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 contingentof 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.Iam 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! Getback!”
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. Asthey 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.
