Warmth breaks against me on all sides. From the fire ahead, and Cal behind, leaning against the dirt wall. He radiates like a furnace, but is quiet as the grave. He knows better than to speak. Many here tolerate him only because of me, or the children, or both. I cannot rely on him to win soldiers. I must do that myself.
“I believe him.” The words feel so foreign in my mouth, but they are stone solid. These people insist on treating me like a leader, so I will act like one. And I’ll convince them to follow. “I’m going to Corros, trap or not. The newbloods there face two fates—to die, or be used by the puppeteer everyone calls the queen. Both are unacceptable.”
Murmurs of agreement roll through the ones I’m trying to win over. Gareth leads them, bobbing his head in a show of loyalty. He saw Jon with his own eyes, and needs no more convincing than I do.
“I won’t make anyone go. Like before, you all have a choice in this.” Cameron shakes her head slightly, but says nothing. Shade keeps close to her, always within arm’s reach, in case she decides to do something else stupid. “It will not be easy, but it is not impossible.”
If I say it enough, I might start to believe it myself.
“How’s that?” Crance pipes up. “If I heard you right, that prison was built to keep people like you shut up. It’s not just bars and locked doors you’ll have to get through. There’ll be eyes at every gate, a fleet of Silver officers, an armory, cameras, Silent Stone, and that’s only if you’re lucky, lightning girl.”
Next to him, Fletcher swallows thickly. He might not be able to feel pain, but the pale, fleshy man can certainly feel fear. “And what if you’re not?”
“Ask her.” I tip my head toward Cameron. “She escaped.”
Gasps ripple through the crowd as if they were the surface of a pond. Now I’m not the one they’re staring at, and it feels good to relax a little. In contrast, Cameron tightens, her long limbs seeming to fold inward, shielding her from their many eyes.
Even Kilorn looks up, but not at Cameron. His gaze trails past her, finding me as I lean back against the wall. And all my relief washes away, replaced by a twist of some emotion I can’t place. Not fear, not anger. No, this is something else. Longing. In the shifting firelight, with the storm outside, I can pretend we’re a boy and girl huddled beneath a stilt house, seeking refuge from autumn’s howl. Would that someone could control the span of time, and bring me back to those days. I would hold on to them jealously, instead of whining about the cold and hunger. Now I’m just as cold, just as hungry, but no blanket can warm me, no food can sate me. Nothing will ever be the same. It’s my own fault. And Kilorn followed me into this nightmare.
“Does she speak?” Crance sneers when he gets tired of waiting for Cameron to open her mouth.
Farley chuckles. “Too much for my taste. Go on, Cole, tell us everything you remember.”
I expect Cameron to snap again, maybe even bite Farley on the nose, but an audience calms her temper. She sees my trick, but that doesn’t stop it from working. There are too many hopeful eyes, too many willing to step in harm’s way. She can’t ignore them now.
“It’s past Delphie,” she sighs. Her eyes cloud with painful memory. “Somewhere near the Wash, so close you can almost smell the radiation.”
The Wash forms the southern border of Norta, a natural divide from Piedmont and the Silver princes that reign there. Like Naercey, the Wash is a land of ruin, too far gone for Silvers to reclaim. Not even the Scarlet Guard dares walk there, where radiation is not a deception, and the smoke of a thousand years still lingers.
“They kept us isolated,” Cameron continues. “One to each cell, and many didn’t have enough strength to do anything other than lie on their cots. Something about that place made the others sick.”
“Silent Stone.” I answer her unasked question, because I remember the same feeling all too well. Twice I’ve been in such a cell, and twice it leached my strength away.
“Not much light, not much food.” She shifts on her seat, eyes narrowed against the flames. “Couldn’t talk much either. Guards didn’t like us speaking, and they were always on patrol. Sometimes Sentinels came and took people away. Some were too weak to walk and had to be dragged along. I don’t think the block was full, though. I saw lots of empty cells in there.” Her breath catches. “More every bleeding day.”
“Describe it, the structure,” Farley says. She nudges Harrick and I understand her line of thinking.
“We were in our own block, the newbloods taken out of the Beacon region. It was a big square, with four flights of cells lining the walls. There were catwalks connecting the different levels, all tangled, and the magnetrons pulled them back at night. Same with the cells, if they had to open them. Magnetrons all over,” she curses, and I don’t blame her for her anger. There were no men like Lucas Samos in the prison, no kind magnetrons like the one who died for me in Archeon. “No windows, but there was a skylight in the ceiling. Small, but enough to let us see the sun for a few minutes.”
“Like this?” Harrick asks, and rubs his hands together. Before our eyes, one of his illusions appears above the campfire, an image turning slowly. A box made of faint green lines. As my eyes adjust to what I’m seeing, I realize it’s a rough, three-dimensional outline of Cameron’s prison block.
She stares at it, eyes flickering over every inch of the illusion. “Wider,” she murmurs, and Harrick’s fingers jump. The illusion responds. “Two more catwalks. Four gates on the top level, one in each wall.”