Into the Still Blue (25 page)

Aria grabbed Soren’s arm. “This is your father’s
plan?
To
shoot
us?”

He shook his head. “Not us. He has to send a message to Sable.”

“We’re all together, Soren! Look around you.”

“It could work! But he better be prepared to—”

“Sable!” Hess yelled.

At the sound of his father’s raised voice, Soren took off running. Aria followed, threading through the crowd, hoping Roar was still behind her.

She broke through the press and arrived at the edge of a circle of people. Hess stood at the center. Alone.

He wore full military dress. He held a gun, and he was also wearing a Smarteye.

“Sable!” he yelled again, searching the people around him. “I know you’re here! Pay attention! Watch what happens when you force my hand!”

An explosion sent Aria flying backward. She fell to the dirt, the wind rushing out of her lungs, stunning her for an instant that went on forever. She rolled into a ball and slammed her hands over her ears as she gasped, struggling to recover her breath. The sound of the explosion had blown out her eardrums, and pain lanced into her skull. She couldn’t hear herself coughing. She heard nothing but the rush of her own blood, her own heartbeat.

Someone grabbed her arm. She lurched away, then saw that it was Roar. Fire reflected in his dark eyes as he spoke words she couldn’t hear. A massive cloud of black smoke rose behind him, blocking out the Aether.

He took her arm and helped her up. A gust of hot air blew a pungent, chemical reek into her face, stinging her eyes. At the far end of the fleet, fire engulfed a Dragonwing—part of the craft already scorched down to its steel ribs.

Roar’s grip on her arm tightened. “Stay here. Stay with Soren. I’m going to find Perry. Aria, can you hear me?”

She nodded. His voice was faint, but she heard him. Not only what he said but also what he
meant
.

Roar had to find out if Perry was in the Dragonwing covered in flames.

Roar’s eyes moved past her as Hess screamed again.

“Come forward, Sable! Come forward, or I will destroy every one of them! They’re my ships! I will not let you have them!”

“Yes
,” Soren said. “Pressure him.”

“Calm yourself, Hess. I’m coming.”

The sound of Sable’s voice rooted Aria—and everyone— in place.

“Where are you?” Hess searched the ring of people around him. “Come forward, coward!”

Aria spotted Sable as he slipped past a few of his soldiers. “I’m right here.” He gestured to the burning Hovercraft as he approached Hess. “I would have come without all of that.”

Panic crept over Aria with every step he took. He wore a knife at his belt. But Hess had a gun.

She sensed movement behind her. Horn soldiers closed in, forming a wall around them. Roar caught her eye and shook his head. It was too late.

In seconds, Aria felt a gun press against her spine.

Kirra smiled and said, “Hi.”

They were stripped of their weapons. Her, Roar, and Soren. Trapped, all three of them. Again.

“We were going to do this together, Sable,” Hess said. “That was the arrangement we made.”

Sable measured Hess in that same quiet way Perry had. The way of Scires. The flames from the exploded Dragonwing roared in the silence, the fire a bright spot against the night.

Perry wasn’t in that Hover. He couldn’t be.

“Together?” Sable said. “Is that why you were planning to betray me?”

“You gave me no choice. We made a deal, and you broke it. Tell your people to stand down. We leave on my orders, like we planned, or no one leaves. I’ll level every one of the Hovers to the ground.”

Sable took a step toward Hess. “Yes, you’ve said that.”

Hess lifted his gun. “Don’t come any closer.”

“I always keep my word,” Sable said, still advancing in deliberate steps. “I didn’t break our deal. You only believe that I was going to.”

Aria noticed the crowd loosening. People dropped back, responding to some instinctive signal.

“I
will
shoot you,” Hess said.

“Yes, yes, yes, do it!” Soren chanted at her side.

Time slowed, every second lasting an eternity. Aria couldn’t move, couldn’t utter a sound.

“If you shoot me,” said Sable, “then my men will cut you down next. That doesn’t sound like a solution, does it? It sounds very similar to what you’re proposing . . . all or nothing. Lower your gun, Hess. You got what you wanted. We’re at a stalemate, and we both know you won’t pull that trigger.”

“You’re wrong about that,” said Hess. “Stand back.”

“Shoot him!” Soren screamed.

Sable’s eyes snapped to Soren. “Bring him here,” he said to his guards.

Hess found Soren in the crowd, his face transforming with fear. Then everything happened at once.

Soren yelled, “No!”

Sable shot forward in a flash, drawing his knife and slashing it across Hess’s chest. Hess rocked back, his scream shrill as it broke into the air.

The wound was shallow, grazing instead of piercing, but to a man who’d never known real pain, it was debilitating.

Hess gasped, eyes glazing as the agony paralyzed him.

Sable moved in again.

He drove the knife into Hess’s stomach and ripped downward.

Hess sank to his knees, his flesh and blood spilling through skin and uniform, pouring onto the earth.

32

P
erry saw everything.

Taller than everyone in front of him, he had a clear view of Sable as he flayed Hess open.

Time came to a stop as Hess crumpled, his blood darkening the dusty earth. The moment of absolute silence felt familiar, reminding Perry of when he’d slain Vale. Power felt tangible. Its shift unmistakable. Something had just ended, and something had just begun, and every person there sensed it: a change as startling and inevitable as the first drops of rain.

Soren’s scream broke the spell, a deeper sound than his father’s final cry, low and anguished, springing from his gut. Then gunfire broke out, sudden and everywhere.

Perry shot forward, sprinting toward Aria and Roar. Horns and Dwellers fired at each other as they ran for the Komodo, for Hovers, for any place to take cover. Bodies fell lifeless to the ground. Ten, then twenty, cut down in seconds.

“Aria!” he yelled, pushing through the stampede. She stood at the center of what was quickly becoming a bloodbath.

In a break in the crowd, he spotted Sable surrounded by a dozen of his men, who protected him in a human shield.

Roar’s words rang in Perry’s mind.
Cut off the head of the snake
.

Perry could do it. He only needed one clear shot.

Roar’s whistle cut sharply through the gun battle.

Perry’s head whipped to the sound. Roar stood fifty paces away. A Horn soldier held him by the arm, shuttling him to the Komodo. Perry saw Soren and Aria beyond Roar, both of them also under gun.

Perry slowed and set his feet. He aimed the pistol, finding his mark, and pulled the trigger.

He hit the Horn soldier who had Roar—a square shot to the chest. The man flew back, falling to the ground, and Roar lunged free.

Perry sprinted again, bullets flinging past him. He’d lost sight of Aria and Soren, but Roar ran ahead of him, charging forward on the same path.

Roar reached Soren first, leaping at his captor. He fell, tackling Soren too.

Perry ran past them, seeing Aria. Then seeing
Kirra
.

“Stop, Perry!” Kirra yelled. She yanked Aria around.

Perry skidded to a stop as Kirra pressed a gun under Aria’s chin. He was only twenty paces away, but not close enough.

Aria tilted her chin up, her face strained with anger. She was breathing fast, her gaze on Perry but her focus elsewhere.

“Drop the gun, Perry,” Kirra said. “I can’t let you leave. Sable needs—”

Aria rammed her elbow into Kirra’s throat.

She spun away, grabbing Kirra’s arm and twisting it behind her. She forced Kirra down with an arm lock, sending her face smashing to the dirt. Snatching the pistol from the ground, Aria slammed the butt into the back of Kirra’s head. Kirra went limp, knocked unconscious.

Aria jumped to her feet and ran over. “I hate that girl.”

Stunned, impressed, Perry felt his mouth pull into an idiotic grin.

“We have to get out of here,” Roar said. Soren swayed behind him, ashen, his eyes unfocused.

“This way,” Perry said, leading them to the Dragonwing he’d been in earlier.

As they raced down the runway, he noticed battles waged over Hovers—and the Horns quickly gaining control. Every Dweller seemed to be challenged by three of Sable’s men. Some were Guardians, already showing allegiance to their new leader. Bodies lay strewn across the field, most of them dressed in gray.

He reached the Dragonwing and jumped inside, Aria, Soren, and Roar right behind him. Cinder waited in the cockpit, exactly where Perry had left him.

“Go!” Perry yelled.

The Dweller pilot was ready, just as they’d planned. He had the craft off the ground before the hatch closed.

33

A
ria sat on the floor with Soren in the dark hold behind the cockpit. The Hover had barely taken off before he’d begun to rock, choking on sobs.

She rubbed his broad back, biting her lip to keep from offering him platitudes.
I’m sorry. I’m here for you. You don’t deserve this
.

She knew nothing she could say would help.

Her ears still hadn’t recovered fully from the explosion, but she picked up snatches of conversation from the cockpit. An Aether storm had settled between the Komodo and the coast, blocking their way to the cave. The pilot—a Dweller who’d been in the craft with Cinder—described the path as
impossible
and
unnavigable
and
suicide
.

Her stomach clenched as she listened to Roar and Perry discuss alternate routes, hoping they’d settle on one worth trying. Finally free of the Komodo, she wanted desperately to get home—even if
home
meant a dismal cave.

She didn’t hear Cinder, but he was in the cockpit too. They’d all given Soren space—as much as was possible in the cramped Dragonwing.

Soren sat back, wiping his eyes. “He was terrible. He did awful things. You know what he’s really like.
Was
really like. Why do I even care?”