Smoke drifts on the icy wind, spitting black into the sky. It reminds me of the factories. I shudder to remember them. The tattoo on my neck itches, but I don’t scratch with my crooked fingers. Broken too many times to count. Sara asked to fix them once. I didn’t let her. Like the tattoo, like the smoke, they remind me of what I came from, and what no one else should endure.
“I don’t suppose you have any ideas for this?” Farley asks, taking the map from her father’s hands. She glances sidelong at the exiled prince.
Cal shrugs, his broad shoulders rolling in silhouette. “Too many. All bad. Unless—”
“I’m not going to let them walk out of here,” the Colonel snaps. He sounds annoyed. I suppose they argued this through already. “Maven is too close. They’ll run to his side and come back with a vengeance, with more warriors.”
The gleaming bracelet at Cal’s wrist flickers, birthing sparks that travel along his arm in a quick burst of red flame. “Maven is coming anyway! You heard the reports. He’s already in Rocasta and moving west. He’s marching here in a parade, waving and smiling to hide that he’s coming to take back Corvium. And he’ll do it if you fight him in a broken city with our backs against a cage of wolves!” He spins around to face the Colonel, shoulders still smoldering with embers. Usually he can control himself enough to save his clothes. Not so now. Smoke clings to him, revealing charred holes in his undershirt. “A battle on two fronts is suicide.”
“And what about hostages? You mean to tell me there’s no one of value in that tower?” the Colonel barks back.
“Not to Maven. He already has the only person he would ever trade anything for.”
“So we can’t starve them, can’t release them, can’t bargain.” Farley ticks off words on her hand.
“And you can’t kill them all.” I tap a finger against my lip. Cal looks at me, surprised. I simply shrug. “If there was a way, if it was acceptable, the Colonel would have done it already.”
“Ada?” Farley prods softly. “Can you see anything we can’t?”
Her eyes fly back and forth, scanning the schematic as well as her memories. Figures, strategies, everything at her mammoth disposal. Her silence is not at all comforting.
“What we need is that bleeding seer,” I mumble. I never met Jon, the one who made it possible for Mare to find and capture me. But I’ve seen him enough on Maven’s broadcasts. “Make him do the work for us.”
“If he wanted to help, he’d be here. But that damned ghost is in the wind,” Cal curses. “Didn’t even have the decency to take Mare with him when he escaped.”
“No use dwelling on what we can’t change.” Farley scuffs her boot against the cold floor. “So is brute force the only thing left to us? Take the tower down stone by stone? Pay for every inch with a gallon of blood?”
Before Cal can explode again, the door wrenches open. Julian and Sara all but tumble inside, both of them wide-eyed and silver-flushed. The Colonel jumps to his feet, in surprise and defense. None of us are fools where Silvers are concerned. Our fear of them is bone-deep, bred into our blood.
“What is it?” he asks, his red eye a scarlet gleam. “Done with the interrogation so soon?”
Julian bristles at the word interrogation, sneering. “My questions are a mercy compared to what you would do.”
“Pah,” Farley scoffs. She eyes Cal and he shifts, embarrassed under her gaze. “Don’t tell me about Silver mercy.”
I care little for Julian and trust him less, but the look on Sara’s face is startling. She stares at me, her gray face full of pity and fear. “What is it?” I ask her, though I know only Julian can answer. Even in Corvium, she hasn’t yet found another skin healer willing to return her tongue. All of them must be in the core tower, or dead.
“General Macanthos oversees training command,” Julian says. Like Sara, he glances at me with hesitation. My pulse pounds in my ears. Whatever he’s about to say, I won’t like. “Before the siege, part of a legion was recalled for further instruction. They were unfit to man the trenches. Even for Reds.”
My rushing blood starts to howl in my ears, a gale that almost drowns Julian out. I feel Ada step to my side, her shoulder brushing mine. She knows where this is going. I do too.
“We retrieved the rolls. A few hundred children of the Dagger Legion, called back to Corvium. Unreleased, even after Maven’s decree. We accounted for most, but some . . .” Julian forces himself on, though he stumbles over the words. “They’re hostages. In the core, with the remaining Silver officers.”
I put a hand to the cool office wall, letting it steady me. My silence begs, pushing beneath my skin, wanting to expand and drag down everything in the room. I have to say the words myself, because apparently Julian won’t. “My brother is in there.”
The Silver bastard hesitates, drawing it out. Finally, he speaks. “We think so.”
The roar of my thrumming heart overpowers their voices. I hear nothing as I run from the room, evading their hands, sprinting down through the administrative headquarters. If anyone follows, I don’t know. I don’t care.
The only thing on my mind is Morrey. Morrey and the fifty soon-to-be corpses standing between us.
I am not Mare Barrow. I will not give my brother to this.
My silence curls around me, heavy as smoke, soft as feathers, dripping from every pore like sweat. It isn’t a physical thing. It won’t tear the core down for me. My ability is for flesh and flesh alone. I’ve been practicing. It scares me, but I need it. Like a hurricane, the silence churns around me, surrounding the eye of a growing storm.