King's Cage

“Hell of a rescue,” I can’t help but whisper.

And I’m going to make sure it succeeds.

I’m not Silver; I don’t need to pull my ability from my surroundings. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to have more electricity, more power, on hand. Closing my eyes, just for a second, I call to every wire, every pulse, every charge, down to the static cling of the curtains. It rises at my demand. It fuels me, heals me as much as Wren.

After six months of darkness, I finally feel the light.

Purple-white flares at the edges of my vision. My entire body buzzes, skin shivering beneath the delight of lightning. I keep sprinting. Adrenaline and electricity. I feel like I could run through a wall.

More than a dozen Security officers guard the entrance hall. One, a magnetron, busies himself boarding up the windows with cages of twisted chandelier and gilt paneling. Bodies and blood in both colors cover the floor. The smell of gunpowder overwhelms everything but the blasts outside. The officers secure the palace, maintaining their position. Their attention is on the battle outside, the Square. Not their backs.

Crouching, I put my hands to the marble beneath my feet. It feels cold beneath my fingers. I will my lightning against the stone, sending it out along the floor in a jagged ripple of electricity. It pulses, a wave, catching them all off guard. Some fall, some rocket backward. The strength of the blast echoes in my chest. If it’s enough to kill, I don’t know.

My only thought is the Square. When the open air hits my lungs, I almost laugh. It’s poisoned with ash, blood, the electric buzz of the lightning storm, but it tastes sweeter than anything. Above me, the black clouds rumble. The sound lives in my bones.

I streak purple-white bolts across the sky. A sign. The lightning girl is free.

I don’t linger. Standing on the steps, overlooking the turmoil, is a good way to get shot in the head. I plunge into the fray, looking for a single familiar face. Not friendly, but at least familiar. People collide all around me with no rhyme or reason. The Silvers were taken unawares, unable to form up into their practiced ranks. Only the Scarlet Guard soldiers have any kind of organization, but it’s rapidly breaking down. I weave toward the Treasury, the last place I saw Maven and his Sentinel. It was only a few minutes ago. They could still be there, surrounded, making a stand. I will kill him. I have to.

Bullets whistle past my head. I’m shorter than most, but still, I hunch as I run.

The first Silver to challenge me head-on has Provos robes, gold and black. A thin man with thinner hair. He throws out an arm and I rocket backward, my head slamming against the tiled ground. I grin at him, about to laugh. When suddenly I can’t breathe. My chest contracts, tightening. My ribs. I look up to find him standing over me, his hand clenching into a fist. The telky is going to collapse my rib cage.

Lightning rises to meet him, sparking angrily. He dodges, faster than I anticipated. My vision spots as the lack of oxygen hits my brain. Another bolt, another dodge.

Provos is so focused on me, he doesn’t notice the barrel-chested Red soldier a few yards away. He shoots him through the head with an armor-piercing round. It isn’t pretty. Silver spatters across my ruined gown.

“Mare!” he shouts, hurrying to my side. I recognize his voice, his dark brown face—and his electric-blue eyes. Four other Guardsmen move with him. They circle up, protective. With strong hands, he hoists me to my feet.

Forcing a breath, I shiver in relief. When my brother’s smuggling friend became a true soldier, I don’t know, and now isn’t the time to ask. “Crance.”

One hand still on his gun, he raises the radio clawed in his other fist. “This is Crance. I have Barrow in the Square.” The hiss of empty feedback is not promising. “Repeat. I have Barrow.” Cursing, he tucks the radio back into his belt. “Channels are a mess. Too much interference.”

“From the storm?” I glance up again. Blue, white, green. I narrow my eyes and throw another bolt of purple into the crash of blinding color.

“Probably. Cal warned us—”

Air hisses through my teeth. I grab him tightly, making him flinch. “Cal. Where is he?”

“I have to get you out—”

“Where?”

He sighs, knowing I won’t ask again.

“He’s on the ground. I don’t know where exactly! Your rendezvous point is the main gate,” he shouts in my ear, making sure he can be heard. “Five minutes. Grab the woman in green. Take this,” he adds, shrugging out of his heavy jacket. I pull it over my tattered dress without argument. It feels weighted. “Flak jacket. Semibulletproof. It’ll give you some cover.”

My feet carry me away before I can even say thank you, leaving Crance and his detail in my wake. Cal is here somewhere. He’ll be hunting Maven, just like me. The crowd surges, a swiftly changing tide. If not for the Guardsmen pushing through the fray, I could force my way through. Blast everyone in front of me, clear a path across the Square. Instead I rely on my old instincts. Dancing steps, agility, predicting every pulsing wave of the chaos. Lightning trails in my wake, staving off any hands. A strongarm knocks me sideways, sending me careening through arms and legs, but I don’t return to fight him. I keep moving, keep pushing, keep running. One name screams through my head. Cal. Cal. Cal. If I can get to him, I’ll be safe. A lie maybe, but a good lie.

The smell of smoke gets stronger as I push on. Hope flares. Where there’s smoke, there’s a fire prince.

Ash and soot streak the white walls of the Treasury Hall. One of the airjet missiles took a chunk out of the corner, slicing through marble like butter. It lies in a pile of rubble around the entrance, forming good cover. The Sentinels make full use of it, their ranks bolstered by the Lakelanders and a few of the purple-uniformed Treasury guards. Some of them fire into the oncoming Guardsmen, using bullets to defend their king’s escape, and many more utilize their abilities. I dart around a few bodies frozen solid on their feet, the violent work of a Gliacon shiver. Another few are alive but on their knees, bleeding from the ears. Marinos banshee. The evidence of so many deadly Silvers is all around. Corpses speared by metal, necks broken, skulls caved in, mouths dripping water, a particularly gruesome body that seems to have choked on the plants growing out of its mouth. As I watch, a greeny throws a handful of seeds at an attacking swath of Scarlet Guard. Before my eyes, the seeds burst like grenades, spitting vines and thorns in a verdant explosion.