Deception

by C. J. Redwine

  “I thought the dagger would be better since you’ll be using your left hand, and it’s your weaker—what’s wrong?”

  I shake my head and draw in a deep breath. I’ve carried a knife for the duration of this journey, and it hasn’t made me sick with fear. I see no reason to feel this way now, but still I stare at the dull gleam of the blade and tremble.

  Quinn’s hands slowly close over the weapons, and he lowers them. “You don’t have to choose one.”

  “Yes, I do.” I do. Because I’m not going to confront that monster without a way to bring him down.

  But if I kill him, if his blood covers my hands, will it break me like killing Melkin broke me?

  “You have other choices, Rachel.”

  “Like what? Like facing down a professional killer with nothing but my bare left hand?”

  “Yes, if you’d rather. You could trust your survival instincts and trust in our ability to take Ian down as a group. It’s up to you.”

  My fingers trace the outline of the bandage on my right arm as Melkin’s face floats to the surface of my mind again. I press lightly and the instant bite of pain distracts me from his accusing eyes.

  “It’s not about trusting myself or anyone else to get me out alive. I’m not afraid to die,” I say.

  Quinn tosses the blades onto the cot and gently pulls my fingers away from my wound. “What are you afraid of, then?”

  “He needs to die. Someone like this—someone who could do the things he’s done and take pleasure in them—needs to die. If I’m close enough to him to deliver justice, then I need to be able to do it.”

  “Do you think you’ll hesitate?”

  “No. I know I won’t.” I glance at my hands as if I can still see the crimson evidence of my guilt slowly drying on my skin. “But maybe I should. After the Commander killed Oliver and then imprisoned Logan, I was driven by a need to seek justice. But after finding my father’s grave, I wanted nothing more than revenge. Melkin got in my way.”

  I look at Quinn. “He got in my way. He didn’t know how broken I was. He didn’t realize what the Commander had done to me, and I didn’t hesitate. I killed him.”

  Something dark and painful seeps out of the silence, but I can’t succumb to it. Not when we have a killer to catch. I also can’t bear to shove it away from me, because it’s mine.

  It’s mine, and it’s time to stop acting like it isn’t.

  “You don’t carry a weapon anymore,” I say. “Why not?”

  He considers me before he answers. “Because I was raised to be a weapon. Not carrying one reminds me every minute of every day that I broke from that path, and that I’m never going back. But”—he holds up a finger as if he can already see the thoughts inside my head—“I told you once that I’d found answers, but that I didn’t think they’d work for anyone else.”

  “Why isn’t refusing to carry a weapon my answer, too?”

  “Because you weren’t raised to be a weapon, Rachel. You were raised to be a warrior. There’s a difference. If you lay down your weapons, you’d be doing it out of fear, rather than out of knowledge.” He smiles, and it warms his entire face. “You aren’t a coward. Far from it. And the people most qualified to carry weapons are those who understand the consequences of using them.”

  “And if I can’t stand to have more blood on my hands?”

  “Maybe you need to take some time to really consider exactly how much blood is truly yours, and how much of that guilt belongs to others.”

  “Ready?” Logan asks as he walks through the doorway.

  “Ready.” I reach down and palm my knife without allowing myself to think about Melkin. Later, when I’m not about to face a killer, I’ll think about Quinn’s words. Right now I’m going to try my best to be the warrior they all think I am.

  “Dragonskin?” Logan asks, pointing at the thin silvery vest lying on the cot behind me.

  “There were several vests in the weapons room. I’m guessing a few of the guards no longer feel the need to wear them since we’re inside Lankenshire?” Quinn reaches for the Dragonskin.

  “The guards wore the vests to protect against a Carrington attack,” Logan says. “We all realize they don’t protect us against Ian, because he knows we’re wearing them.”

  “Except we aren’t,” Adam says. “We stopped once we got inside Lankenshire because metal next to your skin isn’t very comfortable. Ian wouldn’t expect us to have Dragonskin on again.”

  “Vests for everyone, then,” Logan says.

  “Including you,” I say to Quinn. He smiles and goes to join Willow and Frankie in the hall outside the room.

  “Okay”—Logan looks at me—“let’s get this on you.”

  My eyes dart between Logan and Adam, and my face feels like it’s on fire. “Um. I’ve got it.”

  Logan frowns. “Dragonskin is light for something made out of metal, but it’s still difficult to put on. Especially if you can’t use your right arm. We’ll help you.”

  The fire spreads down my neck and heads toward my toes. “Logan, I’m not wearing an undertunic. If you think I’m going to strip down to nothing in front of the two of you—”

  “No,” Logan says, just as Adam turns on his heel and says, “I’ll go get a vest of my own.”

  “I sure know how to clear a room,” I say, but my breath is shaky because Logan is so close to me. I can feel the heat of his skin through the thin cotton of his tunic. I look up to find his eyes watching me with an intensity that threatens to turn my bones to water.

  “Yes, you do,” he says softly, and reaches out to trail his finger over my cheek and down my neck until he reaches the hem of my tunic. “Turn around. I’ll help you. I won’t look at anything you aren’t ready for me to see. I promise.”

  I turn to face the cot, and he rummages in a box against the wall until he finds a sleek undertunic in a shimmery white fabric that looks fancy enough to use for the first night after a Claiming ceremony.

  Which is a really stupid thing to think about right now, because my skin refuses to keep secrets from Logan. It glows, my breath hitches in my throat, and a feeling just as real as the pain in my arm but infinitely more delicious spreads through my stomach in lazy spirals.

  “This will work.” Logan’s voice is steady, but the fingers that reach around me to gently tug my tunic over my head tremble. His chest scrapes the sensitive skin along my back as he breathes in quick, little jerks as if he’s been running.

  I sound like I’ve been running too.

  “Hold still,” he whispers, and the shimmery undertunic flows over my skin like water. His hands cup my waist, and he pulls me against him. Pressing his mouth to the nape of my neck, he holds me in place for a long moment. Not that I’m tempted to move. Tiny shivers spark across the heat on my skin, and I wiggle even closer to him.

  He lifts his head and says in a voice I barely recognize, “Walk away.”

  “I—what?”

  “Walk away from me.” His fingers dig into my hips. “Please.”

  I don’t want to. I want to forget everything that haunts us, everything we still have to face, and just have this one perfect moment with him.

  But something in Logan’s voice compels me to move. I take three steps forward until my knees hit the cot.

  “Thank you,” he says after a long silence. Then he lifts the Dragonskin off the cot and carefully settles it over my head. It’s lighter than my cloak, and flexible when I move, but it still feels strange to wear something constrictive so close to my body.

  I turn to face Logan, tugging at the Dragonskin with my left hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “For what?”

  “For . . . being tempted by you.”

  My smile feels just a little smug.

  He smiles back. “Let’s finish getting you ready.”

  He slides my outer tunic over the Dragonskin. Tugs on my boots and buckles them down. Straps my knife sheath where I can reach it with my left hand, but wh
ere it will be hidden from sight. And true to form, he spends the entire time giving me a litany of worst case scenarios, instructions, and plans. Finally, he drapes my cloak over my shoulders and pronounces me ready to go. The leather of my cloak smells like garlic and smoke, and I use the memories it evokes to focus on what matters in the next few moments.

  Finding Ian. And making him regret that he was ever born.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  LOGAN

  Rachel leans heavily on me as we climb down a set of stairs and hurry through the main hospital hallway. The walls are a brilliant white, and the floor beneath us is smooth, dark wood. Quinn refuses Willow’s help as he walks, but his breathing is harsh, and his hands shake. Frankie and Adam walk in front of us.

  Jodi, Drake, Smithson, and Nola meet us in the front hall, a circular room with a scattering of stiff-looking chairs covered in soft green cloth.

  “Ian isn’t in the building,” Nola says. Her usually calm expression is set in angry lines. “No one’s seen him in here all day.”

  “Well, if Clarissa was telling the truth, some of Ian’s tracker friends are here from Rowansmark. Maybe he went to find them,” Rachel says.

  “Oh, good. More murderers to kill.” Willow adjusts her quiver and doesn’t look at Quinn.

  “The triumvirate is expecting you in the council room now,” Elim says as she crosses the stone floor with brisk steps. “I’ll take you.”

  “We don’t have time for this now,” Adam says. “We need to find Ian.”

  I glance meaningfully at Elim and shake my head.

  “We’ll tell the triumvirate we know who the killer is and ask for their help in capturing him. They know this city, and the probable location of the Rowansmark trackers, better than we do,” I say quietly. “But we aren’t going to stand around and wait for them to reach a decision. We’ll give them his identity, and then we’re going to turn this city upside down until we find him.”

  We follow Elim out of the wide double doors, across the small, manicured courtyard, and through the stone archway that leads to the main road. With every step, I see Donny’s eyes lit with eagerness as he remembers to keep his knife ready. Sylph smiling while she carefully bandages my head. Thom sacrificing himself so that I could live.

  Ian’s hands are covered with the blood of my people—my friends—and every breath I take is fueled by the cold, implacable fury that lives within me. Ian will die for what he’s done. I only wish I knew how to reanimate him so I could kill him again and again and again until he’s suffered the way he made us suffer.

  Silencing the tiny voice that wonders if my motivations are so very different from his, I scan the streets as I walk and pray for a glimpse of him. My motivations might be similar, but I don’t plan to kill innocent people to achieve my goal.

  Lankenshire is a city of gray-white stone, tidy yards, and streets that curve in gentle circles around the cluster of government buildings that rest in the city’s heart. Elim walks with her customary brisk strides, her dark hair swinging with every step. I’m thankful the hospital is only one street away from the council house. Rachel holds her head high, but I can tell every step she takes is harder than the last.

  We follow the street as it spirals inward toward the city’s center. Most of the buildings we pass look like businesses. One tall structure claims to be a library. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a city where every citizen has access to a huge collection of books.

  I guess the triumvirate doesn’t share the Commander’s conviction that ideas can be threatening.

  “You can rest in the council room,” I tell Rachel as we round the corner and see the orderly square laid out before us. It’s a testament to how weak she still feels that she doesn’t argue.

  The council building is an imposing structure made from polished gray brick. A tall statue of a man with a narrow face and an impressive sword stands in the middle of the square surrounded by pink and purple flowers.

  Ahead of us, Elim halts in the middle of the paved path that leads to the council building’s steps. Casting a quick, panicked look over her shoulder at us, she lifts trembling fingers to her throat.

  I peer around her to see what’s wrong and instantly reach for my sword. A line of Rowansmark trackers stretches across the steps leading into the council building. I scan the rest of the square and see more trackers stepping out of the shadows. In seconds, we’re surrounded by no fewer than fifteen.

  Ian isn’t with them.

  “Give us the controller, and your friends can walk away from this place unharmed.” A tracker near the center of the square steps closer. His skin is nearly as dark as Oliver’s, and his head is bare. His brown eyes are calculating as he assesses us.

  Rachel lets go of me and draws her knife. Willow nocks an arrow on her bow.

  “I don’t have it with me,” I say before anyone else can show aggression toward the trackers. If I can convince the trackers to separate me from the rest of my group, ostensibly to retrieve the device, I can keep my friends safe. As if she can read my mind, Rachel steps a little closer to me. Her hands shake as she holds her knife, but her face is a mask of furious determination.

  I admire her courage, but on a day like this, when she’s already struggling just to stay on her feet, her courage is going to get her killed.

  “You wear the device on your chest,” the tracker says.

  Of course he knows that. Ian must have told his tracker friends every single detail he’d observed over the past few weeks.

  I glance behind me. The trackers are closing in. If I’m going to derail what’s about to happen, I need to do it soon.

  Ripping at the laces on my tunic, I show the tracker my bare chest. “I told you the truth. I don’t have it with me. And if you and your men so much as injure one of my people, I swear on my life I’ll never tell you where I hid it.”

  The tracker doesn’t seem surprised that I anticipated this moment. He got his information about me straight from Ian, who’s had ample opportunity to observe the way I think.

  Which means Ian will already have accounted for this possibility, and he’ll be ready with a counterattack.

  I stare the tracker down. “Where’s Ian? Expecting you to do his dirty work for him while he hides his face from those he’s betrayed?”

  No sooner do the words leave my mouth than Ian separates himself from the thick hedges surrounding a meeting hall and walks toward us, clapping his hands in slow, deliberate movements.

  “Well done, brother. Well. Done,” he says. The sly sincerity in his voice is at odds with the anger in his eyes.

  I’ll see his anger and double it. I have the weight of Baalboden’s destruction and the loss of thirty-eight of my people to fuel me. Ian has a twisted sense of patriotism and a mile-wide streak of insanity.

  I step in front of my people and hold my sword steady.

  Ian laughs, an ugly, vicious sound. “Isn’t that heroic?” He turns to the other trackers and throws out his arms. “My brother, the hero! The boy who colluded with Jared Adams to steal from Rowansmark. Left his family to suffer the consequences. And then stole his followers away from their leader so that he could start his own city-state on the backs of Rowansmark technology and Baalboden labor.”

  “That’s not what happened.” Adam’s voice is little more than a snarl.

  “Well, look who’s decided to become a devout Logan follower. It wasn’t too long ago that I was vigorously defending his honor to you.”

  “Why bother defending him if you’re going to turn around and do all this?” Adam gestures around us.

  “I had to gain his trust, didn’t I?” Ian looks at me and slowly tugs on the silver chain he wears until the tiny copper dragon charm is visible. “You know, until I called the tanniyn that day we stopped by the Ferris wheel in the Wasteland, I wasn’t absolutely sure you still had the controller. I’d caught up with you a day before you met the Commander to give the tech to him. I’m afraid I lost sight of what happene
d to the controller after that. I was a little busy telling the tanniyn where to go.”

  My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth. “That charm calls the beast? Does it also override the controller? Is that what happened when the Cursed One went inside Baalboden?”

  Ian’s smile is fierce. “My father wouldn’t build technology meant for the Commander without giving us a way to shut it down. And if you hadn’t altered the strength of the controller with your little booster pack, I could’ve finished all of this that day on the field the way I finished your city.”

  My voice shakes. “You killed thousands of people. Thousands.”

  “Justice requires sacrifice.” He steps closer.

  “Instead of listening to this lunatic, how about if I just put an arrow straight through his lying tongue?” Willow asks.

  “If you shoot me, every single person inside Lankenshire will die.”

  Willow shrugs and pulls her bow string back. “I’ll call that bluff.”

  Ian gestures toward the top of the council building. “Do you see that?”

  I follow his arm and see a dark gray box attached beneath the eaves of the building’s roof. The metal looks like the same that was used to make both the dart and the device.

  “What is it?” Frankie asks, his tone belligerent.

  “It emits a sonic pulse. A slightly stronger pulse than the one worn by every city-state’s leader to keep the tanniyn at bay. If a city dishonors its protection agreement with Rowansmark, any tracker in the area can change the frequency to summon the beast instead.” He smiles, a ghost of the charming Ian we’d come to know. “I did enjoy listening to you uneducated, superstitious people call the tanniyn the Cursed One. I bet you still believe there’s only one tanniyn left, too. You really never once thought to challenge anything the Commander said or did. How pathetic.”

  “Neither did our father,” I say. “If he had, we wouldn’t be here now.”

  Ian’s face flushes brilliant red and he stalks closer. Perfect. If I can make him angry enough to forget that he should stay out of sword range, I can end this.

  End him.