“Watch them,” I murmur with a touch to Tristan’s elbow. And then I’m weaving too, careful to keep my head angled at the ground. There are cameras here, enough to be wary of. Should the next few weeks go as planned, I might want to start hiding my face.
I see it as Crance passes his paper through the window. His sleeve lifts as it scrapes the betting ledge, pulling back to reveal a tattoo. It almost blends into his umber skin, but the shape is unmistakable. I’ve seen it before. Blue anchor. Red rope.
We’re not the only crew working this convoy. The Mariners already have a man inside.
This is good. We can work with this. My mind fires as I fight my way back. Pay for their information. Less Guard involvement, but the same outcome. And odds are the Mariner is alone, working the job solo. We could try to turn him, get our own eyes inside the Mariners. Start pulling strings, absorb the gang into the Guard.
Tristan stands a head above the crowd, still watching the other two marks. I fight the urge to sprint to his side and divulge everything.
But an obstacle sprouts between us. A bald man and a familiar sheen of sweat across his brow. Lakelander. Before I can run or shout, a hand closes around my throat from behind. Tight enough to keep me quiet, loose enough to let me breathe, and certainly enough to drag me through the crowd with Baldy keeping close.
Another might thrash or fight, but I know better. Silver officers are everywhere here, and their “help” is not anything I want to risk. Instead I put my trust in myself, and in Tristan. He must keep watch, and I must get free.
The crowd takes us in its current, and still I cannot see who it is marching me through. Baldy’s bulk hides most of me, as does the scarf my captor tosses around my neck. Funny, it’s scarlet. And then we climb. Up the steps, high above the arena floor, to long slab seats that are mostly abandoned.
Only then am I released, pushed to sit.
I whirl in a fury, fists clenched and ready, only to find the Colonel staring back, very much prepared for my rage.
“You want to add striking your commanding officer to your list of offenses?” he says. It’s almost a purr.
No, I don’t. Glumly, I drop my fists. Even if I could fight my way past Baldy, I don’t want to try myself at the Colonel and his wiry strength. I raise a hand to my neck instead, massaging the now tender skin beneath the red scarf.
“It won’t bruise,” he continues.
“Your mistake. I thought you wanted to send a message. Nothing says ‘get your ass back in line’ like a blue neck.”
His red eye flashes. “You stop responding and think I’ll let that go? Not a chance, Captain. Now tell me what’s going on here. What of your team? Have you all gone rogue, or did some run off?”
“No one’s run off,” I force through gritted teeth. “Not one of them. No one’s rogue either. They’re still following orders.”
“At least someone is.”
“I am still under operation, whether you choose to see it or not. Everything I’m doing here is for the cause, for the Guard. Like you said, this isn’t the Lakelands. And while getting the Whistle network online is priority, so is Corvium.” I have to hiss to be heard over the crowding arena. “We can’t rely on the slow creep here. Things are too centralized. People will notice, and they’ll root us out before we’re ready. We have to hit hard, hit big, hit where the Silvers can’t hide us.”
I’m gaining ground, but not much. Still, it’s enough for him to keep his voice from shaking. He’s angry, but not livid. He can still be reasoned with.
“That’s precisely what you recorded for,” he says. “You remember, I assume.”
A camera and a red scarf across half my face. A gun in one hand, a newly made flag in the other, reciting words memorized like a prayer. And we will rise up, Red as the dawn.
“Farley, this is how we operate. No one holds all the cards. No one knows the hand. It’s the only way we stay ahead and alive,” he presses on. From another, it might sound like pleading. But not the Colonel. He doesn’t ask things. He just orders. “But believe me when I say, we have plans for Norta. And they aren’t so far from what you want.”
Below us, the champions of the Feat march out onto the strange gray sand. One, the Thany stoneskin, has a boulder belly, and is nearly as wide as he is tall. He has no need for armor, and is naked to the waist. For her part, the oblivion looks every inch her ability. Dressed in interlocking plates of red and orange, she dances like a nimble flame.
“And do those plans include Corvium?” I whisper, turning back to the Colonel. I must make him understand. “Do you think me so blind that I wouldn’t notice if there was another operation in this city? Because there isn’t. There’s no one here but me. No one else seems to care about that fortress where every single Red doomed to die passes through. Every single one. And you think that place isn’t important?”
Corporal Eastree flashes in my head. Her gray face and gray eyes, her stern resolve. She spoke of slavery, because that’s what this world is. No one dares say it, but that’s what Reds are. Slaves and graves.
For once, the Colonel holds his tongue. Good, or else I might cut it out.
“You go back to Command and you tell someone else to continue with Red Web. Oh, and let them know the Mariners are here too. They’re not so shortsighted as the rest of us.”
Part of me expects to be slapped for insubordination. In all our years, I’ve never spoken to him like this. Not even—not even in the north. At the frozen place we all used to call home. But I was a child then. A little girl pretending to be a hunter, gutting rabbits and setting bad snares to feel important. I am not her anymore. I am twenty-two years old, a captain of the Scarlet Guard, and no one, not even the Colonel, can tell me I am wrong now.
“Well?”
After a long, trembling moment, he opens his mouth. “No.”
An explosion below matches my rage. The crowd gasps in time with the fight, watching as the wispy oblivion tries to live up to her odds. But the Mariner was right. The stoneskin will win. He is a mountain against her fire, and he will endure.
“My team will stand with me,” I warn. “You’ll lose ten good soldiers and one captain to your pride, Colonel.”
“No, Captain, someone else is not going to take over Red Web from you,” he says. “But I will petition Command for a Corvium operation, and when they’ve secured a team, it will take your place.”
When. Not if. I can barely believe what he’s saying.
“Until such time, you will remain in Corvium and continue work with your contacts. Relay all pertinent information through the usual channels.”
“But Command—”
“Command is more open-minded than you know. And for whatever reason, they think the world of you.”
“I can’t tell if you’re lying.”
He merely raises one shoulder, shrugging. His eyes rove back to the arena floor, to watch as the stoneskin rips the young oblivion apart.
Somehow, his reason grates on me more than anything else. It’s hard to hate him in a time like this, when I remember who he used to be. And then of course, I remember the rest. What he did to us, to our family. To my mother and sister, who were not so horrible as we were, who could not survive in the monster he made.