by Jess Corban
“I know you so well,” Teera croons, “it’s almost as if we’re related.”
She sets her slender shoulders like a woman half her age. Like a victor. Though her eyes flit, almost imperceptibly, to the Brutes around me, she doesn’t give them the satisfaction of fear. I’d bet a two-minute head start I’m the only one who notices her silver brows lack some of their usual sharpness in the Brutes’ presence. To anyone else, she appears to be the fearless Mother that Nedé needs.
Beside her, Adoni grips the hilt of her sword. She scowls at Dáin, both she and her dragon tattoo poised to pounce. The Alexia to their left and right, none of whom I recognize, couldn’t have known whom to expect. They seem torn between drawing their weapons and running for the door.
Teera addresses me again. “I think it’s time we have a little family chat.” Her intonation could slice stone.
“We’ve said everything that needs to be said,” I snap, taking in the rest of the room as I evaluate our options.
Metal shelves line the cinder block walls, holding dusty ledger books, glass jars filled with yellowing substances, crusty parchments. Strange relics pile haphazardly beneath the shelves and under a table that runs the length of one wall: odd machines rusting their guts out, tarnished metal tablets, and a few guns that look to have been chipped from cement. The space could pass for a decrepit museum, its centerpiece—the polished, guarded bank—its only valuable. Nothing else appears to have been touched in decades, if not centuries.
“Oh, I don’t think we have,” Teera counters. “Clearly, you have not heard enough or you wouldn’t be here with them.”
She turns on her heels, the movement causing both sides to twitch toward weapons. Reaching a shelf on the back wall, she retrieves a gray metal container the size and shape of a large brick.
“I told you: it only takes one Brute to bring evil back into the world, Reina. I tried to explain there were ample reasons the foremothers had to act.” She sets the case atop the bank and opens the lid. “Reasons you and the rest of Nedé have been protected from knowing. The Gentles, if they knew what they once were . . . I’m afraid it would do more harm than good.”
“Not to be rude,” Bri gibes, “but can we get on with the fight? We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
Teera’s nostrils flare, but her words come out smooth as her silken robe, its colorful panels strangely juxtaposed with the monochrome pale clay and old metal of the room.
“While your enthusiasm toward your pending demise interests me, Dom Pierce, I recommend you indulge me.”
Bri scowls but stays quiet.
Teera lifts a stack of crinkly papers from the box. A few yellowing strips slip from the bundle, flittering toward the ground like flakes of ash. One skids along the cement floor before coming to rest so near my boots I could reach out and take it. Close enough to read the large black letters that form the words “Will Women Ever Be Safe Again?”
“When I recovered this box my first year as Matriarch, I immediately began fortifying the Alexia to defend against a Brute resurgence—from without or within. I may have been the first Matriarch to view these documents since Tristan Pierce herself brought them to Nedé, which is why I was the only other Matriarch to take similar, decisive actions. I understood the threats our foremothers faced. I knew what horrors those filthy Brutes had committed and why we must never allow them a foothold again. At the time, my measures were preventative; I had no reason to suspect we’d need them.
“In more recent years, however, strange stories originating along the borders—coupled with my own daughter’s strange behavior—piqued my suspicion. When the attacks began—” she appraises Dáin coolly, and I’m reminded she thought he was the leader—“I was convinced that—against all odds—the plague had somehow returned. It appears I was correct.”
“You’re wrong about them,” I counter. “You have no idea what they’re actually like.”
“Don’t I?” she says hotly, then thrusts the stack of thick cards toward me. “Go on. Before we dispose of you, I’d like you to see them.” She smiles wryly. “Call me vain, but I’m looking forward to hearing you acknowledge I was right.”
My nerves are strung so taut you could play a song on them, but . . . curiosity claws at me. What could possibly be written there to make Teera so confident I will change my mind about these Brutes? Before we destroy Nedé’s future, shouldn’t I know the whole of our past?
I step forward. Rohan shadows me protectively.
“Just her,” Teera warns.
I place a hand on his arm. “It’s alright.”
The tension’s thick as mangrove-swamp mud, dragging against me as I take each of three steps across the room.
Adoni’s eyes reveal nothing. The other Alexia fix their attention on Bri, Rohan, and Dáin. But Grandmother’s gaze taunts me, dares me to be brave enough to see what she holds.
Forcing my hand to steady, I reach out. She shoves the cards into my palm.
They’re made of a strangely thick paper—not full of writing, but . . . paintings? Like portraits, but so detailed, so realistic, they could live off the page. Their vividness terrifies me, because I hold unquestionable horrors.
In the first, Brutes in uniforms point guns at kneeling women, blindfolded and gagged. In the next, a cluster of unkempt little girls huddle on a bed, their eyes eerily hollow. Next, a woman with black-and-blue eyes and a bloody face.
My fingers tremble as I flip through nakedness, shackles, death, and fear, until I can’t bear to look at another relic. They slip through my fingers, spilling to the ground.
I barely hear myself ask, “That’s what it was like, in the world before?”
“That is only the beginning, Reina. I found writings of other foremothers, who told of horrors they themselves experienced at the Brutes’ hands.” She flings a hand toward my companions, as if they were the perpetrators. “Our ancestors were willing to risk everything to stop the depravity. Why would we ever allow it to creep back into our world?”
“But depravity already has crept into Nedé, and it didn’t begin with them,” I say, rehearsing the reasons I’m standing here now. “The evil lives in us, too—certainly in you. What crimes might appall your great-great-granddaughters someday? That we crippled Gentles so we could feel safe? That we forced them into lives of miserable servitude? The inescapable pain and sorrow that pushed them toward the stinger? How about the Gentle you shot at the Hive, just to make a point?” My voice is trembling with anger now. “And what of me? What will my descendants say when they’re told I sent an arrow through my best friend’s heart?”
She starts to argue, but I have more to say and I’m tired of cowering to her.
“My choices have haunted me. But just as I can choose virtue, they can too. You don’t know that because you don’t know them.”
“How can you be sure?” she suddenly yells, a frantic note betraying the only weakness I’ve ever seen in my grandmother.
I consider the question and deflate a little, knowing I can’t actually be completely certain. I think Jase is trustworthy. I believe Torvus is honorable. I have to hope that Rohan will prove a man can be good to a woman. That our love will be enough to keep him from hurting me. But . . . I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to still the voices of doubt. The truth is . . .
“I don’t know for sure,” I say. If Mother’s right, I’m not meant to. “But it’s not my job to ‘play God.’ It’s only my duty to protect the weak and do my part to ensure safety for all—including Gentles.”
“Then you’ve disappointed me after all, Reina,” she says.
I know what comes next, but before she can signal Adoni to take me out, my dagger is at my own grandmother’s throat, the razor-sharp bone pressing dangerously against her skin.
Adoni knows she can’t attack me without losing the Matriarch. Rohan, Bri, and Dáin stand off with the other guards.
No one moves a muscle.
Teera’s breaths come in shallow wheezes. Fear drains her o
f the usual harsh veneer, revealing an old woman, made paranoid by hate.
I want to hate her too. I need to hate her to do what I must.
Sometimes people have to get hurt so the right thing can happen.
I’ve heard it from Dáin, from Jase—even from Rohan.
The right thing is for the gentling to stop. For Tre’s death to mean something. The right thing is to let Brutes be the men they’re supposed to be, come what may.
Mother knew this moment was coming. She tried to warn me. Seeking revenge never offers the closure one hopes it will, she said.
If I kill Grandmother, will I be any different from her? When I shot Tre for the greater good, it unraveled me. Will I be able to live with myself if I kill her, too?
Where forgiveness grows, new paths appear. Maybe sometimes the right thing can happen without selling your soul.
I meet Teera’s gaze with unflinching fire. “I’m not like you. I won’t take your life the way you made me take Treowe’s. But I will stop you from hurting anyone else.”
In one swift slide, I dive for the bank, barely avoiding Adoni’s reach, swinging at the metal door with my dagger. It scarcely dents the metal, but the reverberating clang signals a riot. In the twitch of a cat’s whiskers, the twin waves of Alexia and Brutes collide in the center of the room. Adoni makes a beeline for Dáin, Bri defends against two Alexia guards, and Rohan battles the rest.
I smack the case again and again, but rather than cracking the lock, the knife shatters. I hold the broken fragment of the basket-weave hilt in my hand, shock morphing instantly to anger. I scan the decaying debris under the tables for something heavy enough to break it open.
“Reina!” Rohan shouts, sweat dripping down his cheeks. “Behind you!”
Teera has taken a sword from the first fallen Alexia and rushes at me with surprising dexterity, robe billowing behind. Before I can unsheathe the dagger on my thigh, Teera closes the distance. She swings the sword overhead, bringing it down like an ax. In a flash, Dáin spins away from Adoni, positioning himself between me and my grandmother’s fury. He meets her slice with a swift uppercut of his harpy-eagle club. Teera’s sword flies across the room.
Time slows to a trickle . . . Grandmother’s enraged eyes widen with fear as Dáin swings again. A wicked smile splits his mouth as his club collides with the side of her head. The crack is deafening, even in the chaos. My stomach lurches as her body crumples to the dusty floor, coiled in on itself like a limp snake. The Matriarch of Nedé is dead.
He raises the club to strike again out of spite, but Adoni grabs his wrist, twists him toward her, and thrusts her sword through his middle.
“No!” Bri shouts, hacking her opponent down and running at Adoni.
Dáin’s freckled face drains of color while blood as red as his fiery hair seeps from the wound. Still, he musters the audacity to spit in Adoni’s face.
She scowls, then twists her blade before jerking it free. As Dáin drops to his knees, Bri lunges wildly from behind, thrusting her sword at Adoni with the kind of rage that doesn’t consider hopeless odds. For once, her brashness pays off.
Adoni tries to circle on Bri, but her body gives way and she stumbles forward, splaying across Teera. Even in this hell, the sight of the mighty defender’s death rings strange and wrong. She’s Adoni. She doesn’t deserve to go like this.
Bri slips an arm under Dáin, trying to lift him.
“I wanted to kill her,” he mumbles, blood staining his lips. Then he collapses into her.
Rohan yells in pain, and I remember that we’re on borrowed time. He shifts his blade to the other hand, under the attack of the final three guards. Bri tears herself from Dáin to draw one away, leaving two for Rohan.
I snatch Dáin’s club, swing it in a wide arc, and smash the lock on the bank’s metal door. Again and again I swing. Finally, the door cracks. I jam the base of the club into the split and pry the bent hinges open.
Inside, thousands of tiny crystalline vials, lidded with shimmering gold seals, await my own fury. I sweep the shelves mercilessly, vials pelting the floor like glass raindrops.
“For Treowe!” I scream. “For justice!”
Once the last vial shatters, the room goes silent, the fighting suddenly stilled. Bri and Rohan stumble over. Together, we heave the whole case on its side, crashing atop the debris of would-be lives.
I don’t look back as we race toward the door.
Outside the corridor, an eerie quiet gives me pause; the carnage stops me cold. Jase slumps beside the door, barely able to lift his head at our approach. Dozens of Alexia bodies line the hallway around him. By Siyah—what have we done? Across the hall, Torvus huddles over Dantès, ripping strips from his shirt to bind deep gashes on his arms and side. Torvus himself bleeds heavily, slices across his back and legs butterflying his skin like filleted cuts of steak.
Rohan falls to Jase’s side, immediately evaluating his wounds.
“Did you find it?” Jase asks weakly.
“More than we were looking for.” Rohan adjusts Jase’s hasty bandage work. “The dragon woman and the Matriarch, both dead.”
Jase leans his head against the wall, smiling weakly. “We did it.” Then he moans as Rohan cinches a final bandage around his leg.
Théo limps toward us, squeezes the back of Rohan’s neck.
Rohan scans the hallway. “Jem? Galion?”
Théo shakes his head.
“Theirs were honorable deaths,” Rohan mutters, standing. “As was Dáin’s.”
Jase shuts his eyes at the news. Théo nods blankly. For all the hate I’ve harbored against Dáin since our very first encounter, viewing his death through the grief of those who knew him when he was a reckless redheaded cub forces me to face what happened in there.
Dáin saved me.
We all have to choose. I consider Rohan’s words from yet another vantage point. For all Dáin’s selfishness, for all his vile scheming—no matter how many wicked decisions he made—each choice was still just that. And in the end, he chose sacrifice.
Bri takes Rohan’s place next to Jase. He forces himself to sit higher so he can face her.
“So,” she says indifferently, “you made it.” But her eyes are moist, and she can’t quite meet his gaze.
Jase’s ragged laugh breaks some of the heaviness of the moment. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
She loops an arm under his, helping him to his feet. “Come on, you big baby.”
Théo supports Jase’s other side, but I’m still worried.
“Should I get Dr. Novak?”
Rohan doesn’t hesitate. “We’re getting out of here before any more arrive.”
“What about the injuries?”
I hate the resignation in his eyes. “If we can get back to the Jungle, I can find what we need. If we can’t . . .” He brushes my cheek, but his words remain firm. “At least we did what we came to do.”
So we gather our wounded, I salvage a sword, and the seven of us make for the front entrance. The secret corridors offer no advantage now. As we pick through the bodies, my own injuries finally break through my fading adrenaline. Nondescript aches begin surfacing, stings from lacerations, and one shooting pain where a piece of the bone knife must have ricocheted off my forearm. But, considering those who fought alongside me—fought for me—this pain doesn’t deserve my attention.
The first floor is eerily quiet. Not a single guard intercepts us on our way to the entrance, and any other early workers must have cleared out in the commotion.
As we push the large glass doors open to a tunnel of flame vine and a brightening sky, I finally exhale.
Against all odds, Jase is right. We did it.
For better or worse, we destroyed the bank. With Teera gone, her Apprentice dead, and the Alexia leaderless, what’s to stop us from finally changing Nedé?
Perhaps only one thing could. And as we step through the final arch, limping and weary, it waits for us like a cruel joke.
“This feel
s a bit like déjà vu, Candidate,” Trinidad says, sword drawn, two hundred Alexia forming ranks behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THIS IS DECIDEDLY BAD.
“You mean, you aren’t here because you missed me?” I say, attempting to push down the panic resurfacing in my whole body. Jase and Dantès can barely stand. The rest of us might still be able to fight, but what is that against so many?
Trin meets my levity with a scowl. “Let me guess—you want me to trust you?”
I deflate under her scrutiny. She certainly has no reason to. Yes, I freed her at Tree Camp, but we’re far from even. How many times can I plead for her trust before she has none left to give? I have a feeling the answer is one less than I need.
“I thought you were an Alexia,” she glowers, hurt hardening her voice like the steel she wields, “but you made your choice when you aligned with them.”
I eye their ranks—the women I was meant to stand beside—rows and rows of mounted archers, even more on foot. If there’s a way out, I can’t see it. We’re helplessly exposed, too injured to run far. It’s over.
For the love of Siyah! I want to scream. We beat the odds, succeeded in eliminating the Matriarch and Nedé’s source of Gentles, only to meet our end here? At the hand of the one Alexia I want to disappoint least?
Trin lifts a closed fist; bows are raised. Before she can signal the onslaught of arrows, a strange sound fills the air, like voices yelling, sprinkled with a metallic clanging reminiscent of wind chimes. She stalls, noticing too. It seems to be coming from just over a knoll behind the Alexia force. No—to the right? The left? It grows louder by the second, now surrounding us from every direction at once.
Trin turns slowly at the eerie sound; the Alexia look to each other in confusion.
A mass of people crests the top of the rise, marching down around the Alexia like a swarm of slow-moving termites—hundreds and hundreds of them, a thousand or more—brandishing pitchforks and field machetes, shovels and kitchen knives and plow hooks. Each and every one of them a Gentle.
At the front of the wave, a familiar face roars with a high-pitched yell. Neechi! Domus marches on his left, Old Solomon on his right. They hedge in the Alexia like a human dam, closing the circle on either side of us. My arms beg to embrace Neechi, who comes to stand beside me; my lungs ache to hoot and holler. But I hold my ground, face placid. I need Trin to believe I knew this was coming.
