“I don’t need all of it.” Adena pulls out a few of the small cylinders from her pocket that she had carefully wrapped in bits of rubber and lead shielding. “Get me there, and I can disassemble it into smaller pieces without setting it off.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  She holds up one of the small cylinders. “That first one? I saw how their workers were unloading pieces of it before you detonated it. If we can grab enough fragments, we can lay out a strategic set of smaller, controlled explosions. Set them off as we need to.”

  “Can you do it quickly?” I sign to her.

  “If I have help,” she replies. “Could use your strength. But we have to go now. There are already signs at the palace of Constantine on the move. Rotations of soldiers.”

  Fear shoots through my chest, and as if on cue, I feel Constantine’s moods stir within me. A darkness fills the space between my ribs. He is making plans.

  * * *

  There’s already a carriage waiting for us at the front entrance to the estate. Adena hops in, scooting over to make room for us. Jeran is already inside, along with Aramin. Scarcely have we all settled in when the carriage jerks forward, taking off toward the other end of the city.

  I can see the scattered fires stark against the sky, haloing the horizon with red and gold. As we draw closer to the city center, the crowds grow thicker, until it becomes impossible for us to go any farther. Most of the people in the city are not soldiers, who have retreated to the palace. Still, I stare out at the scene of rebels with rising fear.

  “Detour,” Red calls out as our carriage screeches to a stop at a blockade. Already, the exchange of gunfire and the clang of metal on metal ring out as rebels on one side of the blockade clash with Constantine’s troops. “We have to take the west thoroughfare road.”

  “Do we know if that’s blocked too?” Aramin says.

  I suddenly leap out of the carriage. “We need a view from the skies,” I sign hurriedly at them before shutting the carriage door. There in the street, I crouch and unfurl my wings.

  Some startled shouts ring out as a few witness me. I feel a bullet ping off my steel blades. Inside the carriage, Jeran already urges our driver in Karenese to turn around. As they do, I gather my strength and burst into the air. The world diminishes below me.

  The entire city is in flames. The fires dot the landscape in orange and gold, and from up here, the sight takes my breath away. Just days earlier, Cardinia had seemed like an impenetrable stronghold. Now, it looks like a sea of chaos.

  I soar through the night sky, stay just above their carriage.

  Turn west here, Red instructs me through our bond, and I swerve.

  Down below, I spot a cluster of Constantine’s soldiers, their scarlet uniforms gathered along a street. Ghosts snap their jaws among them, lunging forward to attack some rebels who have turned and fled down the opposite end of the street.

  I turn sharply. Not here, I call to Red through our bond. Stop. Go several more blocks.

  He hears me, and a vein of trust shoots through our link. Down below, the carriage comes to an abrupt halt before it turns back and continues going. Some of the troops spot the carriage. A contingent of them breaks formation to pursue them and the hulking shapes of Ghosts follow.

  My eyes search for the next possible path until I finally find it. I tell Red to turn the carriage in its direction.

  As they turn, the soldiers catch up to them from behind.

  All the anger in me wells up, and suddenly I dive, narrowing my steel wings and pointing myself toward them. This time, no one is commanding me. No Premier is ordering me to strike down prisoners. I am my own Skyhunter.

  The soldiers look up and see me coming too late. I barrel into them, cutting through guard and Ghost alike. One of the Ghosts twists, its teeth closing on my wing, but I turn in a tight formation. My blades slice through it, and I hear it shriek in response. I land, skidding across the ground to a stop, my eyes glowing.

  The carriage hurtles onward. As they turn the corner behind me, I arc my wings protectively around myself—then shoot back up into the sky.

  I feel invincible here. The joy of it surges through me until I am drunk from the rush of it all. This is the danger that Raina had warned me of—that once I got this taste of being a Skyhunter, I will only want more of it.

  It is this thought that pulls back my emotions. I feel sick suddenly, and angle my flight in the sky back toward the carriage. My head swims. I can smell the tang of blood on my wings.

  Do not let yourself get used to this smell, I tell myself.

  And, without warning, I hear Constantine in my head.

  You will, he says to me. In time, you will love it.

  There is something wild and vicious about his voice this time, like he is delighted to feel the fear that has just hummed through me, knows that the spike of joy I’d felt aligned with the killing of others.

  My hands clench beside me. I will end you first, I tell him.

  But all I feel from him in response is a trickle of dark amusement.

  At last, the carriage passes through the city center. The farther we go, the more scattered the fires. We veer down one path after another, avoiding other blockades. Finally, the dark ring of the prison district looms along Cardinia’s wall.

  The carriage comes to a halt nearby. I land beside it as everyone jumps out. Already, there is a crowd outside one of the prison’s gates, which has been thrown wide open. Rebels are here, flooding in and out.

  Adena darts through the crowd, pushing them back whenever she can. “Get back, get back!” she shouts. “None of you have the right gear! Get back!”

  We manage to carve a swath through the masses until we break past the gate and into the prison district.

  Textile mills loom all around us. In the center of them all, left in the middle of the path, is the cylinder taken from Mara, lying on its side.

  The rebels have erected a makeshift pulley system to drag the cylinder out, but there are far too few of them to get the object onto a platform they’ve brought.

  Jeran rushes ahead of us, seemingly unhindered by the weight of the vest strapped around his chest. Adena hurries beside him. Together, they reach the base of the cylinder and slide into a Striker formation almost without thinking. Jeran kneels, puts his hands together, and Adena steps onto it, kicking off with his assistance. She lands nimbly on top of the cylinder, then whips out a tool and starts immediately prying loose its circular cover.

  Aramin rushes forward with a long rope to secure around the structure. He tosses it up to Adena, who wraps it around the top of the cover and throws the end down to where Jeran and Aramin pull it tight. As they work, Jeran calls out instructions in Karenese to the rebels around us, telling them to get into position to pull.

  Red and I step forward. I feel my Skyhunter power coursing through me, and through our bond, I know Red is gathering his strength too. Our eyes glow a faint blue as we reach the end of the rope.

  Suddenly I’m reminded of my days spent out in the scrapyards of Newage, balancing from one stack of metal to another, memorizing the feeling of that shifting landscape as it groaned and yawned beneath my feet. Getting a handle for the weights and objects around me. Now I grab the end of the rope with Red positioned in front of me, then look up at Adena for her signal.

  She signs to us to move, then scrambles backward on the cylinder.

  Pull, I call to Red through our link, and he raises the shout to the others.

  “Pull!” he says.

  We all throw our weight back.

  Even with two Skyhunters, even with a dozen others helping us, the cover barely budges. I shut my eyes and throw my strength against the rope. My wings expand behind me. All around us, people jump out of the way.

  We throw our weight against the cover again and again. On the fourth pull, it finally slides off, falling to the ground in a shuddering groan of metal. Everyone scatters as the object hits and sends up a shower of dust. Revealing its interior, full of the smaller cylinders that Adena had collected.

  All around it, the rebels swarm, gathering curiously to see this mysterious object that their Premier seemed interested in enough to haul all the way back from Mara.

  Adena slides off the side of the cylinder with a grin. She runs up to us. “The Early Ones were out of their ancient minds,” she mutters, looking back in fascination at the object. “But they might just save us all in the end.”

  My gaze turns briefly to the silhouette of the palace off in the distance, through the open prison gate. What would the Early Ones think of everything we have taken from their creations, everything that has been mutilated from their original intent?

  Or maybe their own intents were never pure either. Maybe we are exactly like them, and they were exactly like us.

  “Trust me, Talin,” Adena says as she notices my stare. For a moment, we all look back. Her eyes glint with the need for revenge. “We are going to turn it to ash.”

  Raina had told me this could be the real ending of the war. And even though I never agreed with how she wanted to do it, even though she was the one who inflicted all of my pain on me, I can still feel those words echo in my mind. This is the ending we were meant to have.

  I turn back to Adena with a grim nod. “Tell us how we should set up the palace.”

  38

  RED

  Dawn breaks on a city at the brink.

  The streets, once crowded with festivities and noise, are now littered with ash and blood. There aren’t enough medics in all Cardinia to wrestle with the bodies of both Federation soldiers and those they’ve killed. Fires still burn in dozens of structures, one factory so ablaze its collapse sends a shudder through the entire city.

  I wait stiffly at the east gate of the palace. Around me must be a crowd of thousands of rebels, armed with anything and everything they’ve been able to get their hands on, stationed a good hundred feet from where flanks of Federation soldiers stand thick in preparation to defend the Premier. When I look at the top of the palace, it is lined so heavily with soldiers—all of them with their guns and arrows trained down on us—I can’t tell where one soldier ends and the next begins.

  Adena has gone to organize where to set and detonate the explosives around the palace. Our signal to act. Somewhere among the rooftops near the palace, Aramin and Jeran are crouched and waiting for my signal. Talin is among the rebels, invisible among their crush of bodies, watching for the right time to move.

  The sheer number of rebels gathering here is what we’re relying on, but still, I look at their numbers and feel something sinking in me. Mayor Elland had sent word out among them to surround the palace and send up an alert if there’s any sign of the Premier attempting to leave its perimeters. When ready and directed, they should flood the east gate.

  I look at those around me. In a mass, they may seem a faceless sea of people, but I take in those around me and wonder what they’ve seen, who they might have lost. We are going to use the sheer number of their bodies to try to break through the line of soldiers. Once inside the palace, Talin will have a chance at hunting down the Premier—but alone? In order to give her a chance to get in, we need to stage a large-enough distraction.

  The light begins to brighten the city, casting the palace’s domes in hues of pink and gold. In the street, the rebels’ chants grow louder. Is this what overthrowing a ruler looks like? Was this what had brought the Early Ones down?

  Behind me, I sense a ripple of Talin’s emotions.

  Almost time, she says to me.

  I’m quiet, taking in her words. The memory of her lying next to me is still imprinted sharply in my mind, and I close my eyes for a moment, wishing I could return to the comfort of her embrace.

  Don’t look back, I tell her after a moment. Just keep moving. I’ll be right here.

  Talin doesn’t answer right away, but when she does, her voice is calm and warm. I know.

  Through our link, I can tell that she is calculating her fears, her emotions cycling in the same way they do right before a Ghost attack. She had once told me about the way Strikers train—once you make the first move, you must keep going.

  Once we begin, we will have to finish what we started here. There is no going back, no returning to the thicket in the trees.

  Suddenly, I feel a slight rumble in the earth beneath my feet.

  I still, listening, and then turn my head slightly toward the palace. Nothing happens for a while. The rebels stop too, and with them, the Federation soldiers shuffle. I can see them looking at one another, their frozen faces twitching in sudden uncertainty.

  For a while, I think that I’ve mistaken what I felt.

  Then the loudest boom I’ve ever heard in my life reverberates across the city, followed by a rush of hot wind so powerful I’m nearly knocked to my feet. Everyone around us—rebel, soldier—falls to their knees. And there, on the other side of the palace, I see a ball of orange and red rise blinding into the lightening sky, the clouds of the explosion swallowing itself over and over as it grows. The earth rumbles and shakes and sighs, as if the plates of the land itself are shifting.

  And, to my horrified awe, I see a shaft of faint blue light shoot up into the horizon from the source of the explosion. It glows brightly, illuminating the clouds, before it fades away as quickly as it came.

  Whatever was inside that cylinder, it is powerful enough to have its heat felt from here.

  Adena. Was she far from the explosion? What if she’d miscalculated?

  All around us, the rebels move. They flood toward me from the north and west and south gates, masses and masses of them, a sudden crowding that swells our ranks. I feel everyone jostling in, brandishing their weapons against the soldiers before them, who suddenly have gone pale. They hoist their guns higher at us, trying to figure out where best to aim, but there are so many of us that I can smell their sudden fear. My own heart leaps.

  The first move has been made. There is no turning back now.

  I love you, I tell Talin through our link.

  I love you, Talin answers back, and her words fill every inch of me with light.

  I focus my attention on the soldiers before us, and tense. The rebels gather behind and alongside me. Then I lunge forward at the soldiers and their screaming Ghosts as everyone around me surges forward at the same time.

  Soldiers shoot the first row of us almost immediately. I see them fall before the gunfire. But the next wave—we—run forward relentlessly, outpacing the fallen and charging forward into the mix. The soldiers fire again, and more collapse at our feet—but we are closer now. I put all my strength into the attack. Then I’m out in front, and the first soldier widens his eyes at the sight of me before throwing his hands up in panic.

  I barrel into him, flinging him across the courtyard, and throw all my weight into attacking the Ghost behind him. The creature shrieks, clawing for me, but I twist, my broken wings still shearing right through its body. A cold sweat breaks out all over my body at the pain of the strike, but I blink away the tears and lunge out again. Soldiers fall around me like wheat in a field. Ghosts rush toward me. In a blur, the east and west flanks of soldiers try to close in around me, separating me from the others. But in the next instant, rebels clash into both sides, weapons swinging—axes, kitchen knives, canes and door bolts, guns, planks of wood, homemade arrows. They use anything they can get. The soldiers fight back, cutting them down—but there are too many of us here in this moment.

  A Ghost bites down hard on one of my wings. The pain lances through me like a spear through my back. I twist in time to see the same Ghost’s claws swipe down at me. Every one of my limbs tingles. I rush forward at it again, wielding my damaged wings, and cut into its leg. It loses its balance and lurches to one side.

  We push and push against the flanks of soldiers. I rush forward again. Their ranks thin slightly before us. They seem to understand what we’re doing, and I can hear them shouting desperately at one another, calling for the rest of the guards around the palace to abandon their posts and help them here. But it’s too little, too late. I can see the courtyard beyond the masses of soldiers. I strike out with the metal blades of my wings. Soldiers go down before them in a wave.

  The rebels push again. The soldiers try to close the widening gap. But we keep going until—finally—I see a glimpse of a clear path between the soldiers.

  Talin! I realize I’m calling for her in our link. Talin!

  She doesn’t answer—but she doesn’t have to. Because one second she’s somewhere invisible behind me, and the next she’s surging past me. The soldiers have no way to stop her. She cuts right past them and slaughters the first Ghost that dares to cross her path.

  Up on the roof, the soldiers open fire. Their aim is uncertain when Talin moves so quickly, but one of the bullets catches her on the shoulder. The sting trickles through her right to me, and I find myself twisting as if the injury were mine. My heart leaps in fear for her. But she ignores it—doesn’t even look at it—and hurtles toward the side entrance to the palace.

  Behind us, the ranks of soldiers begin to close again. The rebels are being pushed back as the swell of soldiers strengthens. Off in the distance, I can still hear the roar from the fires set by the explosion. A faint tide of hope fills me. We are going to do it. We are going to get into the palace. Talin is going to hunt down the Premier, and there’s nothing he can do to stop us.

  And just then—

  —right as I feel the first tenuous hint of victory—

  —a silhouette on the rooftop catches my eye.

  I halt, my gaze darting up. No. I couldn’t have seen it. Could I?

  But it’s unmistakable. Outlined against the red dawn, with wings outstretched, are two other Skyhunters. Their eyes glow blue in the dim light.

  Everything in me turns to ice.