So, you did do one thing right.I shiver, but not because of the chill in the air. I can still remember the sheer depth of his power, how it felt to feed my color to the void in the hopes that it would poison him faster than it drained me. Hardly the way my parents hoped I’d fulfil my legacy, but hey, at least all that Wryvern power was finally good for something. It ensured that the shadows will live to see another day—though I doubt you could say the same for me and Ezzo. Because this time, there’ll be no scheming our way out of here.
The guards have separated us, for one thing, stuck us in adjacent cells instead of together, with cuffs chaining us to the floor and enough extra iron to keep me too nauseous to try much of anything. They also know exactly who I am now and that I’m heredespitethat, so there goes our other trick. The Indigo responsible for thefalse visionthat gripped the castle, they’re calling me. The architect of a smear campaign against the councilman who tragically lost his life bringing the Divine Meridian to heel. How he did that with a needle in his arm and all of his joints ripped out of their sockets is a question no one has thought to ask yet, nor do I expect them to ask it,given how badly they need us to play the villain. Hells, I’m not even surprised by the speed with which they chose to ignore the accounts coming from the rescued acolytes. That is what they’ve been doing for hundreds of years, isn’t it? Rewriting history to suit their needs, regardless of the cost or consequence?
Which is why it makes no difference that we saved the Gray, or the Church initiates, or even a rainbow of their own kids; what the trackers saw when they breached the court chamber was a dead councilman and an Indigo kissing a half breed. A previously condemned half breed, for that matter, so there could have been no pretending that I didn’t know who he is.
Not that I would have even tried that.
Because without him, and Chase, and Cemmy, today would have ended with far more than one dead councilman—and he only died because the injuries his son inflicted left him too weak to survive the bleeding. Today, three Hues willingly risked their freedom to put an end to the zealot we created with our fear; they’ve earned my loyalty in a way the Council never did. And besides, if the elders were scared of the truth before, they’re now scared of the truth and me. They don’t know the part Akari played in amplifying my vision—and they’ve long since forgotten the quirks of fate-touched magic—so as far as they’re concerned, they have an Indigo on their hands with a rogue ability. And it’s no secret what they do to rogues.
“Do you think the others are okay?” I whisper the question through the bars, a worry meant only for Ezzo and me.
“They’re not here,” he breathes in reply. “So that’s what I’m hoping it means.”
Hope. Right. I fight the urge to succumb to my anger and scream:hope for what?That they were able to get out of the Academy? Escape the city in one piece? That Akari and Saleen will get to spend the rest of their lives on the run now? That come morning, the Council will decide to kill us both quick?
“It’s not fair,” I say, since I trust Ezzo not to judge. “We did everything right”—everything the future asked of us—“and the Council’s just going to bury it. Nothing’s going to change.”
“Maybe not overnight, but I do think change is coming.” He shifts his weight to look at me head-on. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two separate zealots, in two separate cities, on two separate sides of the continent have come within an inch of destroying the Gray in two years,” Ezzo says, his eyes shining like beacons in the dark. “I think their lies are what got us here and I think it’s going to keep happening until the Council can’t bury the truth anymore; one way or another, itwillforce itself out. There’s a reckoning coming for them, Raya, I can feel it. And as much as I’d love to be there to see it, too, I can live with being the Hue that lit the final match.”
Yeah, well, I can’t.Ezzo’s words only serve to intensify the wrongness churning in my gut.
Because I don’t want to be the match, I want to be the flame.
I want to be there when the Council is made to answer for its crimes.
But more than anything else, I want to live to finish what we started.
I want the future to make good on the life it promised us.
“I don’t want to die, Ezzo.” That’s the true fear festering in my heart. Death looked different in the court chamber; it looked like a worthy choice when I didn’t have time to think about how big or final it was, how absolutely binding. Whereas now, all I have is time to think about it. Borrowed, limited, fast-ending time.
“I don’t, either.” Ezzo’s hand grazes mine through the bars.
“Then I suggest you both do exactly as I tell you.” The frosty voice springs us apart.
A voice I know.
A voice I dread.
A voice I never expected to hear again.
“Mother?” I shuffle as close to the door as my chains allow. But even in the dim light of the prison, there’s no mistaking the face staring back at me, the pinched cheeks, and the sharp chin, and the disapproving tilt to the brow. Though today, there’s worry in that face, too, along with regret and something else I can’t quite put myfinger on, something that warms my insides. “How are you—? What are you doing here?”
“Changing my daughter’s future,” she says, placing a series of blue charms along the iron.
“But . . . why?” I gape at the crystals as they start accelerating the metal to rust. It makes no sense for her to act against the Council now that my connection to Ezzo has been made public. If anything, she should be renouncing me twice as hard, protecting the Wryvern name.
“Because I won’t stand by and watch an Indigo punished for following the future’s path—especially when she saw something the rest of us didn’t.” Her answer goes a long way to explaining what swayed her mind.
“You heard about my vision,” I say as the door to my cell breaks apart.
“I was made aware of it, yes.”
“And you believed it?”
“I don’t believe you deserve to die.” Coming from my mother, the evasion is as good as telling me she’s proud. “No matter how much I might disagree with your . . . choices.” Her nose scrunches with distaste as she turns to appraise Ezzo.
“I won’t leave without him,” I say, before she can think to ask. “He saved my life.”
