When we reach them, they stream past us and run toward the back of the city, where tunnels lead into the forests on the south side of Mara.
It’s useless. But I keep my eyes forward and let them flee. We are surrounded by thousands of their bodies, crushing upward against us in a panic. Children wail in their parents’ arms. Families call out for one another over the chaos. Over the walls hurtles another fireball. It barrels right into a set of buildings and explodes in a shower of flames. Dozens of people are caught in its inferno.
The Strikers don’t flinch. I don’t stop moving. We go on as the citizens run behind our line.
Suddenly, I see familiar faces as I continue to push forward. Some of the people running with the crowd are the same Senators who had been waiting in the arena for my execution. Among them, I see Jeran’s father and brother.
How powerful they’d always seemed. How cruel. But now they are no different from the rest of the crowd, disheveled and desperate. Their eyes flash with fright. Jeran’s father is coated in a film of mud and dirt, as if he’s already fallen several times in his mad rush. In his arms are an assortment of gold and silver—bracelets, cuffs, necklaces, candelabras, and shoes. He snaps at his wife to keep up with him, but has no spare hand to help her along. She runs several paces behind him, her face red and swollen from crying, smoke, and exhaustion. Jewels drip from her arms. Gabrien runs alongside them, ignoring the others around him, elderly and young alike, uninterested in anything else except the path they’re taking.
As they draw near, they see Jeran. Their eyes lock for an instant with his.
Jeran’s father winces, and for a moment he looks like he wants to avoid his son in his path and find some other way to get to safety. There’s embarrassment in his gaze along with his panic.
But Jeran doesn’t stop moving. Instead, he points wordlessly behind himself with one of his swords, telling him with the gesture to get back behind the Strikers’ moving line.
Gabrien glances at me, bewildered, as if unwilling to believe that I will let him pass. I just stare back at him, this man who had smirked at me at the National Hall’s banquet.
You have spent your entire lives sneering at the ground I walk on. The style of my clothes and the tint of my skin. The food that I eat. The language of my people, the signs I use because I cannot speak aloud. You have wished for the death of my loved ones by barring them from the safety of your doors, even as you take from them what you like—their jewelry, their customs and food, their traditions. You have taken advantage of my silence in every way, robbed me of my dignity and my pride. You have used me for your own gain.
Now, in your hour of greatest need, you will use me again.
And yet, I will still risk my life to save yours. I swore an oath to this country on the day I donned this coat, to protect you and every other citizen from harm so long as there is breath in my body. While you try to escape through the tunnels, I am going to turn in the direction of danger and head out beyond the wall. I’ve done it my entire life, and I will do it now. One final time.
Jeran’s family rushes by. As they go, I see how their heads hang low as they scramble behind me—this Basean rat—for safety.
Why would you do this?they seem to ask in their gazes.
Because my mother taught me that, in spite of everything, I must choose goodness.
The moment passes. The people scramble past us and in the direction of the tunnels along with everyone else. I don’t bother watching them go. I already know that they’ll survive this onslaught. Somehow, people like that always seem to get another chance.
It doesn’t matter now. My eyes narrow at the wall towering before us. My hands tighten against the hilts of my blades. I’ve trained my entire life for this.
Ahead of us, soldiers standing by the one-way tunnels leading to the Outer City and the battlefield rush to raise the vertical gates. Steel grates against the ground as they crank giant levers against the wall, and inch by inch, the gates lift to reveal dark passages.
I take a deep breath. Beside me, Jeran breaks into a run. Adena draws the crossbow from her back, secure with her favorite weapon in her hands. She has some kind of new arrow notched to it, yet another one of her contraptions.
She winks at me when she sees me stare. “People are going to remember us, Talin,” she says. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Her grin is so infectious that I find myself smiling back. My attention returns to the tunnels before us, their mouths now gaping open. Through them, I can feel the rush of cold air funneling in from the other side. My walk breaks into a run too.
If we’re going out, then I’m grateful to be alongside this team. Rats, orphans, disgraced children.
We are Mara’s saviors.
33
The Outer City’s shanties are already on fire when the other Strikers and I emerge from the tunnels leading from the Inner City. Behind us, a series of explosions shake the darkness we just came through. When I glance over my shoulder, I see the tunnels each collapsing one by one, permanently sealing us out of the city.
There’s nowhere for us to go now except into the battle.
The scene before us is a nightmare. Ghosts tower over the shanties’ shacks, their faces twisted with cracked, bleeding skin and scarlet, fanged mouths, their shrieks a mix of fury and agony. They turn that anger and pain onto the shanties around them.
My attention homes in immediately to the east shanties, where my mother’s house stands. Would she even still be there? My mother is no fool. It’s likely that she fled the instant the Federation’s flags came into view—but there’s nowhere for her to go that would be any safer. The house is located on the far side of the shanties, a good distance from where the soldiers are now striking. Anywhere else in the shanties will be more dangerous.
People run screaming down every mud-strewn street. As I pass them by, their eyes flicker to me with wild, desperate hope.The Strikers arehere!I can see the light on their faces, as if we’re some sort of miracle that can hold the Federation at bay.
One man with his baby slung around his chest even runs up to me and clasps my hand in desperation, speaking rapidly to me in a language I can’t understand. I shake my head vigorously at him and point to the outer rims of the shanties, away from the Inner City gates.
