The shot misses Constantine, pinging harmlessly off my wings, but he collapses against me from the shock of our sudden movement. My arms loop through his in a second.
Somewhere near me, Caitoman is shouting for the carriage as he swoops to his brother’s side and starts to lead him down the path out of the building. People are running everywhere, some crouching in place in terror, others riled up by the incident and shouting at the guards. Soldiers seem to multiply from nowhere, forming scarlet lines as they push the people back to give us room.
Caitoman reaches me first. “Take him to the carriage,” he snaps at me, nodding down toward the horses waiting along the front of the building.
I don’t hesitate. We guide Constantine into the carriage waiting for him. Revelers crowd around the carriage; people scream in the streets; the news of an attempted assassination spreads like wildfire.
Raina and Mayor Elland were right. Make Constantine look vulnerable. And kick the hornet’s nest.
The last thing I see as the carriage pulls away is the body of thewould-be assassin in the distance. Beyond the parted path the soldiers made for us, her figure lies in the middle of the now-empty dance ring before the dais, her blood pooling on the stone ground.
She doesn’t look like some seasoned mercenary or cunning soldier. She’s just a girl.
A girl—perhaps younger than me—had seized the moment of Constantine’s weakness and dared aim a gun at him.
She had done it knowing that it would mean certain death, that she would be giving up everything. I stare and stare at her body until we turn and she vanishes from view. Then I sit in silence, the image of her seared into my mind.
Just a girl, with no Skyhunter powers or Striker training.
She had still been braver than me.
At the palace, soldiers swarm furiously around the grounds. There are shouts in the streets and people clustered around the outer gates, onlookers trying to peek over the guards’ heads to catch sight of anything interesting happening within. As if they could get a glimpse of Constantine or any clue as to what his reaction to the attempted assassination was.
Inside, Constantine has been taken to his chambers, and a flurry of doctors surrounds him, along with the Chief Architect and Mayor Elland.
I’m careful to avoid them, my attention fixated on him as he snaps at a doctor administering a poultice to a cut he’d suffered on his arm during our escape from the Sun Dial. Elsewhere, the Chief Architect speaks softly to another of the Premier’s doctors, and Mayor Elland stands in a tight circle with his advisors, her face tight with concern.
For once, I wish I had a bond with more people. What are they thinking right now? Was this supposed to happen today?
Even if I hadn’t been there, it would have been a hopeless gamble. The would-be assassin was never close enough to get a good aim, and by the time she was, General Caitoman had been able to pull Constantine from behind my wings and away from immediate harm.
The girl was shot at least a dozen times. I heard one of the soldiers say it breathlessly as we arrived here. She’d been dead before she even hit the ground.
Again, I find myself dwelling on her still body. On how she threw herself so willingly into death.
“Cancel the rest of the games,” Caitoman is saying to him right now. He shakes his head at the Premier. “You’re in no condition to continue greeting the public, brother. You need rest, sleep, some nutrition to bring blood back through your body. You—”
“Tell me again to cancel my appearances,” Constantine says in a warning voice to his brother.
He hesitates, catching the dangerous quiet in the Premier’s voice. “Brother,” he begins again. It’s strange to hear this man, with all his cruel nature, try to sound concerned. “You know I’m right. You’re weak.”
“The games go on,” Constantine says.
The tone of his voice makes the entire room go quiet. Raina looks at him warily. The mayor stares at him from across the room, her lips tight. Constantine meets their gazes with his own fiery one before settling back on his brother.
Caitoman gives him a grim smile. “You’ve never liked taking orders from me, have you?” he says.
“I don’t take orders from my subordinates,” Constantine answers. He ignores his brother’s look and scans the rest of the room. When I reachout through our link to him, I hit a wall. He has pulled his defenses around himself so tightly that I can sense nothing except a veil of rage.
Caitoman just raises his hands and shrugs once. Then he looks around the room. “Leave him,” he says, nodding at his guards to open the chamber doors. “Let my brother rest.”
As I watch advisors file out, I can’t help the satisfaction that rises in me. Constantine looks fearsome on the surface—I can see the way his council members duck their heads as they leave, as if they’re terrified that the Premier will suddenly order their arrest and execution. They almost trip over their own feet in their rush to get out.
But I can feel the fear running through his bones, now leaking through the walls he’s attempted to put up. The assassination attempt surprised him. But most of all, his weakness on the steps today had taken him off guard. He knows that he’d betrayed himself before his entire public. He knows the word has already spread.
I can see his bloodshot eyes roaming the emptying room before settling on me.
Talin, he says through our bond.
