by Emily Colin
I’ve jammed that damned useless grenade thing into my belt so I have both hands free, but I can only hang onto him with one as I run, and he drags us to a halt in a clearing halfway back to the tunnels. My hearing’s coming back, his voice breaking through in fits and starts over the high-pitched whine in my ears.
“By the nine hells, Eva!” he says, and then his lips move but his voice fades out, like a vid projection with poor sound quality. His face is covered with dirt and soot, his gear ripped by flying debris. I’m sure I look much the same way, though I couldn’t care less. My only concern is getting us to safety. I pull on Ari’s arm again, but he won’t budge.
“I have to g—” he says, his voice fading, and then, “Maybe we could save…you don’t know they all…who are you to decide…my mother…just left to die…!”
I shake my head furiously, wincing at the small hail of detritus that flies from it. My braid has long since come undone, and strands of hair stick to my face, plastered with sweat and blood. “It’s over,” I tell him. “The Commonwealth—or whomever—they know the Brotherhood is here. We have to save ourselves. We have to run.”
A cut has opened on his cheek, and blood drips from it, splashing onto me. His eyes are wild, and he pulls hard, yanking his hand free. “You…go then. But I…look for her…can’t just…”
He gives me a desperate look over his shoulder and then takes off through the woods, back toward the camp. With a muttered curse, I chase after him. For all we know, this whole thing was a trap, and we’re running right back into it. I can hardly think of a worse idea, but there’s no way I’ll let Ari go alone. If he’s determined to die, then I’ll stand with him, and face whatever comes.
We haven’t gone ten feet when another explosion rocks the woods. It knocks us off our feet, wipes out what little hearing I’ve managed to regain. The air fills with smoke, the smell of burning wood and flesh. On my knees, I gag and choke, wiping my eyes to clear them. Ari, I think, feeling around desperately. Where is he?
I clear my throat, trying to call his name, but all that comes out is a raspy croak. Fighting waves of dizziness, I push myself to my feet. I scrub at my eyes again and again, but all I see is a fog of gray smoke, backlit by the harsh glow of flames. They’ve bombed the camp again—whoever they are—and if there were survivors before, there aren’t now.
I wish I could tell where the bombs were coming from. Not from overhead—we don’t have air transport in the Commonwealth. At least, I don’t think we do. If Ronan was telling the truth—if the northerners won the War through superior firepower, and the Commonwealths are the result—then for all I know, the Thirty have access to a private arsenal.
If the bombs are being dropped, there’s nothing I can do. But if not—could whoever is doing this be launching them from behind the fence? Are they in the woods with us, yards away? Tracking us, right this second?
Terrified that Ari has managed to make it back to the camp despite the second blast, I stagger forward. I can’t see a damned thing, but the wind is blowing strongly, carrying the smell of charred flesh, and I can tell where the camp lies easily enough. I take five uneven steps, and then a hand closes around my arm.
I suck in a surprised breath that sears my lungs, and my hand drops to my belt for a weapon. But before I can pull one free, the grip on my arm yanks me forward. Ari presses me against him, chest heaving, clutching me as if I’m the only thing in the world that matters, all he has left to hold on to. I hold him the same way, relief coursing through my blood like a drug. I knot my hands in his shirt until the material strains beneath my fingers, and he drops his face into my hair. I can feel the gasp of his breath against my neck, the pound of his heart against my body. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, I’ll go.”
He steps away, taking my hand in his. Then he tugs, and we are running again.
My plan is to escape—to flee both the Commonwealth and the resistance, into whatever lies beyond. The Brotherhood camp’s in tatters, and trying to get back into the City seems a fool’s errand. I’m sure Ari’s come to the same conclusion; it’s the only strategy that makes sense.
The further away from the center of the blast we run, the clearer the air. The only drawback is, now that I get a good look at Ari’s face, I realize he’s even more of a mess than I am. His eyes aren’t wild anymore. They’re vacant, as if he’s retreated far inside himself, somewhere I can’t follow. He runs through the woods as he’s been trained, leaping over logs, looking instinctively for gaps in the foliage, scanning each sector for threats, but I can tell it’s only habit. He isn’t really here, with me—he’s somewhere inside his head, present enough only to issue instructions for his body to follow. I’ve never seen him look this way, and it scares me more than anything that’s come before or lies ahead.
What lies ahead, though—or the possibility of it—is frightening enough. With every step, I expect a knife to come flying down from the trees or out from the brush. I can’t understand why no one’s come after us. Was it really just an attack on the Brotherhood camp—did they not know Ari and I were there? The timing seems highly suspect—right when Ari and his mother were about to speak for the first time. Can it be a coincidence? A terrible uneasiness settles in my stomach, intensifying when I hear footsteps coming toward us through the woods, fast.
“Ari,” I hiss, tugging on his hand, “do you hear that?”
He shakes his head. “What is it?”
I have never been more grateful for those little pink pills. Because the lightness of the newcomers’ steps—the smell of them, flooding my nose with the oil we use to clean our blades—there is no doubt in my mind. “Bellatorum.”
They’re still far away, but there are many, coming from more than one direction.
The Thirty, boxing us in.
Whether they are looking specifically for me and Ari, or just for resistance fighters, I have no idea. Either way, I have no intention of sticking around to find out. “The tunnels,” I say in desperation. “Out here, they’ll catch us for sure. If we go back, we have a chance.”
“We won’t intercept them?”
“No.” I’m already in motion, with him right behind me. “There are at least two parties, coming from the north and south. Go east to the tunnels and we should be able to give them the slip.”
Adrenaline spurs me onward, and I find myself having to hold back so Ari can keep up. He’s panting when we find the entrance to the tunnels again, but he drops to his knees anyhow, dragging the grate aside so I can slip through.
“Ari—” I say when he lands on the damp gravel beside me.
He turns his strange new empty face toward me, but doesn’t speak.
“What if—” I manage, trying to put words to my anxiety. We’re moving fast, away from the square of sunlight afforded by the grate. If I’m going to say anything, now is the time. “What if we’re heading right into an ambush?”
“We’ll fight.” His tone is flat, dead.
Alarmed, I dig my fingers into his upper arms through the battered remains of his shirt.
“What?” he says in that same mild voice, raising his eyebrows.
“Stop this,” I say, digging my nails in harder. “I need you, Ari. I need you to think before we do something really stupid. Please come back to me.”
He stares at me, his eyes wide and unfocused. At a loss for what to do, I rise onto my toes, pressing my lips to his. For a moment he is still, wooden under my touch. Then his mouth opens, yielding to mine, tasting like fire and blood. His eyes flutter shut, his hands fist in my hair, and then he’s kissing me back, all tongue and teeth and desperation. His muscles tense, and his hands tighten so hard in my hair that I gasp in pain and pull away.
Then I feel him gentle himself, with an effort that vibrates all through his body. His hands loosen, and his tongue strokes into my mouth with a slow, lazy sensuality that bears no resemblance to the fury that came before. He bites my lower lip, draws a shuddering breath, and lets me go.
“I hurt you,” he says, his voice hoarse. “I couldn’t help it, but still—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I say, my own voice trembling only a little. “Just be here. With me.”
“I am here.” His eyebrows lift, and he gives me a wry attempt at a smile. “I swore an oath, remember? You’re stuck with me, apprentice mine. I’ll never leave you—not unless you send me away.”
I draw a deep breath. “I just want to be sure we’re making the right decision. What if they’re waiting for us when we get back? What if there are too many of them?”
He straightens, looking down at me. “I hate to break it to you, Eva, but there are no good choices here. Only survivable ones and ones that’ll get us killed.”
“I’m not arguing with that,” I mutter, pulling my dagur free. “Fine. Let’s go.”
We set off running down the tunnels again, a punishing pace we only slow long enough to shine our flashlights on the walls, looking for the chalked image of the wolf. Outside the door that leads to the scholars’ room, I look at Ari and he at me. He presses his ear against the door and shakes his head, hearing nothing.
The door has no knob on this side. There’s no way to dislodge it except to shove, and so that’s what Ari does. He puts his shoulder against it and pushes, hard.
He’s got a shuriken in one hand and his knife in the other. I, too, am armed. But none of that makes any difference against what we see when the door swings wide.
26
Eva
There are twelve of the Thirty in this room, waiting for us. Later I will think I should have smelled them, door or no. But I was nose-blind, choked with the aftermath of the explosion, and so their presence is the surprise they mean it to be.
There’s an awful moment when I think Ari did this—that he set me up to be captured as a traitor—but when I cast my eyes sideways to look at him, his face is pale and set. “Hello, Efraím,” he says, the use of his former mentor’s first name a deliberate insult.
Efraím ignores him, stalking forward until he comes to a halt in front of me. His lips curve upward in a pleased smile. “Excellent work, Bellator Marteinn,” he says. “As always, I couldn’t ask for more.”
I’d expected him to do any number of things—accuse me, hurt me, try to kill me—but praise me for an imaginary task well executed was not one of them. I stare at him, my mind racing through a vast array of responses, and he covers my confusion by continuing to talk. “The tracker doesn’t work as well as we’d hoped in those tunnels. All that stone. But once you were out in the open—it was like a dream, so it was. We could follow you easier than tracking a buck in rutting season. Congratulations, Bellator Marteinn. Thanks to you, we destroyed those rebels easier than stamping out an anthill. You’ve done your service to the Commonwealth this day.”
I can feel Ari’s gaze on my face, heavy with disbelief. “What are you talking about?” he says, his voice cracking, and Efraím turns on him.
“Shut up, you. Don’t speak. You’ve done enough damage, don’t you think? Trying to see your pathetic, sinful excuse for a mother—by the Architect, you don’t think we’d really let that happen, do you? So sorry to have interrupted your little reunion, Westergaard. Please accept my apologies.”
The rage that rolls off Ari is a palpable thing. He doesn’t try to suppress it—what would be the point?—and I can feel myself flinch backward. Efraím just laughs. “Come, Eva,” he says, and holds out his hand, beckoning to me.
In the vids from before the Fall, they talk about heartbreak. I never really understood what they meant—but standing next to Ari, my eyes on Efraím’s outstretched hand, I feel a fissure crack my chest, painful as if a blade has sunk between my ribs, cleaving the beating heart beneath in two.
I’d promised myself I would stay with him, whatever came our way. That if he were determined to die, I wouldn’t leave him to do so alone.
But this is different. He didn’t walk into this room planning his death or mine—even though the risk loomed large. He came here in good faith, because it was the only way he saw for both of us to live. Well, now I see another way. It will break our hearts, if he feels for me as I do for him. But it’s our only hope.
If they’ve been tracking me, following me, then I have value to them. They could have blown me up along with everyone else—but they didn’t. I think of the explosion destroying the camp twenty feet from where we stood, the second blast landing after we were well away in the woods, and wonder.
What if they’d done it because they needed me?
If they need me, they won’t kill me. But Ari’s another story. They’re regarding him with cold contempt, as if he’s dispensable. Even Efraím, who mentored Ari from the moment he entered the Bellatorum, won’t hold his gaze.
Cold certainty settles over me, sure as the feel of my dagur in my hand. They didn’t save Ari for his own sake. They saved him—both times—because he was standing next to me.
He means nothing to them. They mean to kill him in front of me, and make me watch the blood run out of him till it bathes the stones on which we stand.
That won’t happen, as long as there’s breath in my body. I will fight for him, with the only means left to me if need be.
And so I step to Efraím’s side.
“Very good,” he says, gracing me with another of his rare smiles before he turns back to Ari. “Against the wall,” he hisses. “Weapons on the floor. On your knees. Hands behind your head.” When Ari doesn’t move, he snaps, “Do it, soldier. Or die at the point of my blade.”
Ari’s eyes shift sideways, toward me. “Eva?” he says, betrayal clear in his voice.
“Do you take orders from the girl now?” The words are chips of ice.
“No,” Ari says, not budging. “But I don’t know that I take orders from you either, Bellator Stinar. Not when you want me to get on my knees and surrender my sword.”
“Insurrectionist fool.” Efraím motions at him with his blade, gesturing to the wall. “This is my last warning. Surrender of your own accord, Ari Westergaard. Or I’ll offer you a suitable inducement, and I guarantee you won’t find it nearly as pleasant.”
For a heartbeat, Ari stands, motionless, framed in the doorway that forms the entrance to the tunnels. Then he nods and comes forward, sinking gracefully to his knees in front of Efraím. He unbuckles his weapons belt, lets the contents of his hands fall into the dirt, and pulls the sheath of his sverd loose. “Is this acceptable to you?” he says, his voice inflectionless.
“Not quite.” Efraím kicks the fallen weapons and the belt and sheath away, out of his reach. “Go ahead. Say it.”
Ari’s head bows. And then he looks up, staring straight into my eyes. “Je me rends,” he says, imbuing the words with an awful, bitter sarcasm.
Hearing him say this is a crossbow bolt shot straight into my heart—but I know I cannot let my feelings show. I stare back at him as coldly as Efraím, hoping he’ll be taken in by this demonstration of indifference. For me to fool the rest of them, I must fool Ari too—no matter how badly it hurts. It’s our only chance of survival. I’ll never leave you, he’d said. Not unless you send me away. Well, then that’s what I will have to do.
“Nicely done,” I tell Efraím, coming to stand at his side. As his apprentice, this would normally be Ari’s place of honor. It is a grave insult for me to be standing here, even though Ari serves him no more. Not only does it insinuate I’ve taken Ari’s place—it’s a clear declaration of where my loyalties lie.
“I’m pleased to hear you approve,” Efraím says. “I was beginning to think you were playing your part a little too well, girl. That you’d formed an unnatural attachment to this virtueless excuse for a fighter.”
I force a laugh. It feels like broken glass in my throat. “You don’t think I’d waste my time on a natural-born? I understood my orders, sir. If I interpreted them too effectively, let that be a testament to my dedication to the cause we all serve.”
Broken though it mig
ht be, my heart is still beating, an adrenaline-fueled fusillade that threatens to betray my panic and fear. I force it to slow, gazing down at Ari with disgust that mirrors the expression I see on Efraím’s features and that of every other bellator in this room. Kilían is conspicuously absent, but Riis is here, and Daníel Eleazar. Eight others, as well, all of Efraím’s most trusted soldiers and the Bellatorum’s best fighters. The man from behind the door, the scholar, who has conspired to betray us. And in the shadows, someone else.
I listen intently, careful to be sure my expression displays only indifference, colored by a hint of satisfaction at a job well done. And then I hear it.
The uneven, distinctive thump of the Executor’s heart.
27
Ari
I turn my head to look at Eva, the echo of that awful laugh and her light, amused voice echoing in the dim cavern. Beneath the gray smudges of ash, her cheeks are flushed. She stares back at me, eyes wide, breathing hard.
I’ve been an exemplary member of the Bellatorum, a laudable warrior, a good soldier. Efraím always praised me for my quick reflexes, the way I could tell when subjects were lying, how I never let my emotions get in the way of what needed to be done. You see clearly, Westergaard, he’d told me more than once. It was his highest compliment.
But not this time. This time, I have been blind.
“How could you do this?” I say to Eva, as if we are alone. “I trusted you. And you led them straight to me.”
If her loyalty lay with the Commonwealth all along, everything that passed between us—the way she kissed me after the bombing, how she clutched my hand for strength on the wrong side of the scholar’s door—all of it’s been a lie.
