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 tous. “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 relyingon, 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.
