . .” I look away so I won’t cry.

  Reykin’s warm fingers close over my hand. “Not a poor assumption, given what I’ve said to you in the past.” He squeezes my hand. “How long?” he whispers. I know what he’s asking. How long has my brother been at the fortress, right under his nose?

  “Since the night you gave me Rogue,” I reply.

  “Who knows?” he asks. I indicate Quincy with a dip of my chin. Her cheek rests against my shoulder. “Quincy?” he beckons. The girl doesn’t lift her head, but her arm around mine grows tighter. “How did Gabriel come to be in the Sea Fortress?”

  Her voice is monotone and distant. “Do you mean the dead man?”

  “Yes,” Reykin replies.

  “I don’t know. I only found him like that this morning,” she lies. “Secondborn Commander was on the wall of the balcony. She was distraught, so I ran to get Roselle, hoping she’d be able to help.”

  “Do you know who the man was?” he asks.

  She shakes her head. “His moniker says he’s a Sword, but I didn’t look at him closely.”

  No one can know what we’ve done. Now that I’m firstborn and the heir to The Sword, I might get off with some ridiculously light punishment, but Quincy could be killed for helping to bring Gabriel and Balmora together. I can’t let that happen. We stick to her story or she dies.

  “Quincy,” Reykin says softly, “did you know that this puppy is magic?” Quincy side-eyes Rogue, then looks at Reykin. His face shows no hint of humor. “It’s true. Nothing bad can happen to you while you’re holding Rogue. He’s special like that. Do you want to try it and see?”

  She looks back at Rogue. Reykin lifts the puppy, holding his little warm body out to Quincy. She doesn’t move at first, but then her arm slips from mine, and her small, shaking hands take the furry creature and bring him to her chest. She presses her cheek to the top of his head, and Rogue’s floppy ear caresses her skin. A silent tear slips down her face.

  Our aircraft touches down on a hoverpad connected to the floating halo. Reykin keeps everyone at bay from Quincy and me. With his arms locked around us, he escorts us inside. The guards here seem different, and the reason isn’t immediately apparent until we get to the first security checkpoint. The hostile, suspicious stares that normally greet me have changed to surprise and open curiosity. The golden light of my moniker means I’m now treated with deference.

  By the time we reach Dune’s apartment, I’m trembling. My skin is chilly. I keep replaying everything in my mind, questioning my decisions. If I’d gone to Balmora and pulled her off the wall before she had a chance to tell me Gabriel’s message, she wouldn’t have been able to jump. If I had stayed with her and helped her convince Gabriel not to take his life, they’d both be alive.

  I’m shaken from my daze to find Dune in front of me. His look of concern is genuine, but it’s concern for me, not for Gabriel or Balmora. He doesn’t share the pain of my brother’s loss. Dune may try to comfort me, or he may not, but one thing is true: he wanted this. This is the best outcome the Gates of Dawn could have imagined. But I am unraveling. I feel as though if you pull a frayed piece of me, I’ll unwind into ribbon.

  “The Virtue has been alerted,” Dune says. “He understands that Balmora is dead and that it’s confirmed suicide. He’s going to want to know what she said before she jumped.”

  “She gave me a message from Gabriel,” I reply. I sound distant, even to myself.

  “What was the message?” Dune asks.

  “She said Gabriel wants me to follow the crow to the trees in the sea.”

  Dune’s expression grows more intense. “Do you know what she meant by that?”

  “No,” I reply, “but the only ‘crow’ I know is Agent Crow.”

  A woman’s shrieks echo in the corridor outside Dune’s apartment. He turns to look, and the door is thrown open by a disheveled woman. Her long blond hair is half set, as if she were interrupted in the middle of grooming. Clad only in a long jewel-colored robe, Adora storms into the drawing room.

  “Where is she?” The Virtue’s wife howls, and then her eyes fall on me. “You! What have you done?” Her voice is high-pitched, overwrought. I shudder at the snarl on her beautiful lips. “My daughter would never kill herself! She was too strong for that! You killed her!” Adora thrusts her finger at me. Deep lines of sorrow appear around her mouth.

  My head shakes involuntarily. “She was my friend,” I whisper. Hot tears fill my eyes. “I tried to save her, but she—”

  “Liar!” Adora’s agony shimmers. Tears drown her eyes. She lunges forward to slap me, but Reykin captures her and thrusts her arms behind her. “Let go of me!” She jerks and twists, but Reykin easily holds her. He nods his head to the Fated Virtue’s bodyguards, who have trailed in after her. They come forward to hold her off.

  Then The Virtue storms into the room, tight-lipped, flanked by his personal bodyguards. “Adora!” He tries to hug her.

  She wrenches away from him. “You promised me that if I agreed to keep her locked away in the Sea Fortress, nothing bad would ever happen to my baby. You lied! You’re a liar!” Adora spits viciously at her husband. “You’re all liars!”

  The Virtue motions to his bodyguards. “Take the Fated Virtue back to her apartments,” he says. “Call for a physician. Have her sedated.”

  Gently but firmly, the Exo guards pull Adora away. Her wailing and threats of retribution recede, but the air remains stained with them.

  The next few hours are complete chaos. The Virtue paces, grilling me with questions about Balmora’s death. Both Quincy and I present the facts of her death without revealing the treasonous part about arranging Gabriel and Balmora’s reunion. Most of the questions he asks us are about things I pretend not to know. Ignorance as a defense is weak and unacceptable to The Virtue. I fear for Dune’s furniture as the brutal despot crashes around the apartment, laying waste to all the most fragile appointments.

  “You were supposedly her friend,” he rages, almost toppling over a delicate table and sending an iron bowl filled with orbs crashing. The noise feels like slaps to my already taut nerves as his anger escalates from vein-popping to murderous.

  “We were friends,” I reply with a distinct lack of emotion, not because I’m un
emotional, but because I’ve forced them all down. “But we’re also Transitioned secondborns. Relationships cannot be intimate. It’s unacceptable to form deep attachments to anything outside one’s duties.” I use the law as a fallback. If they’re going to create ridiculous rules, I’ll throw them back in their faces.

  “You expect me to believe you’re a robot?” he asks. “I’ve seen you fight. Your passion is why you excel, not your detachment!”

  I’m stunned for a moment, not sure how to defend myself from an accusation that’s so true. Movement by the door draws my attention. Two firstborns from The Virtue’s administrative team creep into the room. Both are young, lithe females wearing terrified expressions. The one with the Virtue-Fated moniker inches forward and interrupts The Virtue’s scathing tirade. “Excuse me, Clarity Bowie.” Her timid voice quivers.

  He whips around at the disruption. “What is it!” he bellows.

  “Exos found this in Secondborn Commander’s tower room.” She holds up a palm-size hologram recorder. “It contains a message from your daughter.”

  “Show it!” he roars.

  “But, Your Excellence, it’s a very private kind of—”

  “Play the bloody thing!” Spittle flies from The Virtue’s mouth.

  The woman scurries forward, placing the recorder on the floor in the space between them. She activates the message. Holographic light projects up from the cylindrical metal base. Balmora’s image appears.

  “Hello, father,” she says in a brittle, condescending tone. She’s wearing the white nightgown she died in. Her hair, beautifully mussed as if she has just woken up, frames her tear-stained cheeks. Puffy eyes attest to her crying. She is perched on the edge of the bed in the Fate of Seas tower. Gabriel’s corpse is visible behind her, resting against damask pillows. “It may come as a shock to you that I’ve been in love with Gabriel St. Sismode since I was very young—and he loved me. We kept it a secret from you and Mother, not by choice, but because you and your perversions forced us to.