“I believe you chose to do it.”
“I was dared.”
“Now who would’ve done such a thing?”
He laughs outright, pushing us both through a set of double doors. The hallway on the other side is obviously a new addition. The paint still looks wet in places. And overhead, the lights flicker. Bad wiring, I know instantly, feeling the places where the electricity frays and splits. But one cord of power remains unbroken, flowing down the passage to the left. To my chagrin, Kilorn takes us right.
“What’s that?” I ask, gesturing the opposite way.
He doesn’t lie. “I don’t know.”
The Tuck infirmary isn’t so grim as the medical station on the mersive. The high, narrow windows are thrown open, flooding the chamber with fresh air and sunlight. White shifts shuttle back and forth between patients, their bandages blissfully clean of red blood. Soft conversation, a few dry coughs, even a sneeze fill the room. Not a single yelp of pain or crack of bone interrupts the gentle noise. No one is dying here. Or they have simply died already.
Shade isn’t hard to find, and this time, he isn’t pretending to sleep. His leg is still elevated, held up by a more professional sling, and his shoulder bandage is fresh. He angles to the right, facing the bed next to him with a stoic expression. Who he’s addressing, I can’t tell yet. A curtain surrounds the bed on two sides, hiding the occupant from the rest of the infirmary. As we approach, Shade’s mouth moves quickly, whispering words I can’t decipher.
He stops short at the sight of me, and it feels like a betrayal.
“You just missed the brutes,” he calls out, adjusting himself so there’s room for me on the bed. A nurse moves to help, but Shade waves him off with a bruised hand.
The brutes, his old nickname for our brothers. Shade grew up small, and was often Bree’s punching bag. Tramy was kinder, but always followed in Bree’s lumbering footsteps. Eventually Shade grew smart and quick enough to evade them both, and taught me to do the same. I don’t doubt he sent them from his bedside, allowing him enough privacy to talk with me—and whoever it is behind the curtain.
“Good, they’re on my nerves already,” I reply with a good-natured smile.
To outsiders, we look like jawing siblings. But Shade knows better, his eyes darkening as I reach the foot of his bed. He notes my forced limp and nods infinitesimally. I mirror the action. I got your message, Shade, loud and clear.
Before I can even hint at asking him about Cal, another voice cuts me off. I grit my teeth at the sound of her, willing myself to keep calm.
“How do you like Tuck, lightning girl?” Farley says from the secluded bed next to Shade. She swings her legs over the side, facing me fully, with both hands clenched in her bedsheets. Pain streaks across her pretty face ruined by a scar.
The question is easy to dodge. “I’m still deciding.”
“And the Colonel? How do you like him?” she continues, dropping her voice. Her eyes are guarded, unreadable. There’s no telling what she wants to hear. So I shrug, busying myself with arranging Shade’s blankets instead.
Something like a smile twists her lips. “He makes quite a first impression. Needs to prove he’s in control with every breath, especially next to people like you two.”
I round Shade’s bed in an instant, planting myself between Farley and my brother. In my desperation, I forget to limp. “Is that why he took Cal away?” The words come sharp and fast. “Can’t have a warrior like him running around, making him look bad?”
She lowers her eyes, as if ashamed. “No,” she murmurs. It sounds like an apology, but for what, I don’t know yet. “That’s not why he took the prince.”
Fear blossoms in my chest. “Then why? What has he done?”
She doesn’t get the chance to tell me.
A strange quiet descends on the infirmary, the nurses, my heart, and Farley’s words. Her curtains hide the door from us, but I hear the stomp of boots marching in quick time. No one speaks, though a few soldiers salute from their beds as the boots close in. I can see them through the gap between the curtain and floor. Black leather, caked in wet sand, and getting closer by the second. Even Farley shivers at the sight, digging her nails into the bed. Kilorn draws closer, half concealing me with his bulk, while Shade does his best to sit up.
Though this is a medical ward filled with Red wounded and my so-called allies, a little piece of me calls to the lightning. Electricity flares in my blood, close enough to reach for if I need it.
The Colonel rounds the curtain, his red eye fixed in a constant glare. To my surprise, it lands on Farley, forsaking me for the moment. His escorts, Lakelanders by their uniforms, look like pale, grim versions of my brother Bree. Hewn of muscle, tall as trees, and obedient. They flank the Colonel in practiced motion, taking up positions at the end of Shade’s and Farley’s beds. The Colonel himself stands in between, boxing in Kilorn and me. Proving he’s in control.
“Hiding, Captain?” the Colonel says, fingering the curtain around Farley’s bed. She bristles at the name and the insinuation. When he tsks aloud, she visibly cringes. “You’re smart enough to know an audience won’t protect you.”
“I tried to do all you’ve asked, the difficult and the impossible,” she fires back. Her hands quiver in the blankets, but with rage, not fear. “You left me a hundred soldiers to overthrow Norta, an entire country. What did you expect, Colonel?”
“I expected you to return with more than twenty-six of them.” The retort lands hard. “I expected you to be smarter than a seventeen-year-old princeling. I expected you to protect your soldiers, not throw them to a den of Silver wolves. I expected much and more from you, Diana, much and more than what you gave.”
Diana. The name is his killing blow. Her real name.
Her shivers of rage turn to shame, reducing Farley to a hollow shell. She stares at her feet, fixating on the floor below. I know her look well, the look of a shattered soul. If you speak, if you move, you’ll collapse. Already, she’s starting to crumble, leveled by the Colonel, his words, and her own name.
“I convinced her, Colonel.”
Part of me wishes my voice would shake, to make this man think I fear him. But I’ve faced worse than a soldier with a bloody eye and a bad temper. Much, much worse.
Gently, I push Kilorn to the side, moving forward.
“I vouched for Maven and his plan. If not for me, your men and women would be alive. Their blood is on my hands, not hers.”
To my surprise, the Colonel only chuckles at my outburst. “Not everything revolves around you, Miss Barrow. The world does not rise and fall at your command.”
That’s not what I meant. It sounds foolish, even in my own head.
“These mistakes are her own and no one else’s,” he continues, turning back to face Farley. “I strip you of your command, Diana. Do you challenge this?”
For a brief, simmering moment, it looks like she might. But she drops her head and her gaze, retreating inward. “I do not, sir.”
“Your best choice in weeks,” he snaps, turning to go.
But she isn’t finished. She looks up once more. “What of my mission?”
“Mission? What mission?” The Colonel seems more intrigued than angry, his one good eye darting in its socket. “I was not made aware of any new orders.”