by Liz Delton
But the door to the Hall closed behind her, and the courtyard inside the gate was empty. Where was Thorne? He wasn’t going back to Skycity without both of them—or, in Thorne’s case, without seeing to her fate personally, after all that she had put him through.
The Scouts filtered in behind him, filling up the courtyard, their beasts flanking them. From the corner of his eye, he noted the archers lined up on the parapet inside the wall, but knew they wouldn’t dare shoot—not while he promised peace. He approached Savannah, and bid the Scouts stay back a few paces.
She glared at him in utter disapproval. Her long black hair was bound tight in a braid at the back of her head, and she was dressed for battle in full leather, helmet and all.
A chuckle escaped his lips, and her frown deepened.
“What do you want?” she droned, her normally beautiful voice marred with anger.
“Savannah, will you just—”
“It’s Anna now.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Where is Thorne?” he asked instead.
She took another step away from the Hall, crossing her arms over her chest.
“She’s on her way,” she said simply.
“I hope so,” he intoned.
He looked her over, taking in her gear, from the glasses resting atop her head down to the leather gloves encasing her slim fingers. “Are you going to fight me?” he asked softly, unable to even picture her in combat.
An emotion he couldn’t identify passed across her face, but she shrugged and replied, “If I have to.”
“It didn’t have to be this way, you know,” he said, taking a step toward her.
“Really, Sorin?” and it was like a pipe burst, the words suddenly flowing out of her. “Even after I left, why did you keep doing it? What made you think plotting against the rest of the Four Cities was a good thing?”
He bristled. “After you left,” he accused. “After you left, what was I supposed to do? I was going to tell you. But you just left. Left me, your home, your city—all to run away and marry another Governor, wasn’t it?”
He regretted the words as soon as he said them, not because he didn’t mean it—the thought had plagued him for years—but because of the painful reaction it drew from her face.
“How dare you!” she seethed.
She didn’t speak for a long time, her face turning a brilliant shade of crimson. He saw her hand twitch to the blade at her side, but then she burst, “I don’t have to justify why I left to you!”
“Did you think I was your property? That I wouldn’t make my own decisions? I didn’t choose who I fell in love with.”
He sputtered, unable to retort. Who did she mean? Him, or Gero? But she kept shouting.
“You kept things from me for weeks! Months! And if you had told me what you were doing, I would have told you to stop,” she raged. “And you know it. Deep in there, you know it’s wrong. You can’t pretend forever, Sorin.”
When she said his name with such hate, such disgust, something inside him shut off for good, with no hope of revival. He felt it crumble to dust as he drew a sharp breath.
“Where. Is. Thorne,” he demanded, unable to reason with her any longer. Once they returned to Skycity, he would have plenty of time to explain, to make her see truth.
“She’s coming,” Savannah assured him darkly. “But did you really think we’d believe you? That you’d spare Meadowcity?”
“What—” was all he got out before an unnaturally strong wind was all around him, deafening him, whipping at him from all angles.
He whirled around to see a black beast of a contraption landing outside the gate, blocking the entrance. Shutting them inside. It was the same monstrous black craft he had seen flying away from Skycity with Thorne.
He howled in rage, pulling at his hair. So it was true. Seascape had aligned with them!
Since the beginning of his campaign, Thorne had worked to undermine him in every way, and now she had gone and convinced Seascape to join her. What treachery! How could they accept Thorne, and not him? He bristled at the gross injustice.
He turned back to look at Savannah, but she was no longer alone.
Outfitted in the same leather battle-gear as Savannah, a troupe of Meadowcity’s Defenders had burst from the Hall during the commotion, and more were spilling down from the parapet, and every available doorway.
He shook his head incredulously, and called to Falx and the Scouts, “Tear them apart!”
Forty-Seven
It was something like elation, the feeling coursing through her, as Sylvia climbed down the ladder from the hydrojet’s hatch, and into the battle. The leather armor was a comforting weight on her skin, and it even helped keep her bandages in place.
Atlan had tried to tell her to stay behind, but her wounds were on the mend—and she wouldn’t miss this for the world. So what if she lost a little more blood?
Talia and Atlan had already reached the ground, and she hopped down after them, tugging the leather helmet tight over her skull. A thrill ran up from the soles of her boots to her scalp. Staying inside the hydrojet while the Scouts advanced had felt like cowardice, but seeing the look on Sorin’s face when the jet landed was well worth missing out on being on the ground first.
With an incoming link, she felt Colin’s presence before the words came.
The evacuation’s nearly finished, he said. We’re almost out from under the city.
Thank you, Sylvia responded, grinning as she pulled her blade out of its sheath. Anna stalled as long as she could.
Getting all of Meadowcity’s residents and refugees through the Citizen’s Hall, and the maze of corridors that led to the underground tunnel had been an enormous undertaking. The tunnel leading out wasn’t exactly fit for a mass evacuation, but Colin had volunteered to lead the escape, and help keep everyone safe.
It had been a wild stroke of luck that Sorin made the demand for Sylvia and Anna. If he had instead decided to throw orbs first and ask questions later, who knew how many would have been trapped underground attempting to evacuate?
Just as Sylvia, Talia and Atlan were making for the closest group of fighters, blades raised and ready, all three were rocked to the ground by an explosion far to their left. Sylvia’s fingers dug into the grass, then she shot back to her feet, her ears ringing.
She had expected it to happen eventually, but seeing a gaping fiery hole in the treewall wasn’t something that hit the heart lightly.
The Defenders inside the treewall, already engaged with the Scouts, resumed their work.
Scouts were now being downed by arrows so fast she never even saw the shafts. The Defenders on the wall had been fortified by more volunteers, and Sylvia sincerely hoped the newcomers were at least familiar with a bow. She didn’t want to be dropped by one of their own people.
The beasts were falling at a similar rate. Now trapped inside the wall, several of them had tried to bolt at the commotion of the explosion. Their wild instincts taking over, they disobeyed their masters’ commands, only to fall victim to death from above as they tried to flee in random directions.
The Scouts dashed for the parapet on the treewall, intent on taking down the archers.
Sylvia and the others happened to be standing in front of the stair to the parapet when this happened.
None other than Sorin’s Scout commander, Falx, came barreling down upon them. Bracing herself, she angled her long knife in one hand, ready to plunge it into his torso should he not change his path before reaching her. She twitched her wolf’s head dagger in her other hand, readying to sink it into his side at the impact.
Atlan was suddenly by her side, shoulder pressed against hers as they faced him together.
But then the burly Scout seemed to trip—no, he must have been hit by an arrow, Sylvia thought—and he was flying for the ground. The Scout with the missing finger was finally down.
Not for nothing, were four other Scouts still charging at them, still making for the stairs to get to the a
rchers, their men in the yard falling fast from the attack above.
A foreign thought poked its way into Sylvia’s brain, and she felt Alice’s presence.
Sylvia, the girl called. The ones outside the wall are starting to panic, they’re just—
What they were just doing became very clear, when Alice’s thought broke off as the earth shook around them once again.
Fire and smoke billowed from the treewall, far at the other end of the city. The Scouts who had surrounded the city had understood the commotion, and were doing their best to make it worse. They were leaderless without Sorin or Falx to tell them what to do, and their hearts were full of blood lust.
Before she could draw breath, a third explosion rocked them to their knees, much closer this time. A haze of smoke settled over the city, the normally soothing scent of wood smoke bitter with the tang of destruction.
Outraged, Sylvia sped to meet the oncoming Scouts—their comrades merely destroying the treewall for sport—and a growl ripped from her chest as she flung herself at the nearest one.
Impossibly, he had his back to her, still rising to his feet after the last explosion. She was vaguely aware that Atlan had cursed and followed her into the assault, with Talia at his heels.
The Scout was leanly built and incredibly tall, so she landed nowhere near his head or neck. She sought blood with her dagger, bringing it up toward his left kidney.
He whipped out a hand and gripped her wrist so tightly she almost dropped the dagger.
Somehow he hadn’t noticed the long knife in her other hand, which she twisted against his chest, and bit through skin as she pulled herself away and out of his grip.
She leapt back several feet. He stood gaping at her, a hand rising to touch the blood now seeping out of the shallow wound.
Sylvia froze when she saw his face. He was so young. As young as she.
Her captors in Skycity had all been older and uglier—and a great deal meaner, she knew. She wondered how this boy had gotten sucked into the war. What was his story?
Still clutching a hand to his wounded chest, he groped in his boot for another blade. A knife lay on the ground several feet away, knocked out of his hands by the explosion, no doubt.
Before he could retrieve the knife, however, Sylvia heard the whoosh of an incoming projectile, and he went down, saving Sylvia the anguish of delivering the final blow.
With no time to ponder how he had fallen with no sign of an arrow, she rejoined Atlan and Talia at the base of the stairs, where a mass of Scouts and Defenders were now battling for control of the upper level.
She watched Atlan expertly parry a Scout’s lunge, and then shove the attacker to the ground. As if sensing her gaze, he looked up in that split second and grinned at her.
A burst of adrenaline sent her flying for a wolf and its master lurking on the outside of the fray.
Forty-Eight
Lady Naomi worked furiously over her looking-glass, commanding the drones like a conductor over a symphony.
Alone in her garden room, the battle lit up an entire wall, a composite image made up by several of her drones as they flitted around Meadowcity.
In the back of her mind, she wondered if anyone noticed the tiny black birds swooping down, issuing darts and downing Greyling’s men.
Probably not, she thought, given that they’re busy trying not to get blown to bits at the moment. All for the better.
It was hard work orchestrating the assault all by herself, but the drones were her best chance, and she hadn’t had much time to prepare. She wished she could have contracted people from the Ministry of Defense to help, but the secrecy of this act was paramount, and she couldn’t risk it.
The petty long-lived citizens still refused to help the Four Cities, even though the war had escalated to such violence. They claimed they didn’t see any value in offering aid to the Cities who had spurned them so long ago—only two generations to some. A petty discrimination that Naomi herself couldn’t rid them of.
She cursed them all as she sent dart after dart into the throats of man and beast.
Naomi’s grandmother, Karalyn Arcere had been the one shut out by her own brothers and their Cities, yet Naomi rather thought the Four Cities could be of use to them. Despite the increase in the brutality of the war, Seascape’s consensus was as prejudice as ever.
She knew that, secretly, some even hoped the Four Cities would defeat themselves and be gone for good. Naomi could see they were clearly headed down that path.
She had agreed to help for Atlan’s sake.
Yet the idea of being the only city left in the world depressed her far less than the thought of outliving her son.
Forty-Nine
Another random explosion went off somewhere deep in the city, and Neve scurried around the side of the Citizen’s Hall, Falcon hot on her trail.
Smoke was billowing from all sides of the treewall, throwing a haze over those gathered in the courtyard. She could only distinguish between Scouts and Defenders by the fireproof armor. At least with the glasses, her eyes didn’t sting. She grinned wickedly.
Armed with a bow and various knives, Neve had rushed from the glass shop as soon as they had gotten word of Greyling and his men approaching. Falcon hadn’t let her go alone, so they both suited up into their armor.
Covered head to toe in fireproof leather, they peered around the corner of the Citizen’s Hall, searching for Anna. Neve had heard from one of the Defenders that Anna had faced Greyling alone before the battle started. Her friend was now nowhere to be seen.
Neve skirted around the skirmish at the door to the Hall, still seeking Anna. Had Greyling taken her? She wouldn’t be surprised if he had tried.
There were holes in the treewall. Great, big, smoking holes opening up to the wilds beyond. The parapet was unreachable on this side of the gate, and there were some Defenders stranded up there, only of use until they ran out of arrows.
The hydrojet, as Sylvia had called it, sat like a great black frog nestled between two branches. With a sudden idea, Neve darted over to it, angling toward one of the ladders she saw embedded on its side. She wasn’t eager to engage in hand to hand combat unless she had to—Greyling seemed to have chosen his Scouts based on body size, if not overall menace.
She climbed up a few rungs, then hooked her feet around the bars, steadying herself as she drew her bow.
Most irritatingly, Falcon climbed up underneath her. She climbed up a bit higher, and positioned herself again.
Despite Anna’s words, she hadn’t had time to think about her feelings for Falcon, let alone talk to him about it. She glanced down at his coppery hair, all she could see of him besides the long arms now pulling back a bow string, and she drew a steady breath through the cloth covering her mouth.
She reached into her quiver, fat full of arrows, and selected one as she sought a good target.
A blast shook the ground some ways off, its reverberations shaking through the hydrojet nonetheless. She leaned against its cool black surface and waited until it was over. Then, taking advantage of the shock of the explosion, she took aim at the Scouts below, who were still righting themselves.
Some, too far away to strike, had begun to haphazardly throw orbs at random, demolishing homes, shops, and causing unnecessary destruction. She aimed for those within range, the ones beating down the door to the Citizen’s Hall.
Her first shot went wild, striking a man in the leg, instead of the chest as she intended. It was awkward aiming the bow so close to the side of the hydrojet, but the vantage point was worth it. She had at least disabled someone.
Many of the beasts had already been downed, but Neve spotted a gruesome-looking mountain lion, growling feraly at one of the Defenders who lingered at the edge of the fight.
Neve braced her body against the hydrojet and fired, sinking the arrow right through the beast’s eye. The drooling head toppled to the ground, followed by the rest of its body.
One after another, she and Falcon loosed
arrows upon the Scouts, high above the fray.
Fifty
Sylvia and the Defenders secured the stairs against the Scouts with a deafening roar of victory. Talia and Atlan rejoined her as they began to disperse, leaving a contingent of Defenders behind in case the Scouts made another attempt at the parapet.
Meanwhile, those stationed above continued their aerial assault on the enemies below. They couldn’t get far along the parapet, now blocked off by several smoking holes in the wall, but fired on any Scout within range.
Most of the Scouts had already gotten in, or were still entering through the still-smoking gaps in the wall throughout the city.
And their desperation for destruction did not end with the treewall.
Sylvia’s mouth dropped as she watched a cluster of nearby villas become a smoking pile of earth after the debris settled. So this is what Greyling made them, she seethed inside. Animals that destroy things just to destroy.
Desperate to put an end to it, she was torn between hunting after the marauding Scouts, and charging upon the ones now focusing their efforts on the door to the Citizen’s Hall—and the route to the refugees, though, surely they didn’t know that. The door was barred from the inside, but would never withstand a blast from even one of the orbs.
“Where’s Greyling?” Atlan asked suddenly.
Sylvia whipped her head around to where she had last seen him. In the excitement of the battle she had almost forgotten about the hateful man.
“Let’s go look,” suggested Talia, hefting her blade.
Sylvia faltered, visibly struggling between targets. A fire had started somewhere in the farming quarter, and grown so large as to be seen from across the city.
Talia saved her from deciding, and said, “You go. I’ll beg a bow and quiver from someone on the wall—they’ve got enough—and go for the ones bombing the city.”
Sylvia closed her eyes in relief. They parted, Sylvia calling grateful thanks toward the girl as she hustled back to the stairs to acquire another weapon.
