Glass Sword (28 page)

At that, Cameron cracks a brittle smile. “Seems Silvers are no longer stupid enough to leave command of every cell and gate to a handful of metal manipulators. There’s a key switch, to open the doors in case you don’t have a magnetron around—or to shut them with stone sliders, if one decides not to play nice.”

This is my doing,
I realize.
I used Lucas against the cells in the Hall of the Sun. Maven is taking steps to make sure another can’t do the same.

Cal cuts a glance at me, thinking exactly the same thing. “And you have the key?”

She shakes her head, gesturing instead to her neck. The tattoo there is black, darker even than her skin. It marks her as a techie, a slave to the factories and smoke. “I’m a mechanic.” She waggles her crooked fingers. “Switches got gears and wires. Only an idiot needs a key to get those working right.”

Cameron might be a pain, but she’s certainly useful. Even I have to admit that.

“I was conscripted, even though we had jobs in New Town,” she continues, dropping her tone.

“The prison, Cameron,” I tell her. “We have to focus—”

“Everyone works there, and it used to be we couldn’t join the army, even if we wanted.” She speaks over me, her voice stronger and louder. To compete would devolve into a shouting match. “The
Measures changed that. There was a lottery. One in twenty, for everyone between fifteen and seventeen. My brother and I were both chosen. Long odds, right?”

“Less than a three percent chance,” Ada whispers.

“They separated us, me to the Beacon Legion out of Fort Patriot, and Morrey to the Dagger Legion. That’s what they did with anyone who made trouble, who even looked at an officer wrong. The Dagger Legion is a death sentence, you know. Five thousand kids who had the spine to fight, and they’re going to end up in a mass grave.”

My teeth grate together. The memory of the military orders burns sharp and bright in my mind.

“It’s a death march after they leave Corvium, a slaughter. Right through the trenches and into the heart of the Choke. They sent Morrey there because he tried to hug our mother one last time.”

My tenuous hold on command strains. I see it in every face, as my newbloods digest Cameron’s words. Ada is worst of all. She stares at me, never blinking. It’s not a harsh look, but a blank one. She’s doing her best to keep judgment from clouding her eyes, but it’s not working. The fire rages in the center of the floor, turning the whites of her eyes gold and red and glaring.

“There are newbloods in that prison, and Silvers too.” Cameron knows she has them in her hand, and tightens her grip. “But there are five thousand children, five thousand Red boys and girls, about to disappear forever. Do you let them die? Do you follow her”—she tosses her head in my direction—“and her pet prince?”

Cal’s fingers twitch too close to mine and I pull away.
Not here.
They all know we share a bedchamber, and who knows what else they assume. But I will not give Cameron any more ammunition than what she already has.

“She says you have a choice, but she doesn’t know the meaning of the word. I was taken here, just like the legionnaire took me, like the Sentinels took me a few days later. The lightning girl does not give people choices.”

She expects me to fight the accusation, but I hold my tongue. It feels like defeat, and she knows it well. Behind her eyes, the gears have already begun to turn. She hurt me before, and she can do it again.
So why does she stay? She could silence us and march out of here. Why stay?

“Mare saves people.”

Kilorn’s voice sounds different, older. The longing ache in my chest returns.

“Mare saved every one of you from prison or death. She risked herself every time she walked into your cities. She’s not perfect, but she’s not a monster, not by any measure. Trust me,” he adds, still refusing to look at me. “I have seen monsters. And so will you, if we leave newbloods to the mercy of the queen. Then she’ll make you kill each other, until there’s nothing left of what you are, and no one alive to remember what you were.”

Mercy,
I almost scoff.
Elara has none.

I don’t expect Kilorn’s words to have much weight, but I’m dead wrong. The rest look on him with respect and attention. It’s not the same way they look at me. No, their eyes are always tinged with fear. I’m a general to them, a leader, but Kilorn is their brother. They love him like they never could Cal or even me. They listen.

And just like that, Cameron’s victory is snatched away.

“We’ll turn that prison into dust,” Nix rumbles, putting a hand on Kilorn’s shoulder. His grip is too tight, but Kilorn doesn’t flinch. “I’ll go.”

“And me.”

“And me.”

“Me too.”

The voices echo in my head. More than I could have hoped for volunteer. There’s Gareth, Nix, Ada, the explosive Ketha, the other invulnerable wrecker Darmian, Lory with her superior senses, and, of course, Nanny has already pledged to come along. The silent ones, Crance, Farrah, Fletcher, and the illusionist Harrick, fidget in their seats.

“Good.” I step forward again, fixing them all with the strongest look I can muster. “We’ll need the rest of you here, to keep the kids from burning the forest down. And to protect them, if something happens.”

Something.
Another raid, an all-out attack, what could become a slaughter of the ones I’ve tried so hard to save. But staying behind is less dangerous than going to Corros, and they exhale sighs of quiet relief. Cameron watches them relax, her face twisted in envy. She would stay with them if she could, but then who would train her? Who would teach her how to control her abilities—and use them?
Not Cal, and certainly not me.
She doesn’t like the price, but she’ll pay it.

I try to look at the other volunteers in turn, hoping to see determination or focus. Instead, I find fear, doubt, and, worst of all, regret. Already, before we’ve even begun. What I would give now for Farley’s wasted Scarlet Guard, or even the Colonel’s Lakeland soldiers. At least they have some shred of belief in their cause, if not themselves.
I must believe enough for all of us. I must put up my mask again, and be the lightning girl they need. Mare can wait.

Dimly, I wonder if I’ll ever get the chance to be Mare again.

“I’ll need you to walk me through this again,” Cal says, gesturing between Cameron and the spinning illusion of Corros Prison. “The
rest of you, eat well and train as best as you can. When the storm lets up, I want to see you all back in the yard.”

The others snap to attention, unable to disobey. As I learned to speak like a princess, Cal has always known how to speak like a general. He commands. It’s what he’s good at, it’s what he was
meant
for. And now that he has a mission, a set objective beyond recruiting and hiding, all else fades away. Even me. Like the others, I leave him to his muttered plans. His bronze eyes glow against the faint light of the illusion, as if it has bewitched him. Harrick stays behind, dutifully keeping his illusion alive.

I don’t follow the newbloods deeper into the Notch, to the tunnels and holes where they can practice without hurting each other. Instead, I face the storm and step outside, letting a cold blast of freezing rain hit me head-on. Cal’s warmth is quickly snuffed out, abandoned behind me.

I am the lightning girl.

The clouds are dark above, swirling with the weight of rain and snow. A nymph would find them easy to manipulate, as would a Silver storm. When I was Mareena, I lied and said my mother was a storm of House Nolle. She could influence the weather as I can control electricity. And in the Bowl of Bones, I called bolts of lightning out of the sky, shattering the purple shield above me, protecting Cal and me from Maven’s soldiers as they closed in. It weakened me, but I am stronger now. I must be stronger now.

My eyes narrow against the rain, ignoring the sting of each freezing drop. It soaks through my thick winter coat, chilling my fingers and toes. But they do not numb. I feel everything I must, from the pulsing web beneath my skin to the thing beyond the clouds, beating slowly like a black heart. It intensifies the more I focus on it, and it seems
to bleed. Fingers of static spin from the maelstrom I cannot see, until they tangle into the low rain clouds. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as another storm takes shape, crackling with energy. A lightning storm. I clench a fist, tightening my grip on what I’ve created, hoping it resounds.

The first clap of thunder is soft, barely a rumble. A weak bolt follows, touching down in the valley, briefly visible through the mist of snow and rain. The next one is stronger, veining purple and white. I gasp at the sight, both in pride and exhaustion. Every blast of lightning feels brilliant inside me, but drains as much power as it holds.

“You’ve got no aim.”

Kilorn leans against the opening to the Notch, careful to keep as dry as he can beneath a lip of roof. Away from the fire he looks harder and thinner than ever, though he eats as well as he did in the Stilts. Long hunts and constant anger have taken their toll.

“Guess it’s for the best, if you insist on practicing with
that
so close to home,” he adds, pointing at the valley. In the distance, a tall pine smokes. “But if you plan on improving, do us all a favor and take a hike.”

“Are you talking to me now?” I huff, trying to hide how out of breath I am. I squint, glaring at the smoking tree. A weak bolt slices down a hundred yards away, well past where I’m aiming.

A year ago, Kilorn would’ve laughed at my efforts and teased me until I fought back. But his mind has matured like his body. His childish ways are disappearing. Once I hated them. Now I mourn them.

He draws up the hood of his sweater, hiding his poorly cut hair. He refused to let Farley shear him into her buzzed style, so Nix tried his hand, leaving Kilorn with an uneven curtain of tawny locks. “Are you letting me go to Corros?” he finally asks.

“You volunteered.”

The grin that splits his face is as white as the snow falling around us. I wish he didn’t want this so badly. I wish he would listen, and stay behind. But Cal says Kilorn will trust me to make my own decisions. So I must let him make his own.

“Thank you for speaking up for me in there,” I continue, meaning every word.

He tips his head, shoving his hair out of his eyes. He picks at the earthen wall behind him and forces an uninterested shrug. “You think you would’ve learned how to convince people after all those Silver lessons. But then, you are pretty stupid.”

Our laughter melds together, a sound I recognize from days gone by. In that moment, we’re different from who we are now, but the same as we’ve always been.

We haven’t talked in weeks, and I didn’t realize how much I missed him. For a moment, I debate blurting out everything, but fight the painful urge. It hurts to hold back, to not tell him about Maven’s notes, or the dead faces I see every night, or how Cal’s nightmares keep him awake. I want to tell him everything. He knows Mare as no one else does, as I know the fisher boy Kilorn.
But those people are gone. Those people
must
be gone. They cannot survive in a world like this.
I need to be someone else, someone who doesn’t rely on anything but her own strength. He makes it too easy to slip back into Mare, and forget the person I need to be.

Silence lingers, soft as the clouds of our breath in the cold air.

“If you die, I’ll kill you.”

He smiles sadly. “Likewise.”

S
trangely, I get more
sleep in the next three days than I have in weeks. Tough drilling in the yard paired with long planning sessions run us all ragged. Our recruitment trips stop entirely. I do not miss them. Every single mission was a gasp of either relief or horror, and they were both a ruin on me. Too many bodies on the gallows, too many children choosing to leave their mothers, too many torn away from the life they knew. For better or worse, I did it to them all. But now that the jet is grounded, and my time spent poring over maps and floor plans, I feel another kind of shame. I’ve abandoned the ones still out there, just like Cameron said I abandoned the children of the Little Legion. How many more babies and children will die?

But I am only one person, one little girl who can no longer smile. I hide her from the rest, behind my mask of lightning. But she remains, frantic, wide-eyed, afraid. I push her away in every waking moment, but still she haunts me. She never leaves.

Everyone sleeps hard, even Cal, who makes sure everyone gets as much rest as they can after training. While Kilorn is talking again,
allowing himself back into the fold, Cal pulls away more and more as the hours tick by. It’s like he has no room left in his head for conversation. Corros has already entrapped him. He wakes before I do, to jot down more ideas, more lists, scribbling over every scrap of paper we can scrounge together. Ada is his greatest asset, and she memorizes everything so intently I fear her eyes might burn holes in the maps. Cameron is never far away. Despite Cal’s orders, she looks more exhausted by the minute. Dark circles round her eyes, and she leans or sits whenever she can. But she doesn’t complain, at least in front of the others.

Today, our last day before the raid, she’s in a particularly foul mood. She takes it out on her training targets. Namely, Lory and me.

“Enough,” Lory hisses through gritted teeth. She falls to a knee, waving her hand in Cameron’s direction. The teenager clenches a fist but lets go, her ability falling away, pulling back the stifling curtain of silence. “You’re supposed to knock out my sense, not
me
,” Lory adds, fighting back to her feet. Though she’s from frigid Kentosport, a craggy, half-forgotten harbor town already assaulted by snow and sea storms, she pulls her coat closer around her. Cameron’s silence doesn’t only take away your blood-born weapons, it shuts you down entirely. Your pulse slows, your eyes darken, and your temperature drops. It unsettles something in your bones.

“Sorry.” Cameron has taken to speaking in as few words as possible. A welcome change from her blustering speeches. “No good at this.”

Lory snaps back in kind. “Well, you better get good, and fast. We leave tonight, Cole, and you’re not just coming to play tour guide.”

It’s not like me to end fights. Instigate them, yes, watch them, definitely, but stop them? Still, we have no time for arguing. “Lory, enough. Cameron, once more.” Mareena’s court voice does me well here, and both stop to listen. “Block her sense. Make her
normal.
Control
what she is.
”

A muscle twitches in Cameron’s cheek, but she doesn’t voice her opposition. For all her complaining, she knows this is something she must do. If not for us, then for herself. Learning to control her ability is the best thing she can do, and it is our bargain. I train her, she takes us to Corros.

Lory is not so agreeable. “You’re next, Barrow,” she grumbles to me. Her far-north accent is sharp and unforgiving, just like Lory and the harsh place she came from. “Cole, if you make me sick again, I’ll gut you in your sleep.”

Somehow, that gets a crinkle of a smile out of Cameron. “You can try,” she replies, stretching out her long, crooked fingers. “Let me know when you feel it.”

I watch, waiting for some sign. But like Cameron, Lory’s abilities are a bit harder to see. Her so-called sense ability means everything she hears, sees, touches, smells, tastes is incredibly heightened. She can see as far as a hawk, hear twigs snapping a mile away, even track like a hound. If only she liked to hunt. But Lory is more inclined to guard the camp, watching the woods with her superior sight and hearing.

“Easy,” I coach. Cameron’s brow creases in concentration, and I understand. It’s one thing to let loose, to drop the walls of the dam inside and simply let everything spill out. That’s easier than keeping hold, reining yourself in, being steady and firm and controlled. “It’s yours, Cameron. You own it. It answers to
you
.”

Something flickers in her eyes. Not her usual anger.
Pride.
I understand that too. For girls like us, who had nothing, expected nothing, it’s intoxicating to know there is something of our own, something no one else can claim or take away.

To my left, Lory blinks, squinting. “It’s going,” she says. “I can barely hear across the camp.”

Still far. Her ability remains. “A bit more, Cameron.”

Cameron does as I tell her, throwing out her other hand. Her fingers twitch in time with what must be her pulse, shaping what she feels into what she wants it to be. “Now?” she bites out and Lory tips her head.

“What?” she calls, squinting harder.
She can barely see or hear.

“This is your constant.” Without thinking, I reach over, putting my palms against Cameron’s shoulders. “This is what you aim for. Soon it’ll be as easy as flipping a switch, too familiar to forget. It’ll be instant.”

“Soon?” she says, turning her head. “We fly tonight.”

Without thought, I force her to look back at Lory, my fingers pushing her jaw. “Forget about that. See how long you can hold without hurting her.”

“Full blind!” Lory shouts, her voice too loud.
Full deaf, too, I think.

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working,” I tell Cameron. “You don’t need to say what it is, but just know, this is your trigger.” Months ago, Julian told me the same thing, to find the trigger that released my sparks in the Spiral Garden. I know now that letting go is what gives me strength, and it seems Cameron has found whatever enables hers. “Remember how this feels.”

Despite the cold, a bead of sweat rolls down Cameron’s neck and disappears into her collar. She grits her teeth, jaw clenching to keep back a grunt of frustration.

“It will get easier,” I continue, dropping my hands back to her shoulders. Her muscles feel tense beneath my fingers, wiry and taut like cords drawn too tight. While her ability wreaks havoc on Lory’s senses, it weakens Cameron as well.
If only we had more time
.
One more week, or even one more day.

At least Cameron doesn’t have to hold back once we get to Corros. Inside the prison, I want her to inflict as much pain as she can. With her temper and her history in the cells, silencing guards shouldn’t be too difficult, and she’ll carve us a clear path through rock and flesh. But what happens when the wrong person gets in her way? A newblood she doesn’t recognize? Cal?
Me?
Her ability might be the most powerful I’ve ever seen or felt, and I certainly don’t want to be her victim again. Just the thought makes my skin crawl. Deep in my bones, my sparks respond, bursting into my nerves. I have to push them back, using my own lessons to keep the lightning quiet and far away. Even though it obeys, fading into the dull hum I barely notice anymore, the sparks curl with power. Despite my constant worry and stress, my ability seems to have grown. It is stronger than before, healthy and alive.
At least some part of me is,
I think. Because beneath the lightning, another element lingers.

The cold never leaves. It never ends, and it feels worse than any burden. The cold is hollow, and it eats at my insides. It spreads like rot, like sickness, and one day I fear it will leave me empty, a shell of the lightning girl, the breathing corpse of Mare Barrow.

In her blindness, Lory’s eyes roll, searching vainly through Cameron’s blanket of darkness. “Starting to feel it again,” she says loudly. The hiss of her words betrays her pain. Though she’s tough as the salty rocks she was raised on, even Lory can’t keep quiet against Cameron’s weapons. “Getting worse.”

“Release.”

After a moment too long for my liking, Cameron’s arms drop, and her body relaxes. She seems to shrink, and Lory falls to a knee again. Her hands massage her temples and she blinks rapidly, letting her senses return.

“Ow,” she mutters, angling a smirk at Cameron.

But the techie girl has no smile in return. She turns sharply on her heel, braids swaying with the motion, until she faces me fully. Or, I should say, she faces the top of my head. I see anger in her, the familiar kind. It will serve her well tonight.

“Yes?”

“I’m done for the day,” she snaps, teeth blinding white.

I can’t help but fold my arms, drawing my spine up as straight as I can. I feel very much like Lady Blonos when I glare at her. “You’re done in two hours, Cameron, and you should wish it was more. We need every second we can get—”

“I said, I am
done
,” she repeats. For a girl of fifteen, she can be disarmingly stern. The muscles of her long neck gleam with sweat, and her breath comes hard. But she fights the urge to pant, trying to face me on even terms.
Trying to seem like an equal.
“I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m about to be marched to a battle I don’t want to fight,
again
. And I’ll be damned if I die with an empty stomach.”

Behind her, Lory watches us with wide, unblinking eyes. I know what Cal would do.
Insubordination,
he calls this, and it cannot be tolerated. I should push Cameron harder, make her run a lap around the clearing, maybe see if she can bring down a bird with the pressure of her ability. Cal would make it clear—
she is not in charge.
Cal knows soldiers, but this girl is not one of his troops. She will not bend to my will, or his. She’s spent too long obeying the whistles of a shift change, the schedules handed down through generations of enslaved factory workers. She has tasted freedom, and will not submit to any order she doesn’t want to follow. And though she protests every moment of her time here, she stays. Even with her ability, she stays.

I will not thank her for that, but I will let her eat. Quietly, I step aside.

“Thirty minutes’ rest, then come back.”

Her eyes spark with anger, and the familiar sight almost makes me smile. I can’t help but admire the girl. One day, we might even be friends.

She doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t argue either, and stalks away from our corner of the clearing. The others in the yard watch her go, their eyes following her as she defies the lightning girl, but I don’t care a bit for what they might think. I’m not their captain, I’m not their queen. I’m not better or worse than any of them, and it’s time they started to see me as I am. Another newblood, another fighter, and nothing more.

“Kilorn’s got some rabbit,” Lory says, if only to break the silence. She sniffs at the air and licks her lips in a manner that would make Lady Blonos screech. “Juicy ones too.”

“Go on, then,” I mutter, waving my hand to the cook fire on the other side of the clearing. She doesn’t need to be told twice.

“Cal’s in a mood, by the way,” she adds as she flounces past. “Or at least, he keeps cursing and kicking things.”

One glance tells me Cal is not outside. For a second, I’m surprised, then I remember. Lory hears almost everything, if she stops to listen. “I’ll see to him,” I tell her, and set a quick pace. She tries to follow, then thinks better of it, and lets me rush on ahead. I don’t bother to hide my concern—Cal is not quick to anger, and planning calms him, makes him
happy
even. So whatever has him in a twist has me worried too, far more than I should be on the eve of our raid.

The Notch is all but empty, with everyone outside training. Even the children have gone to watch their elders learn to brawl, shoot, and
control their abilities. I’m glad they’re not underfoot, pulling at my hands, pestering me with silly questions about their hero, the exiled prince. I don’t have the patience for children like Cal does.

As I round a corner, I almost run headfirst into my brother, coming from the direction of the bedchambers. Farley follows him, smirking to herself, but it disappears the second she spots me.

Oh.

“Mare,” she mutters in greeting. She doesn’t stop and marches past.

Shade tries to do the same, but I put out an arm to stop him cold.

“Can I help you with something?” he asks. His lips twitch, fighting a losing battle against a wretched, playful grin.

I try to look cross with him, if only to keep up appearances. “You’re supposed to be training.”

“Worried I’m not getting enough exercise? I assure you, Mare,” he says, winking, “we are.”

It makes sense. Farley and Shade have been inseparable for a long while. Still, I gasp aloud, and swat his arm. “Shade Barrow!”

“Oh, come on, everyone knows. Not my fault you didn’t figure it out.”

“You could’ve
told
me,” I sputter, grasping for something to scold him over.

He only shrugs, still grinning. “Like you tell me all about Cal?”

“That’s—”
Different
, I want to say. We’re not sneaking off in the middle of the day, or even doing much of anything at night. But Shade holds up a hand, stopping me.

“If it’s all the same to you, I really
don’t
want to know,” he says. “And if you’ll excuse me, I think I have some training to do, as you so kindly pointed out.”

He retreats, palms outward, like a man surrendering a battle. I let
him go, dismissing him with a wave while I fight a smile of my own. A tiny blossom of happiness sparks in my chest, a foreign feeling in so many days of despair. I protect it as I would a candle flame, trying to keep it alive and alight. But the sight of Cal quickly snuffs it out.

He’s in our room, seated on an upturned crate, with a familiar paper spread across his knees. It’s the back of one of the Colonel’s maps, now covered in painstakingly drawn lines. A map of Corros Prison, or at least as much of it as Cameron could remember. I expect to see the edges of the paper smoking, but he keeps his fire contained to the charred dip in the floor. It casts a dancing red light that must be hard to read by, but Cal squints through it. In the corner of the room, my pack lies undisturbed, full of Maven’s haunting notes.