This Savage Song

by Victoria Schwab

  But it never came.

  The Sunai took another step, but its hand swept toward Leo, its shadow fingers closing around his throat. Leo gasped in surprise, but couldn’t pull away. He fought, clawing at the monster’s grip, but its hold was unbreakable, its strength absolute.

  “What are you d—?” demanded Leo, but then the creature’s grip tightened, cutting him off. It leaned in, and whispered something in Leo’s ear, and Leo’s face went from shocked and angry to blank. Not still, or calm, just . . . empty.

  Something began to rise to the surface of Leo’s skin, not black like the Malchai’s life or red, like a sinner’s. What came to the surface of the Sunai’s skin, Kate couldn’t process. It was light and darkness, glow and shadow, starlight and midnight, and something else entirely. It was an explosion in slow motion, tragedy and monstrosity and resolve, and it swept over Leo’s skin, and wove through the monster’s smoke, tracing the outlines of a boy-like shape inside the shadow like lightning in a storm.

  And then, like lightning, it was gone.

  Leo’s legs folded, and the Sunai sank with him, its hand still wrapped around its brother’s throat. The Sunai knelt over the body as it turned to stone, and then ash, and then nothing. Kate stood, the red glow of her soul still hovering above her bruised and bloody skin, but its light was fading as it began to retreat back into the safety of her self.

  The Sunai straightened, the last of Leo’s body crumbling away in its hands. A single beat of burning wings, and the ash was gone, and the Sunai lifted its horned head and turned its gaze again on Kate.

  It came toward her, crossing the space in two elegant strides. It raised its hand, and Kate closed her eyes at last, and felt the heat of the creature’s fingers, not on her skin, but on the cuffs around her wrists. She blinked and saw the metal blacken and crumble under the creature’s touch.

  The Sunai looked down at her, its hand hovering in the air between them, edges wavering like smoke. And then, it shuddered. A single, animalistic shiver that rolled from horns to wing and down, through its body and into its feet, the darkness retreating like a tide, revealing black hair, and smooth skin, and gray eyes.

  August stood there, barefoot and shirtless, chest rising and falling. His wounds and bruises were gone. So were the black tallies that had counted out days, months, years across his skin. And for a long second, his face remained empty, his features too smooth, his expression as blank as his brother’s. He looked at her as if they’d never met. As if they hadn’t fled together, hadn’t fought together, hadn’t nearly died together.

  Then a small crease appeared between his eyes. The faintest edge of a frown.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  His voice was still distant, but there was something in it. A sliver of concern. Kate let out a ragged breath. She looked down at herself, her torn sweater and bloodied hands. “I’m alive.”

  A tired smile flickered across his face. “Well,” he said, “that’s a start.”

  Nothing was different.

  Everything was different.

  They crossed the field in silence as the first signs of day seeped into the edges of the sky, Kate’s eyes on the distant house, and August’s on Kate. Her shadow danced behind her, restless, reaching for the world and pulling at his senses, a gentle, persistent tug.

  He wanted to comfort her. And couldn’t. There was this gap, where something had been, some part of him he couldn’t reach. He wanted to believe it was fatigue, loss, confusion. Wanted to believe it would pass.

  The house was as they’d left it. The cars on the gravel drive. The front door hanging open. The body in the hall. Kate fetched her lighter from the grass and stepped around the corpse, went into the kitchen. August padded toward the bathroom, where his violin lay splintered on the tiled floor, its neck broken, strings snapped. He forced himself to step around it, the way Kate had with the corpse.

  He recovered his shoes and watched his fingers tie the laces. His skin was smooth, no black marks running up his arm. He ran a finger thoughtfully over his wrist.

  Four hundred and twenty-four tallies gone.

  Erased.

  He straightened, his eyes drifting up the mirror. He searched his face, tried to remember the version of himself from hours before, the boy clutching the sink, desperate not to lose control, eyes wild and feverish, face contorted with terror and pain, every feeling sharp and terrible and real. He tried, but the memory was more like a dream, the details already fading.

  “August?”

  He turned to see Kate standing in the doorway, staring down at the wreckage of the violin.

  “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “It’s only wood and string.” He’d meant the words to sound comforting, but his voice sounded wrong in his ears. Too steady. Like Leo’s.

  Something rose in him—a ghost of panic, an echo of fear—but then it settled.

  Kate was holding out a black T-shirt. When he reached to take it, their fingers brushed, and he drew back sharply, afraid of hurting her. But of course nothing happened. His violin was strewn across the tile floor, and her soul was safe beneath the surface.

  The shirt smelled of lavender, he noticed as he slid it on, the fabric soft against his cool skin.

  “August,” said Kate, her voice brittle. “Are you . . . okay?”

  “I’m alive,” he said, echoing her answer.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, but her gaze was level. “But are you still . . . you?”

  August looked at her. “I’ve been tortured, turned, and I just killed my brother. I don’t know what I am right now.”

  Kate chewed her lip, but nodded. “Fair enough.” She looked lost.

  August ran a hand through his hair. “I have to go back to V-City, Kate. I have to see Henry. I have to help my family—what’s left of it. Leo said the fighting has already broken out and—”

  “I understand.”

  “There are two cars. I’ll—”

  “I’m going back, too.”

  August frowned. “Is that a good idea?”

  “Probably not,” she said, fingers closing around the silver pendant at her neck. “But I need to see my father,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

  August tensed. They’d come this far together, and he trusted her, but the thought of facing Harker . . . “Why?”

  Her knuckles went white against the metal. “I need to ask him something,” she said. “And I need to know he’s telling the truth.”

  Kate Harker sat on the edge of her father’s desk, watching clouds drift past beyond the window, low white streaks over the city. Her heart was pounding, and her whole body ached, but she was here. Where she belonged.

  Harker Hall was a fortress; there was no getting in or out without being seen by someone.

  Which was fine with Kate. She wanted them to know she was here.

  Wanted him to know.

  She’d done her best to keep August a secret, though. Told him exactly where to stand to keep him off the cameras.

  And here they were.

  It had taken four hours to drive back to the capital, and now the sun was at its peak, the city’s monsters at their weakest. Music played from the penthouse’s dozen speakers, the volume low but the beat steady. August had wanted something classical, but Kate had chosen rock.

  She hadn’t bothered to clean off the blood. Hadn’t bothered to change clothes. In one hand, she held the gun Harker kept inside his desk. In the other, the silver pendant he’d given her the morning of the attack.

  Kate had never been able to figure out how they found her that afternoon, in the bones of a building two blocks from the nearest safe house. Or at the restaurant. Or the house. It wasn’t until she was prying the last screw from the metal plate that she understood. The pendant had cracked, the silver case splitting to reveal the chip inside.

  Sloan had never lied.

  But her father had.

  The whole drive back, Kate had tried to figure out what to say. What to
do. She knew she should have just run, but she couldn’t, not without knowing the truth. Not without hearing it.

  August was tucked back against the wall beside the door, arms crossed, his fingers dancing absently against his sleeve. His gray eyes were miles away when she heard the penthouse doors open, and a set of strong steps cross the wooden floor. A single set.

  Even after everything, he was still underestimating her.

  “Katherine?” called her father, voice breathless, tinged with urgency, as if he’d just heard she was here, just heard she was safe.

  “I’m in here,” she called back, and a moment later he appeared in the doorway. His dark blue eyes raked over the scene, taking in everything except August, and relief swept across his face. It was almost believable. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “You should be at the house.”

  “I was,” she said. “But Sloan came to get me. He said you told him to.”

  Harker’s eyes went to the weapon resting barrel-down on the desk. “Where is he now?”

  “Dead.” Harker winced. She’d seen her father satisfied, and her father furious, seen him cold and calculating and in control. She’d never seen him caught off guard. “I told you I would do it,” she said. “When I found the monster responsible.”

  “Sloan wasn’t—”

  “Enough,” she said, lifting the broken pendant from the table. “I just want to know, was it his idea, or yours?”

  Harker considered her. And then his lips quirked. It was a grim smile, humorless and cold, almost apologetic. And in that gesture, she knew.

  “Why?” she asked. “Why break the truce?”

  “The truce was failing. Without a war, the Malchai were going to rebel.”

  “What about the ruined brands? The monsters who clawed off their marks?”

  Harker shrugged. “That was Sloan’s idea, to shift the blame away from me.”

  Kate started. It was the truth, it had to be—but it was wrong.

  Soon the monsters will rise, and when they do, the city will be mine.

  She let out a bitter laugh. “You’re a fool,” she told her father. “Sloan wasn’t helping you. He started the rebellion, and you played right into his hands.”

  The smile slid from his face. “Well then,” he said dryly, “thank God you disposed of him.” He took a step toward her. “You’ve proven useful, Katherine. You might be a Harker after all.”

  Kate shook her head in disbelief. “Blood means nothing to you, does it?”

  Harker’s face hardened. “I never wanted a daughter, but Alice did, and I loved her, and she said I’d love you. And then you came into this world, and she was right. I did.” Kate’s chest tightened. “In my own way. They say fatherhood changes a man. It didn’t change me. But Alice . . . it ruined her. Suddenly you were all that mattered. All she could see. And in the end, it killed her.”

  “No,” snarled Kate, gripping the gun. “Sloan killed her. I remember.”

  She’d meant to knock him off balance again, to watch the shock of the betrayal register. But it didn’t. He knew. “She wasn’t really mine anymore,” he said coldly. “My wife wouldn’t have tried to flee in the night. My wife was stronger than that.”

  She raised the gun and leveled it on her father. “Your daughter is.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  “You really don’t know me, Dad,” she said, pulling the trigger.

  The sound was deafening, but this time, when the gun fired, it didn’t take her by surprise.

  Harker’s body jerked backward, blood blossoming out from his shoulder.

  And then, he grinned. It was a terrible, feral thing. “Not a true Harker after all,” he chided. “My daughter would have shot to kill.”

  She squeezed the trigger again, aiming low; the bullet tore through Harker’s left knee, forcing his leg to buckle beneath him. He gritted his teeth in pain, but kept talking.

  “I thought it might work, you know. If you survived, if you never found out about Colton. It could have been the best of all worlds. Maybe we could have even been a family.”

  There had been a time when that was all Kate wanted. Now the thought made her sick.

  “You’re not a father. You’re not even a man. You’re a monster.”

  “It’s a monster’s world,” said Harker. “And you don’t have what it takes.”

  She trained the gun on her father’s heart. “You’re wrong,” she said. Her voice was shaking but her hands were steady. But before she could pull the trigger, a shadow stepped in front of her, blocking her shot. “Kate. Stop.”

  Harker’s eyes narrowed. “August Flynn.”

  “Get out of the way,” warned Kate, but he stepped forward until the barrel of the gun came to rest against his ribs.

  “No.”

  “I have to do this.” The words came out strangled, and Kate realized she was crying. She hated herself for crying. Crying was weak. She wasn’t weak. And she was going to prove it. “He deserves this.”

  “But you don’t.” August reached out and rested his hand over hers on the gun.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “My soul is already red.”

  “That was an accident. You were scared. You made a mistake. But this . . . there’s no coming back from something like this. You don’t want—”

  “I want justice,” she snapped. “I want judgment.”

  August brought his other hand to rest on her shoulder. “Then let me give it.”

  She met his eyes. They were pale and wide, and in their surface she saw herself, the self she’d tried to be. Her father’s daughter. The tremor finally reached Kate’s fingers, and she uncurled them from the gun, letting August take the weight, and then—

  Movement over his shoulder, a flash of metal as Harker got to his feet and lunged.

  He never made it. August turned and caught her father’s wrist, wrenching the knife free and slamming him back against the wooden floor. August dug his fingers into Harker’s wounded shoulder, and the man hissed in pain. August didn’t seem to take any pleasure in the task, but he didn’t release him, either.

  “You should go, Kate.”

  “No,” she said, but the truth was, watching Harker writhe beneath August turned her stomach. Her father had always looked like such a large man, but lying there, pinned beneath August’s knee, pain making the red light surface on his skin like sweat, he looked weak.

  “Please,” said August. “Make sure no one interrupts us.”

  Kate took a step back, and then another. She met her father’s eyes—dark eyes, her eyes—one last time, and said, “Good-bye, Harker.”

  And then she turned and left, shutting the soundproof doors behind her.

  It took a long time for him to die.

  August didn’t draw it out, not on purpose, but the last of the man’s life resisted, and by the time it was over, Callum Harker lay in the middle of the floor, his body twisted and his eyes burned black. Beyond the windows, the sun had started its descent.

  Blood dripped from August’s fingers as he straightened. He still hated the sight of it, and he did his best to wipe it off before stepping out into the penthouse.

  Kate was sitting on the black leather couch, an unlit cigarette between her fingers.

  “Those things will kill you,” he said gently, not wanting to startle her.

  She looked up. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying, but they were dry now. “That’s why I’m not smoking it,” she said. “Plenty of other ways to die.” Her gaze flicked past him to the office doors. “Especially now.”

  She’d showered and changed and packed a bag, the handgun resting on top. Her blond hair was free of blood and grime, scraped back into a ponytail, revealing the silver scar that traced from temple to jaw. She was wearing all black, her nails freshly painted.

  “You could come with me,” he said. “To South City. We can protect you—”

  But she was already shaking her head. “No one can
protect me, August. Not in this city. Not anymore. Harker didn’t have friends. He had slaves and enemies. And now he’s dead, you think they’re going to let me go free?”

  No, he didn’t. Even with Sloan gone, the Malchai were rising up, Harker’s system breaking down. It wasn’t safe here. It wasn’t safe anywhere.

  They took the private elevator to the garage where she’d left Sloan’s car. The sun was going down, and it wouldn’t be long before someone went looking for Harker and found his body. She set the gun on the passenger seat, on top of the border papers and the cash she’d taken from the house.

  “Where will you go?” asked August.

  “I don’t know,” she said. It must have been the truth.

  She hesitated in the open door, one foot in the car, one still on the ground. August produced a slip of paper he’d taken from Harker’s desk, the corner tinged with blood. On it, he’d written the number for the FTF. The codes to access Henry’s private line, since he didn’t have his own. “If you ever need help,” he said. She said nothing, but took the paper and tucked it in her pocket.

  “Be careful, Kate. Stay”—he was going to say safe, but he changed his mind—“alive.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Any advice on how to do that?”

  August tried to smile. “The same way I stay human. One day at a time.”

  “You’re not human,” she said. But the words had no venom. She started to climb in, but he reached out and folded his fingers over hers on the car door. She didn’t pull away. Neither did he. It was only a moment, but it mattered. He could tell, even through the haze.

  August’s hand fell away, and Kate pulled the door shut, rapping her nails on the open window. He took a step back, put his hands in his pockets. “Good luck, Kate Harker.”

  “Good-bye, August Flynn.”

  He watched the car pull away. And then he walked out of the garage and onto the street, toward the Seam, and South City, and home.

  They saw him coming.

  Word must have gone up from the moment he stepped into the compound, or maybe Paris had even called when he came through, because Henry and Emily Flynn were waiting when the elevator doors opened. Before he could say anything, they were there, pulling him into something more desperate than a hug. August sank against their grip and told them everything.