He turned back to Remy and held out a hand. “Toss me that rope. We’re getting out of here!”
Clarity ran into the fray, joining what had to be the strangest sartorial melee in the history of time. Half the women had done what she had and stripped down to their underwear, while the other half kicked and stabbed around their ball gowns. One poor man tore the ill-fitting pants of his tuxedo to reveal red polka-dotted boxers underneath, yet still he fought on with the determination only a paladin could muster. The Azurites, thankfully distinguishable by the patches on their clothes, wore a mix of suits and rags.
Clarity imagined there were fifty to one hundred Azurites attacking the ball, a number that ordinarily would have posed no threat to this volume of paladins. But they had the element of surprise and real weapons. And in any battle this large, there are casualties.
She swung her tray to hit the head of the first Azurite she saw. He looked dazed at first but quickly recovered enough to stab at her with a blade as wicked as his grin. She brought the tray up to block the blow and went on the offensive. She didn’t aim to kill the man, but she had high hopes of incapacitating him and taking his weapon.
Before she got more than a few blows in, though, a woman’s voice came from behind her. “Back off, Clem. This one’s mine.”
Clarity waited until Clem lowered his blade and bowed before she whirled around to face Grace. The spy carried a vicious-looking whip and wore dark leather armor and a blue patch on her chest. Suddenly, Clarity understood all the shadows the guards had been seeing, as well as how the Azurites got past the paladin defenses. They’d had someone on the inside the whole time. Clarity had known Grace was friendly with at least one of Garrett’s men, but she couldn’t believe the woman would betray her own.
“Why, Grace?” Clarity asked. “The paladins raised you. They trained you. And Garrett and his men, they’re not good people.”
“The paladins stole me, and the Azurites helped me realize it!” Grace lashed out with her whip and wrapped it around Clarity’s bad ankle. “And look at them, living in the lap of luxury, while children in the Azure District die!” The spy yanked, trying to trip Clarity, but she held her ground. As Grace gaped in surprise, Clarity wrenched her foot back, and the handle flew from Grace’s hand, clocking her in the face on the way.
Clarity felt the familiar pressure of a laser pistol on the back of her neck. “You didn’t think she’d come alone, did you?”
“Archer,” Clarity said.
“Paladin,” Archer said. “How does it feel knowing you’ve lost?”
“What makes you think I’ve lost?” She didn’t want to acknowledge his question, but she needed to stall. Archer had no reason to keep her alive this time, so she had to time her movements exactly right.
He laughed. “Look around you.” She didn’t. She didn’t dare move her head, but she didn’t have to look away from Grace’s face to hear the screams and sounds of battle around her. She felt like she must be the only still person in a room exploding with chaos. “Your friends are all dying, and there’s nothing you can do to save them.”
“Your friends are dying too,” Clarity said. “You have superior arms, but you’re badly outnumbered. There’s no way this doesn’t end in a bloodbath for both sides.”
“Yes, well, if you hadn’t interfered---”
Archer cut Grace off with a hiss. “It’s not going to make a difference to you. You’re going to be dead.”
“Even if I am dead, what I stand for will matter after I am gone. That’s what being a paladin means.” Before she could think too hard about what she was doing, lest she signal her actions to him, she thrust her leg behind her and kicked Archer in the knee. She thought she heard a satisfying crack, but she couldn’t be sure in the din. She wanted to get his weapon away from him but in the split second she had to decide, elected to get out of point blank range. She followed up her first kick with a second, higher one to the groin, then pivoted out of his reach.
Archer fired the pistol just as Clarity ducked out of the way, so instead of severing her spinal cord, the beam lanced toward the next available target. Before Clarity had time to shout a warning, Grace went down. Clarity gaped at the shorter girl’s prone form. Where her eye had been, all that remained was a blackened hole and the smell of burning flesh.
“Gracie?” Archer, his voice small and desperate, down on one knee after the blows he had taken, crawled over to her body. Clarity half-expected him to curl up in defeated denial, but he turned and glared at her. “This is your fault!”
I’m not the one who shot her, she thought but said nothing. She didn’t want to taunt the man with a deadly weapon. Besides, he had just watched his girlfriend die at his hands. He deserved that much respect.
Ducking just in time to avoid his return fire, Clarity reached down to grab the whip wrapped around her ankle. She had never trained with a whip, but it was better than no weapon at all. She planned to use it to trip him during the few seconds it would take his pistol to recharge, but she realized it would have minimal effect on a man already on the floor. She could strike him directly, but unlike the barbed whip Garrett had used to torture the man in his kitchen, this weapon would be inefficient at raw damage.
Archer fired, telegraphing his intentions so obviously that Clarity was once again able to avoid the shot. She tried not to think about the laser harming another paladin---or even an Azurite---and hoped the beam had harmlessly hit the wall. Knowing she only had an instant before he fired again, she lashed out with the whip, aiming to wrap the cord around his weapon. She missed, but the leather circled around his wrist instead. When she pulled it away with a sharp crack, the motion was enough to dislodge the pistol from his grasp.
Clarity dove in to grab the gun at the same time Archer did. He was closer, but he was still in shock from the sting of the whip and the loss of Grace, so their hands wrapped around the weapon at the same time. With his other hand, Archer reached out to attack her eyes. Clarity shut them and wrenched her head away, almost losing her grip on the pistol, but she managed to hold fast. They each tugged on the slippery piece of metal with all their might, but in the end, Archer was a ranged fighter, while Clarity fought hand-to-hand. She matched his strength and brought a bit more, claiming his pistol for her own.
As she stood above him, breathing hard and aiming his weapons at his head, he cowered before her. “Finish it,” he said.
Clarity might not have been an expert in whips, but she knew how to use a laser pistol. She turned the setting down to one that would knock him out instead of kill him. “Not today,” she said, and fired. Archer crumpled onto the ground beside Grace, but his chest continued to rise and fall.
Clarity surveyed the battle around her. With a whip in one hand and a stunner in the other, she felt ready to face anything. She joined the fray, and this time no one called her out personally. She whipped and shot for she didn’t know how long, knocking out Azurites with both weapons.
Finally, after what might have been five minutes or five hours, a voice she recognized as Garrett’s called out, “Azurites! Retreat!” and at long last, the attackers ran for the door.
Chapter 24
Cass took as much time as he dared climbing down the side of the Grand Hall. He was still sore from his run-in with Garrett’s men the other night, and he had to protect the dress that Clarity valued on par with his life, which he hoped meant it was very important to her. He was one of the last non-combatants to shimmy down the rope, and he had given those who had gone before him instructions to head to the rec center, the closest building large enough to hold them all.
When he got to the bottom, he tugged on the rope to let the next person know to come down, then slunk into the shadows as he had when he’d tested the cameras. He was willing to believe that most of the Azurite forces were in the Hall, but he couldn’t believe they hadn’t left a few people outside to pick off stragglers. T
hus, though all of his instincts told him to run to safety as quickly as he could, he moved carefully, scouting ahead as far as his eyes could see. Not that anywhere on this campus is safe. I know that better than anyone.
He was peeking around a corner when his watch beeped. He swore under his breath, concerned the noise would give him away. He didn’t want to talk to whoever was on the other end of the call while he was in such a precarious position, nor could he afford to have his watch keep beeping. He pressed the button to respond to the call. “I’m a little busy right now.”
“Cass!” Clarity’s voice sounded tinny through the tiny speaker, but her unique timbre filled him with relief. She’s alive. “They’re escaping!” As Clarity spoke, a commotion sounded behind him, and he realized a far smaller number of Azurites than had entered were leaving the premises. He darted around the corner and put his back against the wall, then listened to what Clarity was saying. “Can you get to the rec center? Do you still have the program that hacks the cameras?”
“Clarity, I’m in my formal wear. Why would I have the program with the cameras?” he whispered, hoping the escapees didn’t hear him and decide to take out one last paladin. Even as he spoke and worried, though, he picked up speed toward the rec center.
“You stuck it in your arm when you took it out of the VR helmet the other day,” she said. “I thought you might still have it.”
I did? He remembered taking the hacker out of the helmet, but he didn’t remember where he’d put it. Sticking it in one of the compartments in his arm sounded like something he might do. He flipped open the most likely one and found the device inside. “Got it!” What do you need me to do?”
“Those of us left standing are trying to pursue them, but they’re splitting up. We need to find Garrett. The regular cameras won’t work, because they’re almost certainly using the holes in the security footage. But they’re tired, so they might move a little outside the lines. That’s where your program comes in.”
“On it!” Cass had reached the rec center. He ran inside and started toward the stairs when he heard someone call out his name. He glanced back to see CHrissy heading toward him, but he didn’t stop to greet her.
“We’re gathering in the basement,” she said, keeping pace with him. “We figure it’s safest down there. Why are you going upstairs? And why are you carrying around that ridiculous dress?”
Cass practically jumped up the stairs and was impressed at Chrissy doing the same in her heels. “I need to get to the VR room.”
“I don’t think this is the time for games!”
Cass considered making a joke about needing relaxation after the night they’d had, but he didn’t want to take the breath to do so. “I promise I’ll explain everything later. For now, can you just keep everyone safe?” Without waiting for a response, he strode to the back of the room and grabbed a helmet off the shelf. He popped the hacker into the port and stuck the device on his head. “Okay, Clarity, I’m in position. I’m not seeing anything yet.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “Keep watching. We’re heading down toward the gate, figuring that’s where he’s probably going.”
Waiting for the screen to flash red, Cass flicked between the various views as quickly as he could press the button on his watch. “Still nothing. Still nothing. Wait! There! I think I’ve got him!”
“This way!” Clarity called to the other members of her scouting team. Without waiting to see if they followed, she raced through the Citadel, following Cass’s minute instructions. She ran behind the motorcycle shed just in time to catch two of Garrett’s lackeys giving him a boost up the Citadel wall. “Stop right there!” she yelled, aiming Archer’s laser pistol at him.
None of the men paused, so Clarity shot the one holding Garrett’s right leg. As the man fell, Garrett stumbled to the ground, and Clarity, having picked up at least a few tricks with the whip during the fight, struck out to wrap the leather cord around his left ankle. “I said, ‘Stop right there!’” She walked forward. “Surrender now, and we may have mercy on your men.”
The man left standing, for his part, took the opportunity to try to hoist himself over the wall, and while Clarity admired his initiative, she couldn’t let him escape. Without taking her eyes off Garrett, she aimed the pistol at the minion and shot him in the back. He fell to the ground with a thud.
“Surrender? To a paladin? Never!” Garrett spat at her feet. “My men knew what they were getting into and were willing to die for the cause! What about you, paladin? Are you willing to die for your cause?”
“Always,” Clarity said, knowing he spoke of more than the attack.
“Hmph.” Garrett leaned back on his arms, not surrendering but not getting up either. “Perhaps we aren’t quite so different after all.” Before he could say more, Clarity shot him in the chest.
“Did you get him?” Cass asked, still on the other side of her watch.
“I did.” Clarity took a deep breath and surveyed her handiwork of unconscious bodies. Then she spoke into her watch. “Tell me you saved the dress.”
As the warriors rounded up the last of the Azurites and the medics attended to the wounded, Clarity found herself lying on the ground outside the Grand Hall next to Cass. Her hand was a few mere inches from his, but she didn’t bridge the gap to lace their fingers together. She hadn’t forgotten those precious few minutes before Garrett’s men had invaded the ball, but somehow, right after a battle didn’t seem the time to rekindle that feeling. Later, she thought to herself. For the time being, she was content to have him nearby.
She didn’t know if everyone she knew was safe. Enough paladins had fallen in the fray that likely at least a few people she worked with wouldn’t rise with the sun the next day. But she had seen Hope and Adeline, and Zeal and her date were tending the injured with Mercy. Little Remy had spun around like a whirlwind in the aftermath, telling the tale to the older students who came out of their dorms to see what had happened. Even some people Clarity didn’t especially care for had survived, and she’d never thought she’d be grateful to see the Grand Conductor shouting orders or Chrissy Saito charming the crowd. Tenacity was okay, too, though she seemed somewhat muted after the battle.
“Should you be helping?” Cass asked her. “I don’t even know what I could be doing, but aren’t the warriors taking prisoners and all that?”
Clarity shook her head. “I asked, but there was nothing for most of us to do. They told us to check in, then go home and go to bed.” She glanced at the people milling about on the lawn. “I don’t think anyone listened.”
“It’s certainly been a night,” Cass said. “I’m glad we made it through.” Then he fell silent. Both of them lay there, ignoring the bustle of anxious paladins around them and staring at the stars in the crystal clear midnight sky.
Clarity didn’t know how long they stayed there. She felt like it was almost dawn, though the crowd had thinned very little, when a pair of warriors came and stood over her. “Are you Clarity,” one asked.
Clarity sat up and nodded. She knew what was coming. She had been expecting it.
The warrior cleared his throat. “Then you are under arrest for aiding and abetting the people of the Azure District.”
Clarity was confined to her quarters for two days. By all accounts, she should have been in a jail cell, but apparently they were all overflowing with Azurites. Her door was reprogrammed so she couldn’t open it, and guards were posted outside. She only knew about the latter because she heard them conversing occasionally, as well as telling anyone who came by that she was not permitted visitors.
Cass tried to see her three separate times on the first day and twice on the second, and he called her at least once an hour, even through the night. Zeal and Hope were less persistent, but they had also made a few attempts to reach her. No one had told Clarity she couldn’t take the calls, but she ignored them all. She was sure her lines o
f communication were being monitored, and she didn’t want Cass saying anything that might incriminate him. Besides, she was exhausted, and she spent most of the two days sleeping.
On the morning of the third day, her door opened, and one of her guards stuck his head inside. “We’re to escort you to see the Council now.”
Clarity hadn’t given much thought to what her trial would look like, or if she would even receive one. The paladins didn’t believe in capital punishment, but she thought they might make an exception for someone who had worked with the people who had staged the deadly attack on the Star Gala. If her guard was correct, she was going to stand before the Council themselves. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to feel sorry. She just hoped Cass and anyone else who had helped her remained anonymous.
The Grand Hall looked different than it had for the gala. The curtains had not been repaired to their former glory, if indeed they could be, and stains and scuff marks covered the floor. The front of the room was set up with a semi-circular table, and the ten members of the Council sat around it, with Steadfastness Hughes in the middle. Clarity, wearing her armor because no one had taken it away from her yet, went to stand in front of the table. As she approached, she looked each Council member in the eye. Dependability looked disappointed in her, which stung a bit, but the other men all bore expressions of stern disapproval.
“Clarity,” the Grand Conductor said, leaving a large gap after her name, as if to emphasize her lack of surname. “You stand before us today accused of entering the Azure District and providing aid to its people, against the clear mandates of the Order of the Amethyst Star, as well as the City of Londigium. How do you plead?”
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