Glass Sword
Page 57
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The Seaskulls. Another gang, likely branded with tattoos more foreboding than Crance’s anchor. If not for Maven’s scheming, they might’ve helped a Red sister, but instead, they’ve been turned into enemies almost as dangerous as any Silver soldier.
“That’s not what I meant,” I continue, using Mareena’s voice to hide my fear. “Why are you helping us?”
A few months ago, the thought of three bodies crushed by rubble might’ve frightened me. Now I’ve seen much worse, and barely spare a thought for Crance’s cohorts and their twisted bones. Crance, despite his criminal nature, doesn’t look so comfortable. His eyes glare back into the darkness, after the Mariners he helped kill. They were probably his friends.
But there are friends I would trade, lives I would forsake, for my own victories. I’ve done it before. It isn’t hard to let people die when their deaths gives life to something else.
“I’m not one for oaths, or Red dawns, or any of the other nonsense your lot goes on about,” he mumbles, one fist closing and clenching in rapid succession. “Words don’t impress me. But you’re doing a hell of a lot more than talking. The way I see it, I can either betray my boss—or my blood.”
Blood. Me.
His teeth gleam in the dim light, flashing with every barbed word. “Even rats want to get out of the gutter, Miss Barrow.”
Then he steps through the grate, toward the surface that could kill us all.
And I follow.
I square my shoulders, turning to face the echoes and the end of the tunnel’s safety. I’ve never been to Harbor Bay before, but the map and my electrical sense are enough. Together, they paint a picture of roads and wiring. I can feel the military transports rolling toward the fort, and the lights of the Paltry. What’s more, a city is something I understand. Crowds, alleys, all the distractions of daily life—these are my kinds of camouflage.
Paltry Place is another market, alive as Grand Garden in Summerton or the square of the Stilts. But it is dirtier, more harried, free of Silver overlords but choked with teeming Red bodies and haggling shouts. A perfect place to hide. We emerge on the lowest level, a subterranean tangle of stalls crisscrossed by greasy canvas canopies. But there’s no smoke or stink down here—Reds might be poor, but we are not stupid. One glimpse up, through the grated, wide hole in the ceiling, tells me the upper levels sell stinking fish or smoked meat, letting the scents escape into the sky. For now, we’re surrounded by peddlers, inventors, weavers, each one trying to foist their wares onto patrons who don’t have two tetrarch coins to rub together. The money makes everyone desperate. Merchants want to get it, buyers want to keep it, and it blinds them all. No one notices a few well-trained sneaks slip out from a forgotten hole in the wall. I know I should feel afraid, but being surrounded by my own is strangely comforting.
Crance leads, his muscled swagger morphing into a limp to match Shade’s. He pulls a hood from his vest and hides his face in shadow. To the casual eye, he looks like a bent old man, though he’s anything but. He even supports Shade a little, one arm braced against his shoulder to help my brother walk. Shade doesn’t have to worry about hiding his face, and keeps his focus on not slipping over the uneven ground of the lower Paltry. Farley brings up the rear, and I’m reassured to know she has my back. For all her secrets, I can trust her, not to see a trap, but to weasel her way out of one. In this world of betrayal, it’s the best I can hope for.
It’s been a few months since I last stole something. And when I slide a pair of charcoal-gray shawls from a stall, my motions are quick and perfect, but I feel an unfamiliar twinge of regret. Someone made these; someone spun and wove the wool into these rough scraps. Someone needs these. But so do I. One for me, one for Cal. He takes it quickly, drawing the frayed wool around his head and shoulders to hide his recognizable features. I do the same, and none too soon.
Our first few steps into the crowded, dim market lead us right past a signboard. Usually filled with notices of sale, news scraps, memorials, the Red noise has been covered up by a checkered swath of printings. A few children mill about the signboard, ripping up the bits of paper in reach. They toss the scraps at each other like snowballs. Only one of the kids, a girl with ragged black hair and bare, brown feet, bothers to look at what they’re doing. She stares at two familiar faces, each glaring down from a dozen huge posters. They are stark and grim, headlined with big black letters that read “WANTED BY THE CROWN, for TERRORISM, TREASON, and MURDER.” I doubt many of the people swarming the Paltry can read, but the message is clear enough.
Cal’s picture isn’t his royal portrait, which made him appear strong, kingly, and dashing. No, the image of him is grainy but distinct, a frozen still from one of the many cameras that captured him in the moments before his failed execution in the Bowl of Bones. His face is haggard, pulled by loss and betrayal, while his eyes spark with unchecked rage. The muscles stand out as his neck, straining. There might even be dried blood on his collar. It makes him look every inch the murderer Maven wants him to seem. The lower posters of him are torn up or covered in graffiti, in spiky, scratched handwriting almost too violently etched to make out. The Kingkiller, The Exile. The titles rip at the paper, as if the words could make the photographed skin bleed. And weaving among the titles—find him, find him, find him.
Like Cal, the picture of me is taken from the Bowl of Bones. I know exactly which moment. It was before I walked through the gates of the arena, when I stood and listened to Lucas take a bullet to the brain. In that second, I knew I was going to die, but worse, I knew I was useless. The now-dead Arven was with me, suffocating my abilities, reducing me to nothing. My printed eyes are wide, afraid, and I look small. I am not the lightning girl in this photo. I am only a scared teenager. Someone no one would stand behind, let alone protect. I don’t doubt Maven chose this frame himself, knowing exactly what kind of image this would project. But some have not been fooled. Some saw the split second of my strength, my lightning, before the execution broadcast was cut away. Some know what I am, and they have written it across the posters for all to see.
“That’s not what I meant,” I continue, using Mareena’s voice to hide my fear. “Why are you helping us?”
A few months ago, the thought of three bodies crushed by rubble might’ve frightened me. Now I’ve seen much worse, and barely spare a thought for Crance’s cohorts and their twisted bones. Crance, despite his criminal nature, doesn’t look so comfortable. His eyes glare back into the darkness, after the Mariners he helped kill. They were probably his friends.
But there are friends I would trade, lives I would forsake, for my own victories. I’ve done it before. It isn’t hard to let people die when their deaths gives life to something else.
“I’m not one for oaths, or Red dawns, or any of the other nonsense your lot goes on about,” he mumbles, one fist closing and clenching in rapid succession. “Words don’t impress me. But you’re doing a hell of a lot more than talking. The way I see it, I can either betray my boss—or my blood.”
Blood. Me.
His teeth gleam in the dim light, flashing with every barbed word. “Even rats want to get out of the gutter, Miss Barrow.”
Then he steps through the grate, toward the surface that could kill us all.
And I follow.
I square my shoulders, turning to face the echoes and the end of the tunnel’s safety. I’ve never been to Harbor Bay before, but the map and my electrical sense are enough. Together, they paint a picture of roads and wiring. I can feel the military transports rolling toward the fort, and the lights of the Paltry. What’s more, a city is something I understand. Crowds, alleys, all the distractions of daily life—these are my kinds of camouflage.
Paltry Place is another market, alive as Grand Garden in Summerton or the square of the Stilts. But it is dirtier, more harried, free of Silver overlords but choked with teeming Red bodies and haggling shouts. A perfect place to hide. We emerge on the lowest level, a subterranean tangle of stalls crisscrossed by greasy canvas canopies. But there’s no smoke or stink down here—Reds might be poor, but we are not stupid. One glimpse up, through the grated, wide hole in the ceiling, tells me the upper levels sell stinking fish or smoked meat, letting the scents escape into the sky. For now, we’re surrounded by peddlers, inventors, weavers, each one trying to foist their wares onto patrons who don’t have two tetrarch coins to rub together. The money makes everyone desperate. Merchants want to get it, buyers want to keep it, and it blinds them all. No one notices a few well-trained sneaks slip out from a forgotten hole in the wall. I know I should feel afraid, but being surrounded by my own is strangely comforting.
Crance leads, his muscled swagger morphing into a limp to match Shade’s. He pulls a hood from his vest and hides his face in shadow. To the casual eye, he looks like a bent old man, though he’s anything but. He even supports Shade a little, one arm braced against his shoulder to help my brother walk. Shade doesn’t have to worry about hiding his face, and keeps his focus on not slipping over the uneven ground of the lower Paltry. Farley brings up the rear, and I’m reassured to know she has my back. For all her secrets, I can trust her, not to see a trap, but to weasel her way out of one. In this world of betrayal, it’s the best I can hope for.
It’s been a few months since I last stole something. And when I slide a pair of charcoal-gray shawls from a stall, my motions are quick and perfect, but I feel an unfamiliar twinge of regret. Someone made these; someone spun and wove the wool into these rough scraps. Someone needs these. But so do I. One for me, one for Cal. He takes it quickly, drawing the frayed wool around his head and shoulders to hide his recognizable features. I do the same, and none too soon.
Our first few steps into the crowded, dim market lead us right past a signboard. Usually filled with notices of sale, news scraps, memorials, the Red noise has been covered up by a checkered swath of printings. A few children mill about the signboard, ripping up the bits of paper in reach. They toss the scraps at each other like snowballs. Only one of the kids, a girl with ragged black hair and bare, brown feet, bothers to look at what they’re doing. She stares at two familiar faces, each glaring down from a dozen huge posters. They are stark and grim, headlined with big black letters that read “WANTED BY THE CROWN, for TERRORISM, TREASON, and MURDER.” I doubt many of the people swarming the Paltry can read, but the message is clear enough.
Cal’s picture isn’t his royal portrait, which made him appear strong, kingly, and dashing. No, the image of him is grainy but distinct, a frozen still from one of the many cameras that captured him in the moments before his failed execution in the Bowl of Bones. His face is haggard, pulled by loss and betrayal, while his eyes spark with unchecked rage. The muscles stand out as his neck, straining. There might even be dried blood on his collar. It makes him look every inch the murderer Maven wants him to seem. The lower posters of him are torn up or covered in graffiti, in spiky, scratched handwriting almost too violently etched to make out. The Kingkiller, The Exile. The titles rip at the paper, as if the words could make the photographed skin bleed. And weaving among the titles—find him, find him, find him.
Like Cal, the picture of me is taken from the Bowl of Bones. I know exactly which moment. It was before I walked through the gates of the arena, when I stood and listened to Lucas take a bullet to the brain. In that second, I knew I was going to die, but worse, I knew I was useless. The now-dead Arven was with me, suffocating my abilities, reducing me to nothing. My printed eyes are wide, afraid, and I look small. I am not the lightning girl in this photo. I am only a scared teenager. Someone no one would stand behind, let alone protect. I don’t doubt Maven chose this frame himself, knowing exactly what kind of image this would project. But some have not been fooled. Some saw the split second of my strength, my lightning, before the execution broadcast was cut away. Some know what I am, and they have written it across the posters for all to see.
