Diamond City

by Francesca Flores

  She soon reached the staircase where she’d split up with Teo earlier, then walked down until the entrance to the ballroom came into view. A few Diamond Guards stood at the entrance, but she hid the blood on her clothes as best she could and slipped past them with a quick nod.

  The idea that she’d fought a deadly battle in a dark hallway only one floor above this place made her head spin. The voices of hundreds of people in the ballroom rose louder than the pounding of the rain outside. It would take a few minutes to reach the opposite end of the ballroom by walking, it was so large. It extended two stories above in a dome-like shape, the ceiling black rock, like a cave. A broad gold chandelier hung at the arc of the dome.

  Like the courtyard in the prison, this floor was glass-covered with thousands and thousands of diamonds buried beneath it. Guests in thick furs and silk dresses moved in groups toward a platform set up at the back of the ballroom. Their dresses swayed above the floor, blocking her view, but nothing could hide all those diamonds. The death toll in the war had been tens of thousands, but only now, seeing the gems held here, did the number truly strike her.

  The balcony where she’d fought Kohl lined the back wall of the ballroom, with the black curtain spread behind the stone banister. She cast a quick glance behind her at the clock. The outline of Olaf’s body was visible slumping against the clock face, but no one else seemed to have noticed yet, so she turned away and continued on. A band played on classical instruments in the far corner, but the music slowed as someone on the stage clinked a utensil against a champagne flute to call for the crowd’s attention. Keeping an eye out for Teo, Aina slipped between the chattering guests, her blood-stained clothing brushing against their fine dresses and suits.

  As she approached the front of the crowd, she noticed the five members of the Sentinel gathered on the stage behind a dark plinth. A velvet cloth covered the top of the plinth and a gleaming, ruby-red box sat in the center of the cloth.

  A contingent of Diamond Guards as well as additional guards the princess must have brought from Linash surrounded the stage. The princess, Saïna Goleph, waited off to the side and in front of Mariya Okubo and Raurie. Ryuu stood closest to the plinth at the front of the stage. He smiled politely, but Aina could see the tension in his shoulders as his eyes scanned the crowd and the balcony surrounding the ballroom. She willed him to look at her as she neared the front of the room, and just then, he caught her eye. He let out a breath and a cautious smile tugged at his lips.

  General Bautix stood on the stage too, with pearl-coated epaulettes and a crimson sash resting on his fine gray suit and clashing with his red hair. His beard was held at the end by a silver clasp that matched the cuff links of his suit and the watch at his wrist, all of them engraved with Sumerand’s sword-and-pickaxe symbol. His eyes kept flicking up to the balcony, but his face was unreadable otherwise.

  Aina caught sight of Teo standing near the front rows of the crowd. She stepped between the guests until she reached them, tapping Teo on the shoulder.

  “You’re okay!” he said, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug next. “I knew you could handle Kohl.”

  She shook her head. “I injured him, but then I had to stop Bautix’s backup assassin. One of the Jackals, Olaf, was ready to shoot if Kohl failed. I killed him, but Kohl got away by then. Tannis fought with me—”

  “With you?” Teo asked.

  “Long story, but she’s on our side. We need to watch Bautix. I took care of his backup plan, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have another ten.”

  As Raurie left, Mariya Okubo stepped forward and tapped her champagne flute again to catch the audience’s attention. The voices in the hall began to die down. Someone dimmed the lights, leaving the room dark except for the candles on the chandelier and a spotlight that shone down on the stage.

  Okubo went on about how the Linasian princess’s visit was a sign that both countries were ready to move out of the past and toward the future, this alliance between them sure to hold strong for many years. She then announced Ryuu to a roar of applause. Ryuu stepped toward the plinth at the front of the platform with Okubo, Raurie, and the princess right behind him. Aina’s eyes flicked to Bautix. One of the guards had come up onto the stage and was whispering to him just outside the circle of light. Bautix’s face grew paler by the second.

  Ryuu pulled a string at the top of the red box. It fell away, ribbons fluttering to the floor. A glass case was revealed, and inside it, the black diamond sat atop a silk pillow, so large she could see it from here. It glittered like the night sky with the spotlight shining down on it. A gold chain was laced through its tip to form a necklace.

  The princess lowered her head for Ryuu to drape the necklace over her head. As the crowd applauded, the musicians picked up their instruments and played a new, upbeat tune.

  “I think Bautix is finding out his prison isn’t as secure as he thought it was,” Teo whispered.

  “Maybe they found Olaf’s body too,” Aina replied with a smirk.

  Bautix nodded once to the Diamond Guard, then whispered something back with a scowl on his face. As the crowd applauded, he began to walk slowly, stiffly, off the stairs on the side of the stage.

  “No,” Aina said under her breath, one hand going to her blowgun to fire a dart into his neck.

  But Teo grabbed her shoulder and muttered, “Wait, look at Raurie.”

  Aina’s eyes flicked to Raurie. She had pulled Okubo a little to the side and handed her a sheaf of papers. As she flipped through them, Raurie spoke in a rush, her eyes flicking to Bautix, who continued toward a door in the back of the ballroom with a small group of Diamond Guards surrounding him. Okubo turned to watch his retreat too, her mouth flattening to a hard line. As if sensing her gaze, Bautix looked back once, then walked faster toward the exit.

  “Stop him!” Mariya Okubo shouted suddenly over the applause, the chatter, and the music. She pointed at Bautix, but most of the Diamond Guards hesitated. Okubo could command them, but as the general, Bautix was their highest authority.

  The lights flicked back on when Okubo shouted again, and at the same time, Bautix’s guards pulled out their guns. The audience seemed to gasp all at once.

  “Jackals,” Teo hissed. Then Aina saw it. One of the guards’ sleeves had rolled up past his elbow when he lifted the gun, leaving the jackal tattoo visible.

  One of them aimed toward the stage, right at the princess, who froze in place. The shot fired. Ryuu jumped toward her, pushing her out of the way.

  Aina bit down a scream as the bullet hit Ryuu instead. As shouts rose up in the audience, she looked for him on the stage, but the princess’s guards ran onto it, blocking Aina’s view.

  Crouching low, she took out her knives and moved, Teo next to her. Shots fired everywhere as they wove between the fleeing guests. Teo shot two of the Jackals posing as Diamond Guards, but before they could reach the rest of them, they began to slip through the back door.

  One of them turned around, and his cold blue eyes locked with Aina’s. It only lasted for a second, before Kohl followed Bautix through the exit.

  The remaining Jackals fired at the real Diamond Guards, taking out a few near them. Okubo shouted for more backup, but Kohl and Bautix had already fled.

  Pushing past the ball attendees, who were shoving their way toward the main exit, Aina and Teo reached the fight. She threw a knife that pierced the neck of one of the Jackals while Teo, the Diamond Guards, and the princess’s guards shot at the others.

  In minutes, most of the Jackals were dead on the floor. Kohl, Bautix, and more Jackals had left through the ballroom’s back door. Guards were running after them, but Aina had a sinking feeling they wouldn’t succeed in catching them. She turned instead toward the stage and breathed a sigh of relief when she finally saw Ryuu, who sat on the stage, clutching his upper arm. The bullet wound was still bleeding, but he was alive.

  Most of the reception guests had fled, their wineglasses and champagne flutes abandoned on the floor in t
heir rush to get out.

  The remaining four members of the Sentinel were speaking to the Linasian princess, who looked shaken, but unhurt. Her own guards gathered around her like a shield.

  Raurie met Aina and Teo at the foot of the stairs leading up to the stage.

  “You’re both safe,” she said with a cautious smile. “I saw Teo come into the ballroom without you, Aina. I thought you might have been in trouble.”

  Aina shook her head. “I almost was, but I had help. Tannis, another girl from the Dom, was on our side, not Kohl’s. She fought him with me, but he injured her. She’s on the balcony, and she’s alive, but she’s bleeding badly. I need to get a healer to her.”

  “Let’s go help her,” Raurie said, then cast an anxious glance toward the stage. “I don’t want to leave Ryuu to have to talk to the Sentinel alone, though.”

  “I’ll go with you and help get Tannis to June,” Teo said, then turned to Aina. “Meet us there with Ryuu once you’re done with this?”

  Aina nodded, then stepped between the guards and climbed the steps to meet Ryuu. His face had gone a little paler than usual, but his wound didn’t seem to be deep. He and Mariya Okubo spoke in a low voice.

  He nodded at Aina over Okubo’s shoulder. “This is Aina. She’s also a victim of Bautix’s plans. But she and two of our friends helped expose him tonight, and she took down the assassin who was supposed to kill the princess.”

  Okubo acknowledged Aina with a quick nod, then turned back to Ryuu and asked more questions about Bautix’s plans. As she spoke, Aina walked toward Ryuu, removed her scarf from her own wound, and tied it around his.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “No, thank you,” she said when Okubo left him to speak with the princess. “If you hadn’t pushed her out of the way, she would have died. I didn’t like that, watching you get shot. But you did what you had to do.”

  Aina watched Okubo speak with the princess out of the corner of her eye. The conversation didn’t last long until the princess shook her head at something Okubo said, and the Linasian guards moved in front of her. They stepped off the stage and walked toward the ballroom exit without a glance back.

  Aina didn’t know what would happen with the alliance between their countries, but she hardly cared when there was more to worry about now; what Bautix would do next, how Kohl would come after her, how many of the Jackals still lived and would work for Bautix.

  As the room continued to empty out, she sat on the edge of the stage next to Ryuu. Giving her a soft smile, he pulled her into a hug and rested his chin on her head.

  “I didn’t like it either, when Teo showed up in the ballroom without you. I was afraid for you. I thought something bad happened.”

  She held back a smile as Okubo walked back over to them, presumably with more questions.

  “Maybe we were both afraid,” she said, “but we didn’t let that stop us.”

  47

  Teo’s apartment was emptier than Aina had ever seen it. They’d spent the day packing, had bleached the floor to clean the bloodstains, and planned for someone to fill in the bullet holes near the window. Most of Teo’s belongings were lined up in boxes near the kitchen window, but there was still his mother’s room to be packed, which Aina, Ryuu, and Raurie had assured him they would take care of while he went to get more boxes.

  Aina tore her eyes away from the simple paintings on the wall of Ynes’s bedroom. Some of the paintings were of the Linasian countryside and others were of their falcon god. Most were coated in dust since it had been more than a week since Ynes’s death. Ryuu admired the paintings too, in between folding handwoven blankets into a box. She tapped her fingers along the edge of the box in front of her, wondering what to say to him. When they’d spoken in his library before going to the Tower to stop Bautix, he’d said that once this was over, they shouldn’t see each other anymore.

  But he was still here now, and he’d spoken to her first after Bautix had fled.

  I was afraid for you, he’d said.

  Clearing her throat to get Ryuu’s attention, Aina reached into the pouch of darts at her belt and picked out Kouta’s diamond-and-ruby ring among them. It caught the sunlight pouring in from the window in the kitchen.

  Before Ryuu could do more than widen his eyes in shock at the ring she held, Aina walked over, took his hand, and slid it onto one of his fingers.

  “Is this my brother’s ring?” he asked, looking at her with a spark in his eyes that made her cheeks warm. “When did you…?”

  “I took it that first night, in your library.”

  “And you held on to it?” He held it up to the light. Rainbow colors filtered through the diamonds and onto his face. “I thought you would have sold it.”

  “At first, I forgot about it,” she said with a shrug, “but about a week after we found your brother on the train, I remembered it. I should have sold it. I was starving. But it was sort of like holding on to a piece of you.” She averted her eyes from him then as a blush crept up her cheeks. “And I told myself that if I found a way to give it back to you, I would, and I’d apologize.”

  “Thank you. Our parents gave it to him as a present on his tenth birthday. It was the last one they celebrated with either of us.” Grief flickered across his features for a moment, but then he smiled warmly. “I have something for you too, actually.”

  He walked to a nightstand near the door, where he’d left a folder that he’d brought with him this morning. Earlier, she’d watched him take out leases for new apartments from that folder. One for Teo, and one for Raurie and her aunt, with the first three months of rent already paid.

  Aina hadn’t felt left out. She assumed Ryuu must have overheard her conversation with Tannis once they’d all reached the safe house and realized that their plans wouldn’t include a new apartment. The next day, when Ryuu returned with the leases for Raurie and Teo, she’d listened to him telling Teo that he knew how painful it was to live somewhere with memories of those who’d died.

  As she watched him riffle through whatever other documents were in the folder, her heart sank. She’d always thought he was lucky that he still had a mansion and servants to return to after his parents’ deaths. She’d never before considered that his parents’ and brother’s ghosts haunted every hall, every library and study, each statue and chandelier.

  “There it is,” he said, pulling out a small stack of pages. Holding it upside down, he passed it to her wordlessly. When she turned it over, she saw a bank statement for an account she was unfamiliar with. “I overheard you and Tannis last night.”

  After they’d spoken to Mariya Okubo, they left the Tower to go to the Inosen safe house and take care of their wounds. Tannis, Raurie, and Teo had already been there. Raurie had managed to bandage Tannis well enough before leaving the Tower, and June used magic to stop her from bleeding out once they’d arrived at the safe house. But she’d still moved gingerly and winced as she sat next to Aina. In a way, Aina had already started thinking about the plan Tannis had proposed next, and she knew they would do it best together.

  They would hit Kohl where it hurt the most.

  She shook her head and scanned the paper once more. Then she saw the names of the account holders: Tannis Bayen and Aina Solís. She gasped and dropped the paper like it was on fire.

  “There’s a million kors in there!” she choked out. “What the—”

  Ryuu laughed, brown eyes lighting up as he took in her incredulous expression. “Remember when we were waiting to break into the prison to rescue Teo? You told me your old boss took all your money. I didn’t know you very well then, but I could tell you were terrified.” His smile faded slightly. “I could tell you’d lost a lot. So I used my connections at the bank to get some of his money transferred to this new account. I spoke to Tannis this morning before she left the safe house, and she told me she was going to open a joint one for you.”

  Her eyes widened. “This is all of Kohl’s money?”

  “No, I can’t
get into all of his accounts,” he said, shaking his head. “But Tannis told me she’d seen information on this one from her snooping through his office. It was one of the fake accounts he had set up to filter money to Bautix from his arms sales, and based on the statement, it looked like some of the money from Pavel’s own business went through there as well. I spoke to Okubo this morning, and she said she would reward you for your help in bringing down the princess’s attempted assassins. I’ll tell her about this and ask her to lift the price on your head. That should be reward enough, right? I told you, my name can open doors.” He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug, as if this had been no more difficult for him than a stroll through a park. “In this case, it was the door to one of Pavel’s safes.”

  She let out a small laugh, then folded up the paper and tucked it in one of her jacket pockets.

  Maybe they shouldn’t talk to each other, after all the betrayal between them. But within their betrayals and their separate goals, he’d shown her his truths and fears, and she’d shown him some of hers. If there was anything they did well together, it was challenge each other to dig a little deeper into their own truths. If a friendship was anything, it should be trying to make each other see how good and brave they could be if they tried.

  Before she could think of something to say in reply, Raurie suggested they take a break. They gathered around the same table where Aina had seen Ynes sit hundreds of times, blankets drawn around her, prayers muttered under her breath.

  To distract herself from those thoughts, Aina reached for the newspaper at the edge of the table. The headline read: “General Alsane Bautix’s Betrayal.” It didn’t list the details of all Bautix’s crimes, but it covered his murder of the late Hirai mine owners and their eldest son. It also mentioned Ryuu and how he’d been a key part of the effort to stop the attack on the visiting princess and to catch Bautix in his corruption.

  A few minutes later, Ryuu brought over cups of tea for them. Reaching for one, Aina placed the paper back on the table.