All around me, the arena explodes in chaos. People are on their feet, shouting their disbelief and anger, throwing things down at the center of the stage. They are the other rebels that must have worked with Mayor Elland and the rest of the rebellion, other teams unknown to me, those simmering in unrest throughout the city, waiting for a signal, hoping for a chance to take down the Premier. They are the reason why I’dfelt the crowds were uneasy today. They’ve all gathered here, hoping initially to explode in a rebellion against the Premier. But instead, they have witnessed the deaths of two of their leaders.
This is a part of Mayor Elland’s plans.
I stare, numbed, around the arena at the unrest stirring to life before me. I remember that the rebellion is larger than I think. The edges of the Karensa Federation are beginning to fray, and for the first time, I see it for myself here, in the agitated crowds.
Mayor Elland was right. The rebellion hadn’t failed after all. She has simply built up the silo of gunpowder and then dropped a match in it.
Constantine’s voice reappears in my mind. In it, I hear something raw and cold and vicious. It is the sound of a man who has just killed the engineer of his entire empire. It is the sound of someone who has just ordered the execution of a brother he had loved. Who is now truly alone.
I do what I want, Constantine tells me. His voice seems to bleed.
The people will rip your city apart for this, I tell him.
I can almost see the tight, bitter smile on his face as he answers:Let them.
This is why he isn’t here today—he knew the rebellion was set up for this, that I would be a part of it. He wanted me to see it happen before my own eyes. He wants me to know how stupid it was for anyone to challenge his regime. That even his Chief Architect—even his own brother—won’t be spared.
And only then do I see the soldiers swarming the bottom gates around the arena. They are sealing them off. The gates are sliding closed, even as more and more scarlet-clad troops pour into the arena. Hundreds. No, thousands of them. With them come Ghosts, gnashing theiroverextended teeth in fury. At the sight of them, the stands still, then turn louder. I see some people starting to climb over others as they realize what is about to happen.
I’m sorry we have to end like this, Talin, Constantine says to me.But it is what it is.
Too late, I sense a person at my back. I whirl on the figure, but already I feel the stab of something sharp and strong in my neck. A pain hits my veins like nothing else I’ve ever felt before. Not even during my transformation. Not even when I saw the prisoner meant to be my mother tortured before me. It burns through my body like liquid fire.
I collapse to my hands and knees. It’s poison. I know it. It surges through me. My vision blurs. I look around at the chaotic arena and sense my bond with Constantine shudder.
Memories flash before my eyes. I think of my mother, my father, Basea. Corian. The Strikers. Red. The panic in me rises to a fever pitch, and I try in vain to command my poisoned limbs to react, but I can’t.
Maybe my mother is already dead too. Maybe Mayor Elland had been lying, after all. Maybe Constantine has ordered her killed, just like Raina’s family.
Around the arena, the soldiers take their positions. They open fire.
Through my hazy vision, I see someone else suddenly barrel into the person standing over me. Someone with metallic-silver hair, eyes so dark blue they look black.
Red?
I think I am dreaming, but I hold up my hand to his face anyway. He’s saying something to me. It takes me another second to understand his accented Maran.
“Your mother’s with us, Talin,” he’s saying. “She’s safe.”
My mother? It can’t be true. I try to focus on his face, but there’s too much happening around me. Then the world is fading away, and I drop into a maw of darkness, the screams around the arena still echoing in my mind.
33
RED
Everything around us seems to be a blur—fires in the streets where only a day earlier there had been celebrations, flags and banners burning where before red paper had rained down in festive strings. All of Cardinia has descended into chaos. The rebels that Talin had promised may have lost their leaders, but that has not kept them from bursting out into the city. The unrest that we had sensed when we first arrived in the capital has exploded into a full-blown revolution. There are soldiers on every corner, and what seems like every Ghost in the entire Federation has been released into the city, jaws open and milky eyes searching, ears tuned toward any human nearby.
Talin does not move. She does not speak through our bond. She lies limply in my arms as our carriage rushes us back to the estate of Mayor Elland, the woman who found us and fetched us from the damaged prison.
I shake her, shouting at her, trying to get her to stay awake, but her head only lolls to one side, her eyes unfocused as we jostle up the path to the mayor’s gate.
She’s going to die. What did Constantine’s soldier inject her with? Istare in horror at Talin’s face, the bluish hue of her lips and the tips of her ears, utterly helpless.
The gate opens for us, then quickly closes. Guards swarm the path protectively behind us. Several servants rush immediately toward the carriage as it comes to a halt in front of the estate. But even though Talin is the one barely conscious, no one dares to approach her.
At last, I see Mayor Elland rushing down the steps and hurrying toward us. “Aside, aside!” she says impatiently as I step out of the carriage with Talin in my arms. Beside the mayor runs a young woman in a lab coat, one of the Chief Architect’s former assistants.
And with them, her white hair pulled tightly back, her broken arm still in a sling, is Talin’s mother, rushing to be with her daughter.
