Maven maneuvers us to the edge of the dance floor, now crowded with swirling lords and ladies. No one will notice we’ve stepped away.
“Some refreshments?” a servant murmurs, holding out a tray of the fizzy golden drink. I start to wave him off before I recognize his bottle-green eyes.
I have to bite my tongue to keep from shouting his name aloud. Kilorn.
Strangely, the red uniform suits him and for once he managed to clean the dirt off his face. It seems the fisher boy I knew is entirely gone.
“This thing itches,” he grumbles under his breath. Maybe not entirely.
“Well, you won’t be in it much longer,” Maven says. “Is everything in place?”
Kilorn nods, his eyes darting through the crowd. “They’re ready upstairs.”
Above us, Sentinels crowd a wraparound landing, lining the walls. But above them, in the carved window alcoves and little balconies near the ceiling, the shadows are not Sentinels at all.
“You just have to give the signal.” He holds out the tray and the innocent glass of gold.
Maven straightens next to me, his shoulder against mine in support. “Mare?”
My turn now. “I’m ready,” I murmur, remembering the plan Maven whispered to me a few nights ago. Shivering, I let the familiar buzz of electricity flow through me, until I can feel every light and camera blaze through my head. I lift the glass, and drink deeply.
Kilorn is quick to take the glass back. “One minute.” His voice sounds so final.
He disappears with a swish of his tray, moving through the crowd until I can’t see him anymore. Run, I pray, hoping he’s fast enough. Maven goes as well, leaving me to carry out his own task at his mother’s side.
I head toward the center of the crowd even as the feel of electricity threatens to overtake me. But I can’t let it go yet. Not until they start. Thirty seconds.
King Tiberias looms ahead of me, laughing away with his favorite son. He looks to be on his third glass of wine and his cheeks are flushed silver, while Cal sips politely at water. Somewhere to my left, I hear Evangeline’s cutting laughter, probably with her brother. All over the room, four people take their last breaths.
I let my heart count out those last seconds, beating away the moments. Cal spots me through the crowd, grinning that smile I love, and starts to come toward me. But he will never reach me, not before the deed is done. The world slows until all I know is the shocking strength within the walls. Like in Training, like with Julian, I’m learning to control it.
Four shots ring out, paired with four bright flashes from the guns high above.
The screams come next.
TWENTY
I scream with them, and the lights flash, then flicker, then fail.
One minute of darkness. That’s what I need to give them. The screams, the yelling, the stampede of feet almost break my concentration, but I force myself to focus. The lights flash horribly, then die, making it almost impossible to move. Making it possible for my friends to slip away.
“In the alcoves!” a voice roars, yelling over the chaos. “They’re running!” More voices join the call, though none are familiar. But in this madness, everyone sounds different. “Find them!” “Stop them!” “Kill them!”
The Sentinels on the landing have their guns aimed while more blur along, barely shadows as they give chase. Walsh is with them, I remind myself. If Walsh and other servants could sneak Farley and Kilorn in before, they can sneak them out again. They can hide. They can escape. They’ll be fine.
My darkness will save them.
A blaze of fire erupts from the crowd, curling through the air like a flaming snake. It roars overhead, illuminating the dim ballroom. Flickering shadows paint the walls and the upturned faces, transforming the ballroom into a nightmare of red light and gunpowder. Sonya screams nearby, bent over the body of Reynald. The spry old Ara wrestles her off the corpse, pulling her away from the chaos. Reynald’s eyes stare glassily up at the ceiling, reflecting the red light.
Still I hold on, every muscle inside me hard and tense.
Somewhere near the fire, I recognize the king’s guards hurrying him from the room. He tries to fight them, shouting and yelling to stay, but for once they don’t follow his orders. Elara is close behind, pushed on by Maven as they run from danger. Many more follow, eager to be free of this place.
Security officers run against the tide, flooding the room with shouts and stamping boots. Lords and ladies press by me in an attempt to escape, but I can only stand in place, holding on as best I can. No one tries to pull me away; no one notices me at all. They are afraid. For all their strength, all their power, they still know the meaning of fear. And a few bullets are all it takes to bring terror out in them.
A weeping woman bumps into me, knocking me over. I land face-to-face with a corpse, staring at Colonel Macanthos’s scar. Silver blood trickles down her face, from her forehead to the floor. The bullet hole is strange, surrounded by gray, rocky flesh. She was a stoneskin. She was alive long enough to try and stop it, to shield herself. But the bullet couldn’t be stopped. She still died.
I push back from the murdered woman, but my hands slide through a mixture of silverblood and wine. A scream escapes me in a terrifying combination of frustration and grief. The blood clings to my hands, like it knows what I’ve done. It’s sticky and cold and everywhere, trying to drown me.
“MARE!”
Strong arms pull me along the floor, dragging me away from the woman I let die. “Mare, please—,” the voice pleads, but for what, I don’t know.
With a roar of frustration, I lose the battle. The lights return, revealing a warzone of silk and death. When I try to scramble to my feet, to make sure the job is really done, a hand pushes me back down.
I say the words I must, playing my own part in all this. “I’m sorry—the lights—I can’t—” Overhead, the lights flicker again.
Cal barely hears me and drops to his knees next to me. “Where are you hit?” he roars, checking me in the way I know he’s been trained. His fingers feel down my arms and legs, looking for a wound, for the source of so much blood.
My voice sounds strange. Soft. Broken. “I’m fine.” He doesn’t hear me again. “Cal, I’m fine.”
Relief floods his face and for a second I think he might kiss me again. But his senses return quicker than mine. “You’re sure?”
Gingerly, I raise a silver-stained sleeve. “How can this be mine?”
My blood is not this color. You know that.
He nods. “Of course,” he whispers. “I just—I saw you on the ground and I thought . . .” His words trail away, replaced by a terrible sadness in his eyes. But it fades quickly, shifting to determination. “Lucas! Get her out of here!”
My personal guard charges through the fray, his gun at the ready. Though he looks the same in his boots and uniform, this is not the Lucas I know. His black eyes, Samos eyes, are dark as night. “I’ll take her to the others,” he growls, hoisting me up.
Though I know better than anyone the danger is gone, I can’t help but reach out to Cal. “What about you?”
He shrugs out of my grasp with shocking ease. “I’m not running.”
And then he turns, his shoulders squared to a group of Sentinels. He steps over the corpses, head inclined to the ceiling. A Sentinel tosses him a handgun and he catches it deftly, putting a finger to the trigger. His other hand blazes to life, crackling with dark and deadly flame. Silhouetted against the Sentinels and the bodies on the floor, he looks like another person entirely.