Diamond City

by Francesca Flores

  Aina struggled to think of a reply, slightly unsettled by how easily Raurie voiced her faults and her plans for the future. Maybe her faith helped her see so clearly, and maybe that was something Aina had lost after her parents’ deaths. Was there something wrong with her for not being anywhere near as sure of herself?

  She was saved from having to answer when Ryuu and Teo walked over with packs of newly purchased supplies and weapons for all of them. She took hers from Ryuu without meeting his eyes.

  They set off toward the south of Kosín under the pouring rain. A half hour later, as the hill began to dip down into the clustered homes of the Stacks, they stepped into an alley. There was a bar next door, packed with people even though it was barely noon. Aina shivered in the cold as Teo bent down next to a storm drain. He used a wrench from his pack to pull up a manhole covering the entrance to the sewers. It lifted, and he went first, descending a ladder into the darkness.

  Aina lit her flare before even touching the ladder, unwilling to take her chances in the dark. Covering her mouth to block the wretched scent, she followed Ryuu down the ladder with the flare tucked under her arm.

  They walked along a pathway parallel to the central flow of the sewer water, Ryuu leading with Aina’s flare lighting the way. The rushing water was the only sound, apart from their footsteps and the scurries of rats passing by the edge of their vision.

  She almost sensed the change in the air as they walked deeper under Jackal territory, as if they might notice her presence through the heavy earth packed above them and come down to end her.

  “Down here,” Ryuu said as they turned a corner.

  She moved closer to him, lifting her flare to bathe the path ahead in reddish-orange light.

  Something scuttled in the new tunnel ahead, the sound of many legs scraping across metal.

  Aina shifted the light of her flare, then gasped and jumped back so quickly, a jolt of pain went through her sore neck.

  Giant, cottony webs as large as blankets draped the tunnel ahead. Falling in curtains of intricate designs, many were empty, but others were not. One web nearby held a body inside, stiff and mummified in the tight white grip of the silk. The dead creature had a long tail, short legs, and a diamond-like face.

  “Is that a cat?” Teo asked incredulously, stepping closer to it in the small circle of light.

  She wanted to yell at him to come back, to get away from those webs, but her voice refused to come out.

  “That’s the work of cave spiders,” Ryuu said in an awestruck whisper. “They’re from the mountains, but they started coming to the city when we built the tunnels. They’re as big as wolves.”

  “No, I’m done.” Aina turned around, one hand gripping her flare and the other finding her knife. “I’ll take my chances with the Jackals.”

  “Come on,” Teo said with a teasing smile, holding out his arm to stop her from leaving. “You think I can’t handle a little spider? We can do this, Aina.”

  “They’re not little!” she said. When he smirked at her, she sighed and turned back around. “Fine. But I’m not cutting the webs down. That’s your job.”

  Ryuu and Raurie walked ahead, but before Teo could join them, Aina stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “Try to keep Raurie out of any fighting we do,” she whispered. “She shouldn’t be in danger because of us.”

  He nodded, then moved to join Ryuu and Raurie in hacking at the webs that blocked their path. Aina cringed away from each one, wondering where the spiders had gone. Probably to hunt.

  She held the light between the others as they worked their way through the tunnel, the floor of which grew steadily wetter. Each spiderweb was so large, they could wrap around her and swallow her whole if she got close enough.

  After what felt like hours, Ryuu stopped in front of a rusted ladder leading up to a door set in the tunnel ceiling. About halfway up the wall was the outlet of a storm drain, with the piping system covered by a grate. Water poured through it in a steady stream to pool around their shoes and flow down a depression in the floor.

  Craning his neck to look up, Ryuu said, “That will lead to the subway tunnels.”

  The air was humid and putrid, making her hair stick to her face as they climbed. She wrinkled her nose and pushed onward, simply glad to be leaving the tunnels with the spiderwebs.

  Maybe she hadn’t encountered any spiders, but she’d gotten through their webs unscathed, and she hadn’t run away from the dark enclosure of the sewers. She tightened her grip around the ladder rungs and ascended, feeling bolder than before. Light shone through small air holes in the door above, illuminating the thick clouds of dust from all the construction in the tunnels.

  When they were nearly twenty feet above the sewer floor, the sound of the rushing water picked up, stronger and faster.

  Ryuu froze above her and Raurie, then called down, “I don’t think that’s a good sound.”

  Aina cringed against the ladder as water flooded through the grate above in torrents on its way down to the sewers. She covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve, but the water still soaked her head and clothes. She tightened her grip on the ladder rungs, but already, her hands were slipping under the falling water.

  They kept climbing, pausing to wipe their wet hands on their clothes every few feet, but soon they were completely soaked, and there was no use.

  As they neared the top of the ladder, Aina lifted her hand to push hair out of her eyes.

  Then a scream sounded from above. Aina immediately clung to the ladder, her only thought that one of the giant spiders must have found them and was clawing its way down to devour them.

  But when she glanced up, she saw that Raurie’s foot had slipped. The water continued to pour down, and when Raurie tried to get a better grip on the ladder, she fell.

  For the briefest moment, Aina hesitated, frozen on the ladder. As long as she clung to the ladder, she could avoid the darkness of the tunnel surrounding them.

  But at the last moment, she moved. She reached out and latched on to Raurie’s wrist, both their hands lost in the shadows. She cried out as the weight nearly pulled her arm out of its socket, but she used the momentum to swing Raurie back toward the ladder where she could grab on to it. She was suddenly grateful Kohl had made her practice scaling buildings one-handed, or else she and Raurie both would have fallen twenty feet to the sewer floor.

  As Teo helped Raurie resettle herself on the ladder rungs below, Aina’s hands shook so badly, she nearly lost her grip.

  She rubbed her now sore shoulder and looked upward again, letting the rainwater hit her face. Then, her eyes moved to the darkness on both sides.

  Her parents believed life was precious, and for once, she’d saved someone instead of doomed them. A twinge of pride worked through her at the thought, and some of her fear ebbed away.

  Ryuu had reached the top of the ladder. He shook the wet hair out of his face, then pushed open the door that would lead into the subway tunnels.

  She was almost there, one step closer to killing Kouta and getting her life back under control.

  Ryuu held out his hand to help her when she reached the top of the ladder. Taking his hand, some of her sense of triumph faded.

  “Almost there,” he said with a small smile as he pulled her over the lip of the door into the new tunnel. Somehow, even after they’d been drenched in rainwater, he still smelled like a forest.

  Giving him an awkward nod, she turned to help Raurie and Teo up the final rung and over to solid ground.

  She couldn’t let Ryuu’s kindness deter her. Steels like Ryuu always said they would help you—then they gave you a job and got you killed while doing it. She refused to let this rich boy with a heart change her mind or do the same to her.

  But he’s not just a rich boy with a heart, she told herself. He’s been hurt by this city nearly as much as me.

  He helped me rescue Teo when he could have insisted on abandoning him.

  He laid a blanket
on me while I slept.

  And he believed she would have been a good person if she’d had another childhood, when she’d never seen the point in wondering that herself.

  As they sat to catch their breath, shivering in soaking clothes and in the cold air of the new tunnel, she remembered the promise she’d made to herself and to kids like her years ago.

  She would rise up. She would prove that good things could happen to girls like her, girls from nothing. For all the children who froze on Kosín’s streets at night in the rain and snow, who didn’t have a mansion, servants, and an older brother to protect them while they mourned.

  She’d never allow a Steel to take that goal from her, no matter how kind they proved they could be.

  32

  After walking half a mile through the subway tunnel, a new cavern opened ahead.

  The train yard spread away in front of them. Hundreds of train cars gathered in clusters, some sitting far back near the curving edge of the cavern where they were shrouded in shadows.

  This place was similar to the train yard near the Tower, but without the noise of construction. No platforms had been built here yet. For a few minutes, they stood at the edge of the cavern and searched for some sign of Ryuu’s brother.

  “That one has lights on inside,” Aina said after a minute, pointing through a gap in the train cars ahead.

  Golden light poured through the windows of one train nestled in the center of all the others. It was composed of three cars, each one lit up. Other train cars were poised around it like scattered dominoes.

  Raurie took a step forward, but Aina put a hand on her shoulder and leaned close to whisper, “There are guards around it, see? It’s hard to tell with all the other cars in the way, but I think I see three. Maybe more behind the train. The vision only showed him sitting alone in the car. It didn’t show how many guards he might have in the surrounding area.”

  “Do you think they’re protecting him?” Teo whispered. “They might be the guards he left the mansion with.”

  “Either that, or they’re holding him against his will,” Aina said, turning to Ryuu. “Seems like someone powerful really wants your brother dead. Maybe they brought him here for some reason.”

  “I don’t know,” Ryuu said, squinting at the guards with an uncomfortable expression on his face. “We should be careful. I can’t tell from here if I recognize these guards or not.”

  “So, our best chance to get to him…” she began, drawing out her voice to prolong the time until she betrayed him, “is to take them out.”

  But Ryuu was still peering ahead at the guards. He took a couple steps forward, frowning.

  “I’ll take the three in front of the train,” Teo said, already pulling out his gun.

  “Wait.” Aina pulled out the blowguns they’d purchased at the black market, along with some paralyzing darts, and distributed them.

  One step left to convince Ryuu she was on his side.

  “If they really are holding him against his will, then we can keep them alive with these instead of killing them outright. You’ll want to ask the guards questions in that case, right?” she asked Ryuu, who nodded. “Good. You three go to the front. I’ll head to the back.”

  “Wait,” Ryuu said, placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “Why would you go alone? You don’t know how many guards are back there. I’ll go with you.”

  She shrugged off his hand and rolled her eyes. “If you think I need your help, Ryuu, you clearly don’t know me very well. You two go with Teo. I’ll stand my best chance fighting alone instead of worrying about you getting in the way. Wait for my signal.”

  The words tasted bitter on her tongue, but they made him stop insisting. She had to go alone. Killing Kouta was her job, not Teo’s or Raurie’s, and she wouldn’t let them face the blame for it.

  The only thing she could do for Ryuu at this point, as she was about to kill his brother, was prevent him from witnessing it.

  He opened his mouth to say something, and she stopped in place, half hoping he would hold her back. A tense silence passed before she remembered why she was here: the job of a lifetime, regaining Kohl’s protection. Ryuu and his brother were the reason she’d lost it all.

  She held a finger to her lips. Her eyes flicked to meet his as she walked away, hoping she projected a silent apology in them.

  Maybe she watched him for a second too long.

  Maybe he noticed a change in her features, or maybe he realized how she’d avoided meeting his gaze ever since they’d left the Tower’s prisons and now that she had, she’d given herself away.

  Or maybe he’d been planning to do this all along.

  “Help!” he shouted to the guards standing around the train. “They’ve come to kill him!”

  The guards responded immediately as Ryuu sprinted into their view. At the same moment, Teo pushed Raurie out of the line of fire. Bullets flew, and Aina rolled to the side behind another train that ran perpendicular to the one Kouta must be inside.

  She scraped her hands and knees bloody rolling on the rocky ground, but got to her feet immediately once she reached cover behind the train. She ran down its length, peering through windows as she went. Her pulse pounded in time with the shots being fired, but she couldn’t tell who was being hit.

  As she reached the end of the car and crouched there, she caught sight of two guards who’d taken up posts behind the train.

  All of Kohl’s lessons ran through her mind. Speed, decisiveness, and skill were what she needed. She would become a weapon, take out the target, and reap the reward. Her guilt and doubt melted away, leaving her as the Blade she should be.

  With quick, practiced motions, she took out both guards with her blowgun one after the other.

  Then she darted out into the space between the cars, checking the fight ahead quickly to see that Teo and Raurie were still standing, then disappeared behind the train.

  Boots crunched into the rock behind her and she flung herself to the side. A bullet pinged off the train exactly where her head had been.

  The guard who’d fired the shot stepped out of the cavern’s shadows and raised the gun again. She jumped to the right, but the shot hit her thigh this time.

  Biting hard on her tongue, tasting blood, she glanced down quickly to check that it was just a flesh wound, then moved out of the way. Her vision swayed, but she managed to kick the guard’s wrist to the side. The gun went skidding across the ground. Her next strike was a punch to the throat.

  As he fell back, Aina moved. She smashed through the back window with a strong kick. Pushing her sleeve down to cover her hand, she cleared away the glass until there was a space big enough for her to slide through.

  Lifting herself up, she tumbled through the window, hissing in pain when the glass shards scraped against her. One of the shards cut into the new bullet wound on her leg, but she was a Blade; she had no time for pain when there was still a job to be done.

  Pushing herself off the ground, she saw this car was empty except for the wooden seats arranged in rows. Bright lights were spaced along the wall, casting the room in a yellow glow. A small gold chandelier hung in the center of the tapered ceiling.

  Kouta must have been in one of the next two cars. Withdrawing a dagger, Aina ran down the length of this car to reach the next one, the small windows flicking past her vision. She’d find him in seconds, slit his throat, and—

  The door on the other side of the car was forced open with a piercing screech of metal. Ryuu appeared at the opening, and for a moment, she froze in place, every bit of her training falling away.

  Then she fled into the next car as he called her name behind her.

  She slammed the door open, panting heavily as blood trickled in a hot wave down her leg.

  This car was empty too. A bullet pinged off the wall next to her, and she jumped out of the way, speeding down the aisle toward the next door.

  She reached it, pushed aside the door and ran into the car.

  A gasp
left her throat. She fell back to the wall, dropping her dagger, as Ryuu reached her.

  His breath caught when he saw the scene, and he gripped the doorframe for support.

  Kouta Hirai lay on the center of the train floor. Yellow light reflected on his open eyes. A bullet was lodged in his forehead, blood trailing down the side of his face and pooling around his hair like a halo.

  Time slowed, until she was certain they’d both stopped breathing. Hands shaking slightly, she glanced at Ryuu. With his mouth half open, eyes wide, and the crease on his forehead, he looked confused, as if the scene in front of them might not be real.

  She took in Kouta on the floor. Only a very skilled assassin could have made their way through the train yard and killed him without his guards even noticing. The blood hadn’t even dried yet, so whoever had killed him must have come here very recently.

  “Too late,” she finally whispered.

  Anger, then disappointment, coiled through her, and she ached to release it in a scream.

  Her next words shook on the way out. “Tannis got here first.”

  And all her chances at redemption filtered into the sky like smoke from a pistol.

  33

  Every shadow looked like Kohl. Every glint of the setting sun on a window looked like the flash of a blade. Aina tried to quell her fear as she weaved through the crowds of Lyra Avenue, every bright light of a casino or bar exposing her, but it only grew.

  She veered off the main road, leaving behind the lights and letting out a tense breath. One of the posters with her face on it had fallen into a puddle. She made sure to step on it, then descended the hill into the Stacks.

  Was she imagining the cold, the painful blisters on her feet, the dull ache in her empty stomach, the holes forming on her clothes, or had barely a week of being back on the streets already turned her into the pitiful girl she’d been when Kohl had found her?

  She slowed down at a shadowed corner, taking stock of her weapons before going any farther into the Stacks. Opening the pouch of poison darts at her belt, she rifled through it, counting them. Her fingers brushed against something hard. Frowning, she pulled it out, then gasped and replaced it quickly before anyone saw and tried to mug her.