Constantine had these weapons lying in wait. Of course he had.

  I look at Talin in a panic and start shouting for her. “Talin!” I scream. I do the same through our link.

  Talin! Talin! Look out!

  She glances at me over her shoulder, her run faltering for just a second. Then she looks up to where my eyes are focused. She sees the other Skyhunters.

  Her face drains of color.

  I don’t think. I bolt forward. I break rank and surge ahead just as the first of the Skyhunters hurtles into the air. The other voice in me rises now.

  Your only purpose is to give Talin time. And that, you are going to do to the very end.

  You grit your teeth and whisper a verse of forgiveness for everything wrong you’ve ever done. Every innocent life you’ve ever taken. It is not unlike what your father said when the guards came for you. It is the same phrase you’ve used under your breath many times in battle, whenever you were forced to lift your gun or blade or arrows to cut down a civilian. Their eyes haunt you now.

  The first Skyhunter comes soaring down at me, wings spread, his eyes ready to murder.

  My wings are broken. My back is a mass of wounds. But I feel no fear. Right now, there is only one person who needs every bit of protection I can offer her. Talin.

  This is your redemption.

  39

  TALIN

  The two Skyhunters from back at the lab complex, when Raina showed me around. How could I have forgotten about them?

  I look back and, in horror, see Red barrel forward to face the first of them. He’s buying me time.

  Red! I scream through our link, but I know it’s no use. No time to waste now—and certainly not when Red is risking his life to give me that time.

  I tear my eyes away as Red clashes with the first Skyhunter. I rush into the door. A gush of cool air greets me as I hurtle into the palace.

  The instant I set foot in here, I feel the weight of Constantine’s presence. It’s so strong I’m not even sure if it’s just through our bond. Perhaps it has always haunted every hall of this palace, the whisper of his legacy in every tile and stone and wall of this forsaken place. But the beat of his heart turns into a drum in my chest as I hurry down the corridor that widens into the main atrium of the palace, until I almost mistake it as my own.

  Come out, Constantine, I tell him through our link as I head down the path. My anger is a fire in my mind now. You’ve lost.

  He doesn’t answer, but I can feel the shift of his emotions, the hate in his heart. It is strong here, echoing off the walls. At least he’s still trapped.

  Somewhere behind me comes Red—but almost as soon as I feel his energy follow me in, something attacks him, sending him crashing against a wall. I wince as I feel agony lance through his body and tremble through our link, and turn around long enough to see him struggle with a Skyhunter.

  He shoots me a grim look before he bares his teeth at the Skyhunter and attacks him.

  Go, he tells me, his voice a hammer through our link. Go!

  Constantine. I have to find him. I tear my eyes away from Red and force myself to continue down the hall. The space opens into the soaring ceiling of the atrium. I’m so used to seeing this space speckled with sunlight that at first it looks completely unfamiliar—the sky through the glass ceiling is dark and churning, fires burning around the city casting the sky in shades of crimson. It gives the entire space a scarlet glow.

  Bullets fire at me from somewhere high on the balcony. I glance up, my eyes narrowing, to see snipers positioned between the banisters, their weapons aimed down at me. They cringe at my stare, then back away from the edge. At the same time, I hear the unmistakable growls of Ghosts emerging from the shadows of columns around me. Their milky eyes roll at me, and blood drips down their chins.

  Everything around me moves like I’m in a dream. The Ghosts seem to float, dragging through the air, as they move. Their muscles crack, bleeding and raw. I am on the warfront again, Corian at my side, fighting for survival. Through my link with Red, I feel currents of his own fury as he fights farther down the hall, pain rippling through him with each strike from the enemy Skyhunter.

  One of the Ghosts near me lunges, its fangs seeking out my arm. I dart to one side, then launch into the air and fatally cut its neck with my wings. If it bit my flesh, would I transform eventually? Can a Skyhunter like me turn into a Ghost? Then its blood spills on the floor around me, and I turn my concentration toward the others. Their screams echo through the room. Another bullet flies from somewhere above and hits me in the upper back. I flinch at the strike—even though it doesn’t penetrate my body in the same way as it does a normal human—I still feel the pain, followed by the sharp smell of my own blood. I cut through another Ghost, then launch into the air and hurl myself at the banisters. As I reach the balcony, I arc my wings protectively around myself.

  I smash through the banisters. The guards lose all their nerve at the sight of me, and flee. As I stare at them racing down the hall, Constantine’s voice comes to me through our bond, haunting and cold.

  It’s such a shame, Talin.

  His words send a chill down my spine. I look around me, as if I can see him.

  You were my strongest Skyhunter.

  The halls are bathed in that ominous red from the sky through the glass ceiling. I start running again, trying to pinpoint Constantine’s location through our link as I hang on to his words.

  What will you do when my new Skyhunters tear you apart? he asks me.

  They won’t, I answer. Because by the time they arrive, you’ll be dead. They’ll have no one to fight for.

  You won’t bring down this Federation alone, Talin.

  I am not alone. My teeth clench into a grim smile. But you are.

  Constantine doesn’t answer that. But as I reach the end of the hall and draw near the stairs, his voice comes back to me. Suddenly, I feel like I can sense his heartbeat strong and unrelenting here.

  I turn my eyes up to the glass ceiling, then to the staircase that winds high, ending through a door that leads out onto the roof.

  It’s a trap. I can feel it in my bones, the tingle of something sinister and knowing from him. He doesn’t try to hide it either. He knows this is the only reason I’ve come inside, that everything about our plan centers around me getting close enough to kill him. Down below, the atrium floods with soldiers. Their boots echo down every path, and I hear them coming up every stairway. Ghosts scream alongside them.

  From somewhere below, Red calls out to me in desperation. Don’t go! he shouts through our link. They’ll trap you up there!

  But we don’t have the time to wait any longer. I clench my hands into fists and think about my mother outside with the other rebels, launching arrows into the melee. None of us should be here. It is all one big trap.

  But I’m done being afraid.

  I push away the feeling of Red’s terror and launch up at the stairway.

  I burst through the door and onto the roof. It’s one vast expanse of flat stone broken by the glass ceiling in its center. No sooner than I emerge, another bullet hits my arm and sends me careening backward. My wings arc instinctively—I feel and hear the pings of more bullets against the metal. I close my eyes and let my Striker training take over. It is a midnight forest; I am hunting Ghosts by sound alone. I concentrate on the direction of the bullets, then paint in my mind a picture of where they’re coming from. I remind myself that his guards fear me more than I fear them. And I launch through the air at them.

  I cut down soldier after soldier. Others run from me, dropping their weapons as they go. Even they must know that this battle can only end with me facing their Premier. My eyes glow as the fury within me rises.

  And then I see him. He’s standing in the middle of the roof, from a spot where he can still see beyond the edge of the palace to the masses of rebels pushing back against his soldiers below. At first glance, Constantine looks alone. He stands straight, his hands folded behind his back, the black and scarlet of his uniform reminding me of the first time I’d ever seen him silhouetted against a burning sky.

  His eyes, as piercing and fierce as ever, are focused directly on me.

  He gives me a smile. Hello, Talin.

  Something barrels into me from behind. It hits me so hard that my vision turns black for an instant before I shake myself awake and find myself hurtling through the air. I twist, landing on my feet, then crouch low.

  To see two Skyhunters rushing at me.

  40

  RED

  I feel the presence of the other Skyhunters confronting Talin without even seeing a vision through her eyes. The spike of her emotions tells me everything I need to know.

  She’s going to face them alone up there.

  They’re going to kill her.

  How many Skyhunters has Constantine been working on? Was he in the process of building an entire army?

  The thought sends a ripple of animal strength through me. I duck as the Skyhunter attacking me sheers his wings at me, seeking my throat. Then I run. As the other Skyhunter gives chase, I speed up, pointing my boots in the direction of the atrium. Everything is cast in a shade of crimson. There are soldiers everywhere, all bathed in the bloody light. They hesitate at the sight of me—and I realize that, for a split second, they can’t tell the difference between me and the other Skyhunters, thinking that both of us are war machines loyal to the Premier. I take advantage of their confusion to barrel past them. Behind me, the Skyhunter draws near.

  As he reaches me, I suddenly halt and twist around, grabbing for one of his wings. He shoots me a furious look of surprise—my hand closes around one of his bladed feathers. It cuts deep into my palm. I ignore the sharp pain, then use the momentum of his movement to swing around until I’ve leaped onto his back, then grab the edge of his wing with my other hand too.

  He twists, frustrated, trying to reach me. We spin in a mad, chaotic circle in midair. Then he does what I want him to do—he launches upward, right at the glass ceiling. His wings curl forward to protect himself.

  I shut my eyes and brace myself.

  He hits the ceiling with all the force of an explosion. Glass shatters in every direction—shards rain down to the atrium below us as we burst onto the roof. The impact nearly knocks me off his back, but somehow I manage to hang on as he twists again and again to reach me. Finally, he hurtles to the roof, turning so that his back will take the impact.

  I let go the instant we hit. The force knocks the breath from me. My body rolls—the world spins furiously around me. I shake my head, then glance up for an instant to see Constantine’s lone figure standing at the other end of the roof from us.

  But it’s not him that my eyes jump to. It’s Talin. She’s in midair, struggling to fight two Skyhunters at once.

  I can’t get to her fast enough to protect her. All I have time to do is leap to my feet, still gasping, and send a searing message through our link. Talin. All I can say is her name. For an instant, I feel her response come through the bond—a trembling, angry, terrified tremor.

  At least she knows I’m here.

  But it’s all she can do. Because in the next moment, she arcs back in agony as one of the Skyhunters grabs her by the throat.

  And as I look on in horror, the second Skyhunter grabs one of her wings and—in a single, violent gesture—rips it completely from her back.

  41

  TALIN

  The pain is worse than any experiment Raina put me through during my transformation. Worse than the nights I spent trembling and sweating. It feels like my body has split into two, like someone has taken a sword and jammed it into my back, then ripped out my bones.

  My mind goes blank from the trauma. My eyes widen and my mouth opens in a silent scream. I arc backward as the pain rips through me in a violent wave. My balance suddenly feels off—part of me feels too light, lighter than the rest. The girl releases me, and I feel myself falling. From somewhere, I hear an anguished cry.

  Red? Is he here?

  As I hit the surface of the roof, I glimpse the two other Skyhunters. Vaguely, I realize what must have happened to me. They have torn off one of my wings.

  The forceful hand seizes my back again. I have no strength in this moment to defend myself. My body is swimming in too much pain. All I manage to do is look out across the roof to see Red racing toward me, shouting my name, before the Skyhunter grabs my remaining wing and tears the metal from my back.

  Stars explode in my vision. I crumple to the ground, tasting blood in my mouth as my lip scrapes hard against the stone. Constantine’s voice comes to me from somewhere.

  It’s the end, Talin.

  There is real grief in his voice, as if he regrets losing something he had worked so hard on. I clench my teeth and, through my swimming vision, look to my side to see the second Skyhunter rush to crouch beside me. She arcs her wings and reaches out to seize me, as if to pull me forward and impale me on her bladed feathers.

  I don’t know what I do. Sometimes the mind is a curious thing when it tries to protect itself. But as she pulls me toward her, I manage to twist around so that the Skyhunter at my back is forced to move with me. My body is slick with my own blood, turning me slippery. As I go, I slide out of her grasp and throw myself flat on the roof.

  Her wing, instead of impaling me, stabs straight into the chest of the second Skyhunter.

  A shudder wracks him. He drops the bloody wing he had ripped from my back, then stares down in dumb shock at the steel feathers of his Skyhunter partner that have entered his chest and exited through his back.

  For the first time since I came up here, I feel a tremor of surprise and anger come from Constantine. It’s all I manage to grasp. Over me, the impaled Skyhunter drops to his knees as his partner pulls out her wing in stunned surprise. Then the hurt Skyhunter falls heavily. He stills. Blood pools underneath him.

  Who was he? Who are his loved ones that he’d been forced to fight for?

  My head swims. I feel my limbs grow weak, as if they’re moving through water. I don’t know how much blood I’ve lost. I don’t even know to feel relief or joy at the death of the other Skyhunter. Somehow, in the midst of all my feelings, I find myself grieving for him.

  The female Skyhunter turns her rage on me. Before she can reach me, though, I feel Red’s presence near. Then he’s here, really here, all his strength and fury barreling into the Skyhunter. The two of them tumble into a rolling heap.

  I am so tired. I could lie down right here and sleep. My blurring vision sweeps the roof, searching for Constantine before I finally see him standing some distance away. No, he is already moving. He’s running away from me. I blink, trying to comprehend what I’m seeing. Everything in my mind feels so slow.

  Constantine is running away because, for the first time in his life, he knows he’s lost.

  I find my last vestiges of strength within. They have been buried deep in my chest, locked tightly away since childhood, since the night that Karensan troops burst into my family’s home and killed my father. They remained buried as I ran across the grassland at midnight with my mother, for nights and nights on end. That strength has been stored away since I fled across Mara’s bridges with my mother and crouched on the other end to watch the Marans cut their bridges down. The strength has been untouched, idle during all the years I’ve fought at the warfront, defending Mara even as she didn’t defend me. That strength is still inside me, shielded behind walls. Waiting for the moment when I would need every last bit of it.

  This is that time.

  As Red struggles with the Skyhunter behind me, I push myself onto my feet. Blood stains my hands and arms, stains everything. I trip over scarlet rivers as I go. Somehow, I break into a run. One of my daggers is clutched in my hand. I hold it tightly, afraid the blood will make it slip from my grasp, and I run toward Constantine.

  Without his war machines at his side, he is weak. I’m reminded of all the times I had to steady him against my arm as he walked, the frail, human set of his body, his vulnerable nights when he couldn’t sleep. Now he runs, and as he does, I see him for what he really is: a dying young man, hanging desperately on to the shreds of a Federation he cannot hold together, the end of his father’s legacy—and his own. I realize this is what I feel through our bond now. His true, grieving realization that this is the end. That he is about to meet his greatest fear.

  He is too weak to run fast. Even in my injured state, I catch up to him. He turns around, teeth bared, slashing out at me with his own knife—but I don’t care. One of my hands comes up and I pull him toward me.

  I meet his eyes. He stares back at me with a wide expression, and I find myself wondering if this is what he looked like as a child.

  Then I take my dagger and stab him in the heart.

  His body goes stiff. I hear him take a rasping breath, as if he’s still—even now, at the end—shocked that I did it. He leans heavily against me, the blade digging deeper as he does. The pain that trembles through him hits me in a wave, and I feel my own legs in danger of buckling. It occurs to me he must have felt a hint of my agony, too, when the Skyhunters ripped my wings from my back. That was the grief he felt. As if a part of himself had died.

  I feel that same grief now. I feel that steady heartbeat of his—an ever-present part of me for so long—shudder and turn erratic, beating frantically as if speeding up might keep it from bleeding out.

  Then Constantine’s legs finally give way, and he falls. I collapse at the same time. As I fight to hold myself up on hands and knees, I meet his gaze for the last time.

  He stares at me like a frightened child. Death, the thing he feared the most, has finally come to claim him. A thin trickle of blood runs down the side of his mouth, even as his lips still murmur something. I can’t hear what he’s trying to say, but through our link, I know.

  My Infinite Destiny. Even in his dying state, his voice echoes through my mind.

  Then the voice in my head fades. The beat of his heart fades. The link binding us snaps, and I find myself suddenly without his presence in me as his body goes limp. His eyes turn vacant.