So Red and Jeran made their move. And Adena and Aramin are free.

  The four of them are now somewhere in the city. Unshackled and poised to strike.

  The mix of emotions this brings threatens to shatter my defenses—relief, fear, disbelief. I want to reach out to Red, to make sure they’re all okay, but the worry that Constantine will know keeps me in check. At least I can still feel the distant rhythm of Red’s heartbeat. He’s alive. Maybe that means the others are too.

  I clamp down my emotions as best as I can as I head to the main atrium to meet Constantine, but today my protective walls are shaky. My fear is channeling through our link, strengthening the bond between us with its ruthless and insidious tendrils, forcing me to open my heart to him.

  He might have been in a bad state last night, but today his mood is calm again. However, it’s the kind of mood that I fear the most from him—the still surface over a deep anger. Dark circles rim the bottom of his eyes. He must not have slept at all after our confrontation, and even behind the security of his vicious black band of paint, exhaustion highlights the sickly paleness of his face this morning.

  Patrols of guards swarm the palace’s courtyards, sealing the gates and inspecting every inch of the grounds. More soldiers line the halls and the building’s rooftops. Beside me, Constantine says nothing. His jaw is tight, set. He doesn’t mention a word about what happened last night. He doesn’t talk about the Strikers’ escape.

  Does he think I’m involved in it? He knows I was in my chamber during the time when they supposedly escaped. His guards can attest to it.

  But it doesn’t mean he believes it.

  As we make it down to the main atrium, I hear a female voice that I recognize. Then we see them. There, at the bottom of the stairs with a team of her personal guard, is Mayor Elland. The weight on her is as heavy as it was during our last meeting, but she stands straighter now, her eyes hard and her chin high. There’s no sign of the affection I’d seen in her earlier in the day.

  Kneeling in a row before them, bands across their eyes and hands tied behind their backs, are three prisoners the mayor had ordered arrested from her estate.

  Curiously, General Caitoman is nowhere to be seen.

  One is elderly, while another is young. Too young. I think of the first time I’d ever seen Red, that scrawny, young boy soldier standing poised over me with his gun, reluctant to shoot. This child can’t be much older than he was, but the defiance in his eyes is still bright.

  I think of Raina and her dismissal of the consequence of the unplanned assassination.

  They pause at the sight of us. As we reach the bottom of the stairs and approach them, the mayor casts me a sidelong glance before addressing the Premier.

  “Premier,” she says. “These are the workers I mentioned to you. After questioning, we discovered their ties with the girl who attacked you yesterday.”

  “Just three?” Constantine says mildly. The tone of his voice doesn’t match the dark emotions welling in his chest, and the mismatch makes me uneasy.

  The mayor seems to hear it as well, but she doesn’t react to it. “Three,” she confirms, her voice full of confidence. She turns a scornful eye down to the prisoners. “And if we find more, Premier, I will bring them before you.”

  He smiles thinly at her. “You do me a great favor, Mayor Elland.”

  She gives him that wink of hers. “I’ve known you since you were a boy, Premier. It’s the least I can do.”

  Constantine’s gaze slides to the workers kneeling on the floor. “It looks like we’ve found a few rats in our midst.”

  My heart tightens. It’s a direct call to me. I’ve been called a Basean rat too many times to miss the pointedness of this particular insult.

  But I force myself to keep calm. He doesn’t know anything yet, or else he would have mentioned it already. And Mayor Elland is putting up a good front. So I stare at the prisoners too, saying nothing through our bond.

  Mayor Elland nods at Constantine. “How should we deal with them, Premier?” she asks in a low voice. “I have my executioners ready. The Chief Architect also says they had to put down two of their Ghosts whose bones weren’t setting properly. Shall I simply deliver them to her? She certainly has space for them.”

  She’s trying to save them.

  Constantine looks up to meet the mayor’s eyes. Some unspoken understanding passes between them, and I feel the Premier’s emotions twist slightly between us, there and then gone.

  “No,” Constantine says. His voice is harsh this morning, rock grating against rock. “My Skyhunter will take care of them here.” He shifts his eyes to me. “Now,” he addresses me aloud.

  I look quickly up at him.

  “I have no patience for anything else this morning,” he says. The language he uses now is Basean. “Let’s make quick order of this, Talin.”

  He is testing me. No, punishing me. I search his eyes, wondering what he knows. I keep expecting him to say something more to me through our bond, but he doesn’t. I turn my gaze to the mayor now. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a flicker of what looks like grief in her eyes.

  But she makes no movement to intervene.

  The boy is so young, but he looks at me without any fear. The older woman is already listless, the spark of hope gone from her eyes, and the third is a man who won’t look up from the floor.

  I have walked the line enough; I can’t afford to disobey Constantine again. There is no way out of this, no chance to seek mercy. So I walk forward without giving myself a chance to hesitate. As I go, I recite a bit of Basean poetry that my mother had once read to me as a child.

  The bird wakes early for the morning sun. It waits even on days of rain, knowing just because the sun cannot be seen, that does not mean it isn’t there.

  I make it quick. It’s all the kindness I can offer. My wings flash silver through the air. The soldiers nearby flinch at the speed of my movement. Most people have never seen me execute someone, or the damage I can do when put to use. The prisoners each stiffen, shudder. There is blood.

  They slump to the floor. Then, silence.

  I look at the bodies, wondering why I can no longer feel the tips of my fingers. Why my exhaustion dulls the pain of executing them. Why I don’t pay attention to the blood dripping from my steel wings.

  When I look back up, I see that the mayor’s eyes are slightly averted, as if she can’t bear to watch.

  But the Premier, he is staring directly at me.

  What rats deserve, he says through our bond, his voice echoing in my mind.

  The unsaid part of his words crawls through my body and fills me with dread. What if he knows everything? The Chief Architect, my meeting with Red, the escape of Aramin and Adena? What if he knows what the mayor is up to, and just playing his games with these executions? What if these words are a threat? What will he do to punish me? My mother?

  Still, I keep my chin high and match his stare. I’ve spent six months in Cardinia worrying about how he feels and what he’s capable of doing. I know how to handle it.

  As guards remove the bodies, I return to my place beside Constantine. The bond between us settles into its usual state, tense and uneasy. I stay calm. He’s going to send me out into the city, most likely, to comb every inch of the streets, supervised by teams of soldiers. He’s going to want me to be the one who finds Adena and Aramin and ends their lives.

  But when he speaks again, that’s not what he says. Instead, he turns to me and gives me a bitter smile. “I have another surprise for you this morning, Talin. I think you know why. After all, given what’s been happening, I think it’s wise to move your mother a bit early. Don’t you agree?”

  The mayor’s gaze flickers to me, and there, I see a hint of fear. She hadn’t expected this from him.

  I meet Constantine’s look without blinking, determined to hold my own. But his words cut straight through my defenses, the claw of it clenching around my heart. He knows.

  I didn’t free them, I say through our bond.

  Of course you didn’t, Constantine replies, his voice smooth and sincere.

  But when I look at him, all I see are his eyes, dark and impenetrable, searing into me. Searching for secrets.

  “Come with me, Talin,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him. The other guards fall into step around me. “There’s someone I want you to see.”

  29

  TALIN

  The place where Constantine leads us isn’t anywhere near the solstice festivities. As the rest of the city remains festooned with banners and people continue to celebrate in the streets, we head to the walls of Cardinia, toward the various rail bridges that arc over the river surrounding the exterior of the city.

  Here, along one of the bridges running through the back of the city, there are no banners. No people wander along the outer wall to admire the river. This is an overgrown section of the river, weedy and thick with mud, the bridge crumbling slightly. And when we arrive, there are only a few soldiers standing at the ready, waiting for us.

  They have a prisoner with them. It’s an older woman, hair gone white as my mother’s, with her hands bound firmly in front of her. Basean, judging from the tatters of her clothing. She’s on her knees in the middle of the bridge as we approach her, and when she looks up to see the Premier, she starts trembling uncontrollably.

  On Constantine’s other side, the mayor doesn’t miss a step. But as we stop and she shifts to stand next to us, she catches my gaze for a second. She looks helpless. Like she knows something terrible is about to happen.

  I don’t recognize the prisoner. She’s not my mother. But she resembles her so much that I freeze in my tracks behind the Premier, my eyes locked on the bound woman.

  What is this? I say through my bond with Constantine.

  Beside me, the Premier folds his hands behind his back and glances at one of his soldiers. The man moves toward the prisoner. When Constantine speaks again, it’s aloud. “You know your mother benefits or suffers directly from what you choose to do,” he says. “And after the events of the past few days, I’m sure this will come as no surprise to you.” He shrugs. “At first, I wanted to bring her here so you could see it with your own eyes. After all, that’s the only way I can convince you I’m keeping true to my word. But for this punishment, I thought some distance might be instrumental. After all, you might snap, attempting to rescue her once you see what’s happening to her.” He looks at me. “And I can’t have that. So this is my solution.”

  He nods at the woman, and the soldier strikes her viciously across the face, so hard that she collapses onto the bridge.

  The careful walls around my heart crumble. Everything in me twists in agony at the sight.

  The mayor stands with her hands folded calmly before her. But in her eyes, I can see an ocean of pain.

  “Everything that happens to this woman,” Constantine explains, nodding at me, “is also happening to your mother. She is her.”

  The soldier walks over to the woman as she struggles back up to a sitting position, then kicks her before she can steady herself. She lets out a hoarse wheeze of pain and falls again.

  My hands clench so hard that I think I’ve cut into my palms. Is this about the arena? I respond. My rage and terror spark like light in my head, blinding me. My refusing to execute a Striker?

  Oh, Constantine replies, this time through the link. I think you know it’s about more than that. Your Striker friends are, somehow, loose.

  I told you. I didn’t free them.

  I don’t think you did. Constantine’s stare sears into me. But I think you know who did.

  This isn’t about Raina or Mayor Elland; if he suspects that, he hasn’t shown any sign of it. But it doesn’t matter. He knows something is brewing behind his back.

  Beside us, the mayor’s hands have tensed in front of her.

  I stare at the prisoner as she struggles against the stone ground. Somewhere out there, my mother is experiencing the same thing. It is my mother they are kicking to the ground and striking across the face. My mother who is bleeding on the ground.

  “I want you to think carefully, Skyhunter,” Constantine says aloud to me as the soldiers drag the woman back to her feet. One of them twists her arm behind her back. “About what you know and who set the Strikers free.”

  I don’t know. I tremble with the force of my words as I say them through our link. I only know it wasn’t me.

  “Very well.” He glances sidelong at me. “Do you know where my brother is right now?”

  Is that where Caitoman is? Is that why he’s not here with us? That’s all it takes for me to conjure a mental image of the General standing beside my mother, the way these soldiers are now with this prisoner. Everything in me trembles.

  No, Premier. I look at him, letting him see the rare sight of begging on my face. Please.

  Constantine looks at his soldiers and nods again. “I asked my brother to give this soldier one of his rings.” Sure enough, a gold band gleams on the soldier’s hand. “To remind you that when he puts his hands on this woman, my brother is doing the same with your mother.”

  My eyes widen slightly. Caitoman is doing this.

  Next to Constantine, the mayor meets my gaze briefly. In that second, I see a dawning realization on her face. She knows where Caitoman went. That means that she knows where my mother is being kept.

  But I have no time to dwell on this.

  The soldier twists the woman’s elbow firmly behind her back.

  Then he shoves it up hard. I hear bone snap. The woman screams. The ring flashes.

  Somewhere, General Caitoman just shattered my mother’s arm.

  I fall to my knees at the blow, as if it had struck me instead. The pain roaring through me might as well be my own.

  Stop, I tell Constantine. My eyes glow, the blue reflected against the ground. I’m begging you.

  “Then tell me who did it, Talin.”

  I don’t know!

  The soldier goes up to the sobbing woman and kicks her again. My head swims at the sight.

  “Tell me who did it, Talin,” Constantine says again.

  I press my palms against the ground. I can feel the Premier’s determination through our bond, his will pressing against the secrets I keep guarded close to my chest. My anger fills every crevice in me, burning through my muscle and steel and skin until I think I’m going to turn into flames. Could it be, I hiss through our link, my jaw clenched tight as I glare up at the Premier, that the Strikers simply freed themselves? That you underestimated their abilities, as you do us, as you do to anyone you think you’ve conquered? Could it be that they are simply better than what you can throw at them?

  Constantine’s his eyes are hard as stone. “I think you need a reminder of why you are my Skyhunter,” he replies. “I think you’ve gotten too bold, your answers those of someone who isn’t under my control. I think I’ve been too lenient with you, Talin. So let this be that reminder.”

  He looks at his prisoner. One soldiers takes out a knife.

  No. I suddenly startle up from the ground as the soldier grabs one of the woman’s hands. General Caitoman is grabbing my mother’s hand. Stop. Please, don’t.

  But Constantine doesn’t issue an order to stop.

  Beside him, the mayor suddenly takes a breath and fixes a stern look on the Premier. “Constantine,” she says in a calm voice.

  I’ve never heard anyone call him his name to his face. But somehow, Constantine pauses for a moment, his eyes swiveling to the mayor as if he’d once listened to her before.

  The woman glares at him. “Remember your own mother, Constantine,” she says softly. “And what she would say, were she here.”

  The words are like an arrow to his chest. I feel his sharp recoil through our link, can see the paling on his gaunt face. For a brief moment, Constantine looks at Mayor Elland not like she’s the mayor of his capital, but as if she’s his elder, a woman he must once have listened to in the same way he’d listened to his own mother. I look back and forth between them, the world blurred through my tears, hoping desperately that her words were enough.

  And for an instant, they seem like they might be. Constantine seems to waver, a rare hesitation on his face. I wonder if he’s imagining his mother here. I wonder if he knows that Mayor Elland had loved her.

  But then the darkness in his heart clouds his face again, and any softness that might have been there disappears. He looks away from her in disgust.

  “But she isn’t, is she?” he says. “She’s dead. And the dead are useless.”

  He gives the soldier a nod. The soldier lifts the prisoner’s hand right as I take a step forward. For a moment, the woman meets my gaze. She is silently begging me for help, and even as I see nothing but my mother in her, I remember that this prisoner is also her own person, being tortured for no reason other than her mild resemblance to my mother.

  The soldier tightens his grip on the knife. Then he brings it to the woman’s longest finger and cuts it off.

  The woman lets out a piercing wail. Blood runs down her hand.

  I turn my face to the ground, unable to bear the sight. I’m trembling violently now.

  Constantine’s soldiers have observed me every time I’ve visited my mother. He knows how important it is for us to communicate with our hands. He knows what this cruelty means for us.

  Tears are streaming down my face now. My hands have been clawing so hard against the bridge that my fingers are bloody, streaking scarlet against the ground.

  Please stop, I beg Constantine. I press my face closer to the ground before him, not caring that all his soldiers see me prostrating like this. It’s what he wanted, after all. Please stop. I’m begging you.

  I hear the sound of Constantine bending down to me, the hush of his robes against the ground. A cool hand touches my chin and brings my face up. I find myself looking straight into his eyes. In them, and through the emotions in our link, I see the truth of my punishment.

  It isn’t my defiance of him at the arena. It isn’t even the escape of the Strikers, although that may have been the catalyst.