The blades rained back down, hitting the shield and bouncing every which way. Sevarin ran to pick them up, but he never stopped throwing. He moved in a frantic dance, his movements mechanical and precise.
The blades tore cracks into the tube. Energy sprayed out, cold and misty, glittering as if each particle were bathed in moonlight. It sprayed horizontally, clouding the ceiling and spreading to fill the room from the top down instead of pouring down as they had expected.
Emma cradled Barrel in her arms and watched as Milo extended both arms upward like a priest offering a sacrifice to a god. A fierce wind shot from his hands, rippling the shield barrier. The current tossed Emma’s hair back and made her wings flutter as it rose, tornado-like, and captured the energy shooting out of the cracks, causing it to flow straight down like a waterfall.
“We need more,” Milo shouted over the current.
“Working on it.”
Sevarin danced through the fog, firing swords like bullets. When it cleared, Emma saw not a spot of blood or a hint of a wound on him.
“It’s healing him,” Owen said.
Keeping his arms lifted, Milo shouted, “That’s good enough.”
Sevarin joined the group, looking pleased with himself. The energy made his coffee-brown skin look purple, and the tight curls of his hair sparkled as if coated in glitter.
“You okay?” he asked Emma.
Nodding, she gathered Barrel into her arms. Sevarin fell into a crouch next to her. The mist dropped over them. Soon, she couldn’t see more than a few inches in any direction. She held Barrel and waited, but nothing was changing.
“He’s not waking up. Barrel—he’s not waking up.”
Sevarin’s voice reached her. By now, she could barely see him in all the foam. “He will. I know he will.”
Seconds passed, maybe minutes. Emma closed her eyes and willed the body in her arms to come alive.
She sensed movement, but not from Barrel. Opening her eyes, Emma saw a single, brown hand pass through the steam. In the shifting haze, she watched Sevarin’s fingertips connect with Barrel’s neck and creep upward, searching for a pulse.
“No,” Sevarin said.
Emma squeezed her eyes shut. Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. She tightened her arms around Barrel’s corpse. “Please come back,” she said. “Please, Barrel, come back to me…”
“Wait,” Sevarin said breathlessly.
Emma’s eyes shot open.
There, in the thinning haze, she saw Sevarin’s hand, only this time a slender, white hand was draped over it. Barrel’s hand.
His body began to shudder.
He was crying.
CHAPTER 48
N ot all of them lived.
Emma was sharply aware of this as Sevarin searched the tunnel for enemy threats, forcing them all to wait inside a room Kellan could have blown up at any moment. A few of the victims, including a girl whose face she vaguely recognized from a flyer, had drowned and were beyond rescuing. Emma ached to be out of this room.
Sevarin returned, sweating and wearing a shocked expression, as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to say next.
“We’re clear. There’s no one out there. We can go.”
They carried those still alive out of the harvesting chamber. Sevarin took Barrel, who was alive but dazed. Emma and Lily helped a young girl who could barely walk. They had wrapped her in shreds of clothing Owen and Gunner had cut from the bodies of the dead wardens. The girl’s hair had turned gray, though she could not have been older than twelve.
When they emerged from the cave, Emma had to stifle a cry of utter horror.
The crevice was littered with the bulky, bloodied corpses of Sargonaut mercenaries dressed in the garb of hunters. There were more bodies out by the trees beyond the narrow space.
There was a flash of movement in the trees—blonde hair and the glint of steel—as Pris Walksprite emerged, covered in blood, holding her broadsword in one hand and a battle-axe in the other. She stepped over a dead mercenary on her way to the crevice, where the orphans stood in silent wonder at the sight of her.
She looked as though she had taken a shower in blood, then rolled around in the dirt afterwards, and Emma saw why. Pris had practically torn her attackers apart and flung the bodies in every direction. A few were even caught in the trees, bloodied limbs and shredded clothing hanging down like a strange, red moss that clung to branches.
A single man remained alive. He had been lying on his face in the dirt, faking death until Pris, having tossed away the battle-axe, suddenly grabbed his belt and flipped him onto his back. He lifted his hands to shield himself.
“Wait,” the Archon begged. “Please don’t kill me.”
Pris lifted the sword, clearly envisioning how she was going to do it. But would she murder him in cold blood? An unarmed man? The most powerful man in Theus?
“Do it,” Emma said, aware that Pris was too far away to hear her. She urged the woman on anyway. “He deserves it.”
“Wait,” Milo said. “What’s happening?”
“She’s going to kill the Archon,” Emma said.
Pris stabbed the blade downward. The Archon squealed like a pig.
“No,” Milo yelled, pushing past the other orphans. “We need him to talk.”
Pris stood watching the Archon as he lowered his hands and turned his head to find the blade planted in the ground a few inches from his ear.
“Oh gods,” he said, face crumpling. “Oh, dear gods, thank you.” He rolled over and began to sob.
Pris yanked out her sword and walked past him, scowling in disgust. “He might have other caves like this one,” was all she said when she reached the orphans.
“What about Kellan?” Emma asked. “He was pulled out of the room. He could still blow the place—”
“It’s okay,” Pris said. “Look there.”
She pointed. Emma looked to her left and saw two bodies in upright positions, tied to a pair of tree trunks. It was Kellan and Garig, both very much alive and capable only of staring forward and blinking in fright. Their feet dangled inches above the ground, their arms were bound to their sides, and both had pinecones shoved into their mouths and tied in place.
“How did you do all this?” Emma asked Pris.
Pris shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.” She cast her gaze over Barrel and the other victims. “We have to call for help. They need a hospital.”
“There’s a whole city of wardens waiting to arrest us back home,” Milo said. “Do we know anyone else?”
Pris smiled, a rare expression that looked slightly devilish thanks to the blood spotting her face and neck. “I know someone,” she said, and reached out a hand, palm up. “One of you, please hand me an Araband.”
IN LESS THAN AN HOUR—TIME they spent tending to the victims—a small fleet of shuttles appeared in the sky, lowered themselves, and hovered outside the crevice, their doors opening to reveal Acolytes dressed in plain white suits. They dove out of the shuttles, one after another, backpacks full of medical supplies strapped to their backs, and glided down to the orphans.
Emma led them to the victims, then went over to Barrel and gripped his hand. He blinked groggily at her and smiled. “You’ll be okay,” she told him.
He nodded once and let his eyes slide shut as two medics went about placing him on a sling to be lifted back. More shuttles landed. Soon, the medics were joined by Feral and Sargonaut bodyguards.
“Describe them to me,” Milo said.
Emma told him what she saw.
“No uniforms or insignia,” he said thoughtfully. “They don’t work for the city or the academy. Who was it that Pris called?”
“I don’t know,” Emma said with a shrug. “She was really secretive about it.”
“Hmm.”
The bodyguards arrested the Archon and detained him in one of the shuttles. Then they cut Garig and Kellan free, making sure to stun Kellan with a crackling baton after Pris explained the device embedded i
n his chest.
Garig shot a pleading look at the orphans as he was led away in handcuffs.
“But wait. I helped you, didn’t I? You can’t throw me in prison. What about school? I have to graduate!”
Emma responded in the only way she saw fit. “Good luck,” she told him.
Garig scowled at her but said no more as two Sargonaut bodyguards pushed him into a shuttle.
Emma wasn’t sure how she knew these men were bodyguards. She thought they moved with the trained efficiency of soldiers, but without the order and rigidity of police. The mystery grew as yet another craft, this one smaller, sleeker, and obviously made for private transport, eased itself to the ground with a hum and a blast of hot air. There were three words, gray and blocky, painted on its steely black surface.
GIANT SONS MANUFACTURING
“What is it?” Milo asked.
Emma explained what she was looking at.
Milo nodded. “Now I get it,” he said, a corner of his lips curling into a smile.
Emma would have asked what he meant, but she had a feeling she would soon find out.
The side door opened. Two men wearing gray uniforms and matching caps jumped out carrying beamcasters, but the weapons looked sleeker and more expensive than the ones carried by the wardens. The men extended their arms up at the shuttle’s opening, where a compact woman appeared and stood blinking at the orphans. She looked to be in her forties and wore a stately black outfit buttoned all the way up to the neck. Her hair was a glossy shell, meticulously groomed and elegant, and cut so short it barely reached her chin.
Emma had seen that face before.
“It’s her,” Sevarin said. “The politician lady.”
Yes, Emma was certain she knew that face. She had seen it on the news several times. What was her name again?
The bodyguards helped her out of the shuttle, and the woman immediately pulled a long cigarette holder out of her purse. She lit it with a flame that popped to life at the tip of an index finger. It generated a cloud of purple smoke that smelled faintly like flowers.
Milo sniffed the air. “Juliara Asphodel,” he said, answering Emma’s question.
“You know what that means,” Owen said. “With the Archon out of the race, she stands a pretty good chance of being elected.”
“Is that a good thing?” Gunner asked. “She looks a little—intimidating.”
The woman approached in silence, squinting coldly at them through the smoke billowing from her small, shapely mouth. She stopped a few feet away, looked around at the blood spilled everywhere, and then studied the orphans’ expressions.
“You’re the orphans from Taradyn,” she said, as if none of this was a surprise. “You did this.”
“Actually,” Gunner said, pointing limply at Pris, “she did.”
Pris stabbed her sword into the ground. Grinning warmly, she approached Juliara, whose face immediately brightened.
“There you are, Prissy Pristine.”
Pris rolled her eyes.
Juliara glanced at the orphans, smiling like a doting grandmother. “She always hated when I called her that.”
The two women embraced. Pris had to hunch slightly, as she was easily a foot taller.
“How are you, Jules?” Pris asked.
“Wonderful now. I’ll be better once I show you the new facility. We’ve come a long way since the last time one of your pilots jacked into one of my bots.”
Emma frowned. Jacked? Bots?
“Mecha,” Gunner said by way of explanation, having seen her confused look. “Her company makes them for the academy.”
“Interesting,” Emma said, though she found it hard to care about war machines with Barrel headed toward the hospital and exhaustion tugging at her eyelids.
Juliara turned her attention to the orphans and introduced herself with an elegant, albeit stiff, bow before describing their next steps.
“You must all be exhausted after all this violence. I’d like you to join me at one of my company’s manufacturing plants. We’ll be safe there among my bodyguards. If you could explain to me what happened, I’ll do my best to make sure that none of you sees expulsion from the academy—or worse, the inside of a prison cell. We have a long, brutal war ahead of us, and you children are exactly the kind of heroes Lightonia needs.”
Emma’s relief at hearing this hit her with such intensity that she fell against Sevarin and almost slid to the ground. He held her upright, wide-eyed.
“Are you having a vision?” he asked frantically.
Emma shook her head. She would have spoken, but she was too busy laughing and crying at the same time.
CHAPTER 49
C alista woke out of a dream in which she and Lance had been running across a field in Peleros toward a lake they had often bathed in as kids while their mother washed their clothes nearby. She was there, her mother, smiling at them with a soaked shirt clutched in one hand, the other shielding her eyes from the sun.
Seconds before Calista slipped out of the dream, Lance spun around to face her. He peeled off his shirt, and there were no tattoos anywhere on his body—not a spot of the ink that had drawn him to his death. Then he turned to dive, and she saw those wretched designs on the small of his back, creeping upward like a spreading stain, consuming him like multicolored flames…
“Lance.” Calista awoke with a gasp.
“You’re safe. I’m here.”
Artemis smiled down at her. Lance was gone, and reality hit her with a nauseating pang. But she was alive. The creeper, the explosion, the rider on the massive bird swooping down at her…
Had all of it been a dream?
“Where am I?” she asked.
Artemis sat back and looked around. Calista pushed herself up, examining the commotion, the air stirring around her, mixing the scents of blood, grass, and sweat. They were inside a large tent where Acolyte healers busied themselves with the wounded. Their wings were the cause of the air being stirred, and the current brushed Calista’s face like a light spring breeze. There were no Berserkers or low mages in sight.
“Did we win?”
Artemis gently pushed her back down on a makeshift cot against one wall. Was she injured? How was she still alive?
“We sure did,” Artemis said. “You planted the creeper and lived to tell about it. You’re a hero, Cali.”
“But—but I thought I died…”
“No.” He shook his head, smiling. “A friend saved you—saved all of us, in fact.”
“Who? What friend?”
Artemis intertwined his fingers across his belly and sat back. “We were a mile down the road, holding back enemy reinforcements headed toward the coliseum. I thought you were dead when you didn’t respond on the transmitter, so I took what men I had left after the fight and headed toward the coliseum with another creeper to finish the job.
“Then I see this kid riding a hermon out of the place, shouting about how the tower is going to blow. And there you were, hanging from one of the bird’s talons.
“My men and I were in flight shells at that point, ready to dive past those walls and plant the creeper; but thanks to that boy, we learned you had already done it and turned back before it blew.”
He gave an enormous sigh of relief. “I didn’t believe it until I saw Orglots fleeing the place. Biggest things I’ve ever seen on two legs. Didn’t even know they still existed. Or that they could be so friendly…”
As Artemis went on about the experience, Calista looked up at the wooden beams supporting the tent and tried to recreate her last moments of consciousness. The pain from her wound was gone, but she remembered almost dying from it. Had it not been for that bird and the boy riding it, she most certainly would have died back there, her corpse disintegrated by the explosion.
“Who was he?” she said, interrupting Artemis.
“Who?”
“The friend that saved me?”
A wide, secretive smile eased across his face. “He went out to fetch water. Been
worried sick about you for hours. To tell you the truth, I think he likes you.” He winked at Calista.
She frowned and tried to push herself upright again. Artemis blocked the movement with an extended arm.
“Take it easy,” he said. “He’ll be back in a minute.”
“But I need to see him.”
She launched herself off the cot, flipping it over as she sped out of the tent, ignoring Artemis’s shouts.
“Get back here. At least drink some water first!”
OSCAR WAS at the shore filling a pouch from one of the enormous floating orbs of purified water the magicians had drawn up from the waves when he spotted ships in the distance. Ten of them, large and fast, were sailing toward the encampment with their enormous sails full of air.
He ordered a hermon to fly down and take the water pouch back to the tent. Then he stood watching, his sharpened sight picking out human forms on the ships’ decks. A man stood at the helm of the closest ship, peering at Oscar through a telescope. Oscar waved.
The man tossed the scope aside, jumped off the ship, and phased into a seagull before hitting the water. He flew toward the shore at full speed, phasing mid-air again and landing in front of Oscar when he arrived, his boots thumping against the sand.
It was Jason, son of Rether Ford, Larry’s brother. He had received Oscar’s message.
“Oscar the academy brat,” Jason said, extending a hand. He was smiling, but there was more sadness in the expression than amusement.
Oscar returned the smile. They shook hands.
“You got my message,” Oscar said.
Jason tipped his head in a grateful nod. “I was in a bad place when you sent it. But I believed you, especially when I saw those giants in the water, looking up at you like that. I went to the academy but I couldn’t find your friends. I did bribe my way into an observatory.” He grinned. “I used the equipment to search the seas, and that’s when I saw you and those monsters on the backs of whales. It was like something out of a bedtime story.”
Oscar blinked away a hint of tears in his eyes. “Thank you. And I’m sorry about your brother.”
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