He waves me off and finds his feet, one arm pressed against the wall for balance. “It’s fine. She’s—” The words are thick, stilted. “I chose not to listen to her. I didn’t want to listen. That was my fault.”
I met Sara Skonos only once, when Evangeline almost exposed me to our entire training session. Julian summoned her—Julian, who loved her—and watched as she mended my bloody face and bruised back. Her eyes were sad, her cheeks hollow, her tongue missing entirely. Taken for words spoken against the queen, for a truth no one believed. Elara killed Cal’s mother, Coriane the Singer Queen. Julian’s own sister, Sara’s best friend. And no one seemed to mind. It was so much easier to look away.
Maven was there too, hating Sara with every breath. I know now that was a crack in his shield, revealing who he truly was beneath practiced words and gentle smiles. Like Cal, I didn’t see what was right in front of me.
Like Julian, she is probably dead already.
Suddenly the metal walls and the noise and the popping of my ears are too much.
“I need to get off this thing.”
Despite the strange angle of the room and the persistent ringing in my head, my feet know what to do. They have not forgotten the mud of the Stilts, the nights spent in alleys, or the obstacle courses of Training. I wrench the door open, gasping for breath like a girl drowned. But the stale, filtered air of the mersive offers me no respite. I need the smell of trees, water, spring rains, even summer heat or winter snow. Something to remind me of the world beyond this suffocating tin can.
Cal gives me a head start before following, his footsteps heavy and slow behind me. He’s not trying to catch up, but give me space. If only Kilorn could do the same.
He approaches from farther down the corridor, using handholds and wheel locks to ease himself down the angled craft. His smile fades at the sight of Cal, replaced not by a scowl but by cold indifference. I suppose he thinks ignoring the prince will anger him more than outright hostility. Or perhaps Kilorn doesn’t want to test a human flamethrower in such close quarters.
“We’re surfacing,” he says, reaching my side.
I tighten my grip on a nearby grate, using it to steady myself. “You don’t say?”
Kilorn grins, leaning against the wall in front of me. He plants his feet on either side of mine, a challenge if there ever was one. I feel Cal’s heat behind me, but the prince seems to be taking the indifferent path as well, and says nothing.
I won’t be a piece in whatever game they’re playing. I’ve done that enough for a lifetime. “How’s what’s-her-name? Lena?”
The name hits Kilorn like a slap. His grin slackens, one side of his mouth drooping. “She’s fine, I guess.”
“That’s good, Kilorn.” I give him a friendly, if condescending, pat on the shoulder. The deflection works perfectly. “We should be making friends.”
The mersive levels out beneath us, but no one stumbles. Not even Cal, who has nowhere near my balance or Kilorn’s sea legs, hard earned on a fishing boat. He’s taut as a wire, waiting for me to take the lead. It should make me laugh, the thought of a prince deferring to me, but I’m too cold and worn to do much of anything but carry on.
So I do. Down the corridor, with Cal and Kilorn in tow, to the throng of Guardsmen waiting by the ladder that brought us down here in the first place. The wounded go first, tied onto makeshift stretchers and hoisted up into the open night. Farley supervises, her shift even bloodier than before. She makes for a grim sight, tightening bandages, with a syringe between her teeth. A few of the worse off get shots as they pass, medication to help with the pain of being moved up the narrow tube. Shade is the last of the injured, leaning heavily on the two Guardsmen who teased Kilorn about the nurse. I would push through to him, but the crowd is too tight, and I don’t want any more attention today. Still too weak to teleport, he has to fumble on one leg and blushes furiously when Farley straps him onto a stretcher. I can’t hear what she says to him, but it calms him somewhat. He even waves off her syringe, instead gritting his teeth against the jarring pain of being hoisted up the ladder. Once Shade is safely carried up, the process goes much faster. One after the other, Guardsmen follow one another up the ladder, slowly clearing the corridor. Many of them are nurses, men and women marked by white shifts with varying degrees of bloodstains.
I don’t waste time waving others ahead, faking politeness like a lady should. We’re all going to the same place. So when the crowd clears a little, the ladder opening to me, I hurry forward. Cal follows, and his presence combined with mine parts the Guardsmen like a knife. They step back quickly, some even stumbling, to give us our space. Only Farley stands firm, one hand around the ladder. To my surprise, she offers Cal and me a nod. Both of us.
That should’ve been my first warning.
The steps on the ladder burn in my muscles, still strained from Naercey, the arena, and my capture. I can hear a strange howling up above, but it doesn’t deter me in the slightest. I need to get out of the mersive, as fast as possible.
My last glimpse of the mersive, looking back over my shoulder, is strange, angling over Farley and into the medical station. There are wounded still in there, motionless beneath their blankets. No, not wounded, I realize as I pull myself up. Dead.
Higher up the ladder, the wind sounds, and a bit of water drips down. Nothing to bother with, I assume, until I reach the top and the open circle of darkness. A storm howls so strongly that the rain pelts sideways, missing most of the tube and ladder. It stings against my scraped face, drenching me in seconds. Autumn storms. Though I cannot recall a storm so brutal as this. It blows through me, filling my mouth with rain and biting, salty spray. Luckily, the mersive is tightly anchored to a dock I can barely see, and it holds firm against the roiling gray waves below.