By the Icy Wild

by Everly Frost

  The man inside the mech had a large frame. His legs were hidden inside it, as well as his arms, but his torso, neck, and head were visible, leaving him identifiable.

  It was Cheyne. Michael’s godfather. Michael had said his father’s research was taken by force, but Cheyne was clearly at ease inside the mech, which could only mean he’d switched sides. Part of me wasn’t surprised. He’d worked with Michael’s father at the Terminal and was responsible for my capture. Michael’s dad was methodical, driven, as Snowboy had described him, but Cheyne had been cruel.

  He scanned the area, turning side to side, looking for…

  Me.

  His lips moved and I isolated his words out of the sounds around me. “There you are.”

  The empty mechs remained at the cliff line and began to fire, bombs exploding against the tower, causing more damage than the drones ever could. The sides of the train station were nothing more than debris now and the top of the tower creaked dangerously. My brothers rallied, turning their focus to helping the bears take down the machines while the Starsgardians raced from their positions in front of the tower and began fighting the people.

  I ran toward Cheyne, gathering speed, but he was whispering again. “I know you can hear me. Come with me quietly or Michael’s father dies.”

  “Why should I care?” I shouted, a moment before I hurled into him, knocking the giant mech across the pathway near where the monument had been. The bugs rolled, pooled beneath him, pushed back up, and reformed. Cheyne regained his feet, unscathed.

  “Because Michael will care.”

  I circled him. I’d missed grabbing the anchor bugs at his temple by a scant inch.

  Cheyne taunted me. “No matter how he feels about his dad, he’ll care that you had the chance to save him and didn’t.”

  “What about you?” I demanded. “You’re a slow healer. Olander’s a Basher. They hate slow healers. You obviously made a deal: your freedom for Mr. Bradley’s research.”

  He didn’t deny it. “It’s your choices that matter now, Ava, not mine.”

  I glanced across the platform to where Michael fought beside Nine, attempting to disarm one of the machines. The mech fired a missile; Michael disappeared in flame and reappeared a moment later unharmed. Seeing him walk out of the flames would never stop being a marvel to me, but I would never stop fearing for a split second that he wouldn’t.

  He signaled to Nine and the bear ripped as hard as he could at the mech’s weapon while Michael launched himself up onto Nine’s back, propelling himself high enough to make a grab for the control bugs at the machine’s temples. Michael’s whoop was followed by the machine’s shudder and disintegration. Together they raced to the next mech as I turned back to Cheyne.

  Michael’s relationship with his dad was difficult. But he didn’t want his dad to die.

  “I’ve studied you, Ava,” Cheyne said. “You have strong protective instincts. You won’t let Michael’s dad die. I know you won’t.”

  “What do you expect me to do, Cheyne? Give myself up and go back to Evereach with you?”

  “Pretty much. If you’re smart.”

  There was a shriek behind me as another missile met its mark and the top of the tower finally exploded, chunks of glass and metal smashing into the pavement as the fighting continued. I batted away a lump of falling metal, aiming it for Cheyne, but it did little more than cause the bugs to dance around him, switching positions to protect him from the impact.

  At the same time, a hum filled the air and a fresh round of beetles sped across the clearing, firing tranquilizers.

  Cheyne pointed. “There are worse ways to go.”

  One of the beetles targeted Rift’s shadow, rapidly firing tranquilizers into him, and to my horror, his shadow collapsed.

  My brothers had avoided the tranqs before, but now the mechs were demanding all of their attention and while they were distracted, they were vulnerable.

  My senses went haywire and my plans suddenly scattered.

  “Stop fighting, Ava. Give yourself up before your friends pay the price.”

  Another volley of tranqs cut down Rift’s second shadow. Everything inside me screamed. Quake, Rift, even Michael—none of them were watching the skies right then. I raced away from Cheyne, shouting for my brothers.

  “The drones! Watch out for the drones!”

  Cheyne’s mech thundered after me, his jeering laughter chasing me. High above, the drones soared away from the main fight and toward the far end of the platform—to the brother who was farthest away from me. Farthest from help.

  Snowboy fought there. He, too, was focused on a machine, trying to rip off its anchor points before it could shoot another missile. But the mech was slippery and fluid. Every time he tried to get hold, the bugs rolled, separated, and reformed. To make things worse, Snowboy’s movements were slower than before. He’d used up a lot of energy creating the ice wall and helping me after that. His body was more solid, duller. The fact that he hadn’t heard me shouting about the drones told me he was running low on nectar. Very low. Which meant he was close to mortal…

  “Snowboy! Look out!”

  All of the drones fired at the same time. Tranquilizer darts—more than I could count—pierced his body, forcing him to his knees. He rocked on the spot, one hand keeping him upright, trying to regain his feet as his head lolled. His arm buckled as he collapsed against the dirty snow.

  Another drone flew toward him.

  This time, it was a black beetle. Its underbelly flashed with red mortality bullets.

  Any bullet would kill him, let alone something that was designed to explode into pieces upon impact and release deadly serum…

  Terror burned through my veins.

  As fast as I was, the drone was already in position and I was too far away. I reached and reached, my shadows speeding ahead of me like darkness itself.

  There was a shout as a Starsgardian woman appeared next to Snowboy.

  As the mortality bullet shot toward him, she threw herself in front of it. The bullet struck her square in the back and the impact forced her forward over him. She flailed, but managed to gather him up beneath her, protecting his arms and legs as well as his chest.

  The drone kept firing, over and over, again and again, as if it were in a rage. Each strike slammed into her, but the woman held on, covering Snowboy’s body with her own until the last bullet.

  When I reached them, the drone was still clicking as though the person who controlled it was still pulling the trigger. Click, click, click…

  With a scream, one of my shadows grabbed it, smashing it against the ground. At the same time, I skidded to a stop, dropping to my knees, rolling the woman into my arms.

  Naomi’s golden spear rolled free of her limp hand as I wrenched off her facemask. Snowboy’s agonized eyes followed my movements, focusing on Naomi. His body jolted as he recognized her, but he couldn’t speak or move. I knew only too well the agony of being paralyzed, the pain of inaction, of being unable to talk or move, only to watch.

  His eyes told me everything: that he was afraid, terrified, but not for himself…

  I surrounded us with my shadows, using them as a barrier to repel any further attacks.

  “Naomi,” I whispered as her hair floated free across the ground, her torso resting against me. A thin line of blood trickled from her mouth, her breathing a bare movement.

  Her back was a mess. The bullets had ripped into her body, countless savage wounds that weren’t healing. She had only moments to live. Nectar couldn’t heal anyone after they died…

  I tore off my glove and shoved a pearl into her mouth, but her eyes slid from mine to Snowboy.

  With a painful sigh, her hand moved across the ground to his, the tips of their fingers barely connecting.

  A tear trickled from her eye. “Please… forgive…”

  The pearl of nectar dropped from her mouth.

  Her eyes became glassy and she didn’t say another word.

  Chapter
Thirty

  RAGE AND GRIEF tore through me. “Naomi!”

  My emotions were reflected in Snowboy’s eyes. The breath gasped in and out of his mouth as he tried to speak, fighting the paralysis, struggling to move. “N…o…!”

  I grasped Naomi’s body closer, placing my hand over her heart, trickling energy into her like I’d done for the baby bear, willing her heart to beat again. But the silence inside her chest told me nothing could bring her back. The damage was too great. The drone had cut her heart and lungs to shreds.

  I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t bring back the dead.

  Grief bore down on me, a crushing weight. “No, no, no!”

  Lowering her to the ground, my hands covered in blood, I shifted to my knees with a scream that carried across the space around me. Through the haze of sorrow and anger, I found Cheyne looming over us, gloating.

  My shadows reached him first, one on each side lashing the mech’s controls, ripping them from his temples. A moment later, I crashed into Cheyne’s chest, shoving him onto his back.

  Bugs blasted everywhere as the mech’s control center disintegrated. Without the suit around him, he slammed to the ground and I followed, dragging him down, my bloody fingers closing around his head.

  At the last moment, his eyes lit with fear.

  The force of my energy released.

  Just like Seth, he breathed in and out, but only once, before the light faded from his eyes.

  I drew myself upward and the air inside my lungs caught fire. All of the rage I felt pooled inside my heart. I screamed across the battlefield, across the broken tower top, across the destruction and the fallen bodies, across the invaders and the machines.

  “Evereach!”

  The drones halted and turned. The mechs swiveled. The Evereachers backed away, uncertain. The glow I could see extending around me and the way they looked at me told me that, just like the day I hurt the bears, I was still exploding.

  My arms, my legs, my chest, my heart. All of me afire.

  I had time for only one more thought: the need to protect the ones I loved. Knowing Michael wouldn’t hear me if I whispered, I shouted, “Michael. Brothers. Bears. Ruth, tell your people. Seek shelter. Now.”

  Michael didn’t hesitate. Neither did Rift or Quake. They raced toward me with the bears close behind. As they ran, Rift and Quake both ripped off their gloves to replenish their nectar. They lifted Snowboy from the ground, supporting him between them. But the Starsgardians stared at me in shock and I knew they were struggling to understand what was going on, despite everything they’d already seen.

  Without lowering my eyes, I whispered. “Ruth, pull your people underground or they will die.”

  Finally, the Starsgardians ran toward the tower and I was glad to see them go.

  I stepped past Cheyne and held my hands out, wrists together. “I surrender!”

  “No! Ava!” Michael’s shock hit me hard. Whatever he’d thought I was about to do, it wasn’t this, but I couldn’t turn to face him. I couldn’t bear to see his fear or worry. I was on a path now that I couldn’t turn away from.

  “Get away as fast as you can,” I breathed, as quiet as a falling feather, knowing that my brothers could hear me this time and they’d take Michael with them.

  Above me, the drones buzzed and swarmed. The mechs kept their weapons raised, training them on me. Only one Evereacher broke from the others to approach.

  He pulled off his mask and I came face to face with Aaron Reid, the boy whose brother I’d killed, the boy who was once my own brother’s best friend and whom Hannah had told me to stay away from.

  “Ava Holland.” His eyes flickered to Cheyne where he lay.

  I offered my hands to Aaron, but he kept his distance. His head cocked, listening for a moment, and I guessed he was receiving instructions. The drones would be relaying sound and images to whoever was controlling the Evereach army—the person who had ordered Naomi killed.

  I said, “Tell Evereach to leave Starsgard right now. If they do that, I’ll come with you.”

  Aaron paused, listening. “You have a deal.”

  “Prove they’re leaving the other towers.”

  He looked taken back. “You have my word…”

  “Your word means nothing. Show me they’re leaving.”

  “Very well.” A drone flew close to us, its slick black beetle body shining in the midmorning sunlight. Aaron opened a compartment in its underbelly to reveal a camera, taking hold of the drone and turning it upright. “This should work if they route the feed from the southern drones.”

  His words were conversational, but his tone was blank and mechanical, far from the happy-go-lucky guy he’d been before. “That’s Tower Nineteen and that’s Eighteen…” He flicked through footage showing the drones and mechs leaving, but many of the towers were decimated, some of them only rubble. My former home, Tower Seventeen, was only half-standing, the top half gone and smoke billowing from every gaping crevice. Ruth’s apartment—the place where Michael and I had stood on the balcony under the stars—was gone.

  She whispered through the communicator in my ear. “Ava, it’s not a trick, they’re leaving, but … please don’t do this. You don’t have to. Naomi wouldn’t want this.” Her voice choked up and she broke down, sobbing. She and Naomi hadn’t always agreed on everything. In fact, they’d argued fiercely about many things, but at the end of the day, Ruth had just lost her best friend.

  I shook my head. “No one else will die because of me. Not today.”

  Ruth wailed. “No…”

  I ripped the communicator from my ear, blocking out her cry. To Aaron, I demanded, “Why haven’t you chained me already?”

  “I’m not touching you. I saw what you did to Cheyne.”

  “The traitor. Just like you.”

  The first real emotion raged across his face and it was pure hatred. “I don’t believe for one second that Michael’s dad killed my brother.”

  I inhaled a sharp breath, but fire and pain made me reckless. “Your brother was a monster. He attacked me and tortured Michael. He was going to kill me.”

  “So I was right.” A flash of shock passed across Aaron’s face. Quickly buried. “From what I’ve seen, he probably should have.”

  I didn’t realize I’d advanced on him until his face glowed and I was painfully aware that I was casting heat and flame all over the place. I chose my own brother’s words, spoken to me so long ago. “I am what I have to be.”

  “You’re dangerous.” His expression changed from angry to blank again. “But we caught you. We will destroy the mortal threat. Olander will lead us into a bright future and we will never be afraid again.”

  “Words,” I said. “Just words.”

  I walked toward the platform, my feet heavy but determined, while I judged the locations of those around me. My conversation with Aaron had given the Starsgardians the time they needed to disappear underground—not a single one remained. My brothers had listened to my warning too. The bears were racing away from the scene and, to my surprise, Nine carried Michael on his back. Glacier carried Snowboy tucked in her wings and Avalanche carried Rift. They’d all traveled far away in a short space of time.

  I could only hope it was far enough.

  As for the invading force, many of the Evereachers were already making their way over the cliff, their suits reforming around them. As they slid over the edge, the moss kept up an angry onslaught, catching one of them every now and then—but in the end the bugs were too clever and too strong, warding off any attack.

  The remainder of the soldiers formed a close circle around me, but not close enough to touch. The remaining five mechs spread across the cliff line but were no farther away than fifty feet in both directions; the drones clustered above me, moving as I moved, tranqs aimed and ready. Together they formed a procession escorting me into captivity.

  Only one of my brothers remained.

  Quake crouched at an angle to the right of the farthest mech, partial
ly concealed behind a pile of fallen branches, as quiet and still as the day I met him. The Evereachers wouldn’t care that he was there. They had what they wanted. My heart burned because I couldn’t do this without him, but I was about to put him in terrible danger—the final piece of the plan.

  As I reached the center of the platform, the mechs left their positions and lumbered forward. Clustering closer.

  It was close enough.

  Terror for my brother shot through my heart, but there was no other way.

  “Now, Quake!”

  Quake moved faster than I’d ever seen him. He shot from his position, launching his whole body forward, and slammed himself against the ground. The impact was so enormous that the earth trembled and split open in front of his body.

  Earthquake.

  A giant crack formed and shot out in a jagged line, growing wider, splitting the ground in two. The side I stood on—the cliff side with the Evereachers and the mechs on it—shuddered and jolted and held only for a moment longer.

  A crack echoed across the sky as the entire portion of cliff we stood on shifted and groaned, separating from the mainland. Evereachers screamed as the ground fell away beneath them, some of them falling, others clinging … then falling…

  Right next to me, Aaron shouted and tried to rebalance. The earth crumbled directly under him, pulling him sideways. For a moment, his eyes met mine, then he threw himself away from me, angling his body with the slope, sliding out into air to disappear from view.

  I fell.

  As the mechs and the Evereachers fell with me—and the drones followed us down—I harnessed every ounce of energy I had left, every particle of rage, every thought of Naomi’s determination, every moment of desperate need to protect my brothers, to protect Michael, to protect their freedom.

  I would not let the invaders survive.

  I would not leave them alive.

  I would not let them come back.

  As the ground dropped, I sought Quake’s position, waiting only one more moment for him to escape, to run away from me.

  Then I became my name.