Glass Sword (30 page)

“Everyone ready?” Farley shouts from the rear of the jet. Her hand hovers next to the ramp release, eager to press it.

“Form up!” Cal barks, sounding a bit too much like a drill sergeant. But we respond, falling into the ordered lines he taught us, with Nanny at the head. He takes her side, falling into the role of her most lethal bodyguard.

“Let’s make some bad decisions,” Farley says. I can almost hear her smiling as she pushes the release.

A hiss—then gears turn, wires pulse, and the back of the jet yawns open to greet the last morning some of us will ever see.

A dozen soldiers wait a respectable distance from the Blackrun, their formation tight and practiced. At the sight of the newblood masquerading as their king, they snap into stiff, perfect salutes. One hand to the heart, one knee to the ground. The world looks darker behind the shield of my flight helmet, but it doesn’t hide the clouded gray of their military uniforms, or the squat, unassuming compound behind them. No bronze gates, no diamondglass walls—there aren’t even windows. Just a single, flat brick of concrete stretching out into the abandoned fields of this wasteland.
Corros Prison.
I allow myself one glance back
at the craft and the runway stretching into the distance where shadows and radiation dance. I can just see a pair of airjets idling in the gloom, their metal bellies full and round. Prison planes, used to transport the captured. And if all goes to plan, they’ll see action again soon.

We approach Corros in silence, trying to march in step. Cal flanks Nanny, one fist permanently clenched at his side, while I trail just behind, with Cameron on my left and Shade on the right. Farley and Kilorn keep to the center of the formation, never letting go of their guns. The air itself seems electrified, coursing with danger.

It is not death I fear, not anymore. I’ve faced dying too many times to be afraid of it. But the prison itself, the thought of being captured, forced into chains, turned into the Queen’s mindless puppet—
that
I cannot bear. I would rather die a hundred times than face such a fate. So would any of us.

“Your Highness,” one of the soldiers says, daring to look up at the person he believes to be king. The badge on his breast, three crossed swords in red metal, mark him as a captain. The bars on his shoulders, bright red and blue, can only be his house colors.
House Iral.
“Welcome to Corros Prison.”

As instructed, Nanny looks straight through him, waving one pale hand in dismissal. That should be enough to convince anyone of her supposed identity. But as the soldiers stand, the captain’s eyes flick over us, noting our own uniforms—and the lack of Sentinels accompanying the royal sovereign. He hesitates on Cal, one razored glance focusing on his helmet. He says nothing, however, and his soldiers fall into formation next to us, their footsteps echoing with ours.
Haven, Osanos, Provos, Macanthos, Eagrie
—I note the familiar colors on a few uniforms. The last, House Eagrie, the House of Eyes, is our first target. I tug on Cameron’s sleeve, nodding gently toward the bearded blond man with
darting eyes and white-and-black stripes on his shoulder.

She inclines her head, and her fists ball at her sides in quiet concentration. The raid has begun.

The captain takes Nanny’s other side, stepping in front of me so smoothly I barely notice.
A silk.
He has the same tanned skin, gleaming black hair, and angled features of Sonya Iral and her grandmother, the sleekly dangerous Panther. I can only hope the captain is not so talented at intrigue as she is, or else this is going to be much more difficult than expected.

“Your specifications are nearly completed, Your Highness,” he says. There’s a prickling air to his words. “Every cell block is individually sealed, as instructed, and the next shipment of Silent Stone arrives tomorrow with the new unit of guards.”

“Good,” Nanny replies, sounding uninterested. Her pace quickens a little, and the captain adjusts in kind, keeping up with her. Cal does the same, and we follow. It looks like a chase.

While the Security Center of Harbor Bay was a beautiful structure, a vision of carved stone and sparkling glass, Corros is as gray and hopeless as the waste around it. Only the entrance, a single, black-iron door set flush against the wall, breaks the monotony of the prison. No hinges, no lock or handle—the door looks like an abyss, like a gaping mouth. But I feel electricity, bleeding around the edges, originating from a small square panel set next to it.
The key switch.
Just like Cameron said. The key itself dangles from a black chain at Iral’s neck, but he doesn’t pull it loose.

There are cameras too, beady little eyes trained on the door. They don’t bother me in the slightest. I care more about the silk captain and his soldiers, who have us surrounded, and keep us marching forward.

“I’m afraid I don’t know you, Pilot, or the rest of you for that
matter,” the captain prods, leaning so he can see past Nanny and fix Cal with a flint-eyed stare. “Would you identify yourself?”

I clench my fist to keep my fingers from shaking. Cal does no such thing, and barely turns his head, reluctant to even acknowledge the prison captain. “Pilot suits me fine, Captain Iral.”

Iral bristles, as expected. “The Corros facility is under my command and my protection,
Pilot
. If you think I’m going to let you inside without—”

“Without what, Captain?” Every word out of Nanny’s mouth cuts like a knife, slicing through the deepest parts of me. The captain stops cold and flushes silver, swallowing an ill-advised retort. “Last I checked, Corros belongs to Norta. And who does Norta belong to?”

“I am only doing my job, Your Highness,” he sputters, but the battle is already lost. He puts a hand to his heart again, saluting. “The queen charged me with defense of this prison, and I only wish to obey her commands, as well as yours.”

Nanny nods. “Then I
command
you to open the door.”

He bows his head, giving way. One of his soldiers, an older woman with a severe, silver braid and square jaw, steps forward, laying one hand on the iron door. I don’t need the black-and-silver stripes on her shoulder to know she’s of House Samos. The iron shifts beneath her magnetron touch, splintering into jagged pieces that retract with sharp efficiency. A blast of cold air hits us head-on, smelling faintly of damp and something sour.
Blood.
But the entrance hall beyond is made of stark, blinding-white tiles, each one without a hint of stain. Nanny is the first to step inside, and we follow.

Next to me, Cameron trembles, and I nudge her softly. I would hold her hand if I could. I can only imagine how terrible this must be—I would tear myself apart before returning to Archeon. And yet,
she returns to her own prison for me.

The entrance is strangely empty. No pictures of Maven, no banners. This place has no one to impress, and needs no decoration. There are only whirring cameras. Captain Iral’s soldiers quickly retake their posts, flanking each of the four doors around us. The one behind, the black, shuts with the earsplitting screech of metal sliding against metal. The doors to the left and right are painted silver, and gleam in the harsh prison light. The one ahead, the one we must pass through, is a sickening bloodred.

But Iral stops short, gesturing to one of the silver doors. “I assume you’d like to see Her Highness, the queen?”

I am very glad for our helmets, or else the captain would see horror on every single face.
Elara is here.
My stomach flips at the thought of facing her, and I’m almost sick inside my helmet. Even Nanny pales and her voice sticks, despite her best efforts. I feel Kilorn at my back, inches from me. He is silent, but I hear his meaning all the same.
Run. Run. Run.
But running is not something I can do anymore.

“Her Highness is here?” Cal bites out. For a second, I’m afraid he’s forgotten himself. “Still?” he adds, the afterthought of a lie. But suspicion flares in the captain all the same. I see it like an explosion in his eyes.

Blessed Nanny laughs aloud, her forced chuckle cold and detached. “Mother has always done as she likes, you know this,” she says to Cal, scolding him. “But I am here on other business, Captain. No need to bother her.”

The captain offers up an obliging smile. It pulls at his face like a sneer, twisting his fine features into something ugly. “Very well, sir.”

Kilorn taps my arm, his touch urgent. He sees what I see.
The captain no longer believes us.
Turning, I take Cameron by the elbow, and
squeeze. Her next signal. Under my touch, her muscles tighten. She’s pouring everything she has into blocking Eagrie’s ability, to keep him from seeing what’s coming. Confusion crosses his face, but he shakes it off, trying to focus on us. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him.

“And what have you come here to do?” Iral presses on, still wearing his pointed, demon grin. He takes one languid step toward us. It will be his last. “Remove your helmets, if you please.”

“No,” I tell him.

With an easy breath, I take hold of the cameras pointed down at all of us. As Iral opens his mouth to shout, I exhale, and the cameras explode into a twist of sparks like fireworks. The lights go next, flashing on and off, plunging us into pitch-black and striking brightness in succession. We are prepared for this. The soldiers of Corros are not.

Flame races along the tile, casting strange, dancing light across the white. It bars every door, jumping up to the ceiling, effectively locking the soldiers in with us and the flickering darkness. The Osanos soldier, a nymph, hastily leaches moisture from the air, but not enough to combat Cal’s crackling fire. A stoneskin rushes at me, his flesh turning to rock before my eyes, but he hits the wall known as Nix Marsten. Darmian joins in, and the two invulnerable newbloods set to taking the soldier apart. The others fare just as well. Ketha obliterates the Provos telky, planting an explosion in his heart that rips him from the inside out. The Haven soldier does her best to combat my darkness, using her ability to collapse the shadows, pooling them into a black mist that suddenly erupts with blinding, brilliant light. Even our helmets do nothing to stop the glare, and I have to shut my eyes. When I open them, the Haven is on the ground, with a deep gash in her neck. She coughs silver blood onto the tile, and my brother stands over her, knife
in hand. Behind him, Eagrie drops to his knees, clutching his head and screaming.

“I can’t see!” he weeps, tearing at his own eyes. Blood joins his painful tears. “I can’t see anything, what’s happening?! What is this?! What are you?!” he shouts to no one.

Cameron is the first to pull off her helmet. She has never killed a man before, not even in her escape. I see it all over her face, in the horror twisting through her. But she doesn’t let go. Out of bravery or malice, I can’t say. Her silence takes hold, until the man on the ground stops crying, stops clawing, stops breathing. He dies with his eyes wide open, staring at nothing, blind and deaf in his last moments. It must feel like being buried alive.

It’s over in a minute or so. Twelve Silver soldiers dead on the tile, some burned, some electrocuted, some shot, some with their heads bashed in. Ketha’s kills are the messiest. An entire wall is splattered with her handiwork, and she pants noisily, trying not to look at what she’s done. Her explosive ability is gruesome at best.

Only Lory is wounded, having taken on the magnetron with Gareth. She got a shard of metal in the arm, but nothing too bad. Farley is the first to her side, and pulls out the makeshift blade, letting it clatter to the floor. Lory doesn’t so much as grunt in pain.

“We forgot bandages,” Farley mutters, putting one hand over the bleeding cut.

“
You
forgot bandages,” Ada replies, pulling a small swatch of white fabric from inside her suit. She expertly ties it around Lory’s arm. It stains in an instant.

Kilorn chuckles to himself, the only one to enjoy a joke at a time like this. To my relief, he looks perfectly all right, focusing on reloading his gun. The barrel smokes, and there are at least two bodies riddled
with his bullets. Anyone else would think him unaffected, but I know better. Despite the laughter, Kilorn finds no joy in this bloody work.

Neither does Cal. He bends over the dead Captain Iral, gingerly taking the black key from his neck.
I won’t kill them,
he told me once, before we stormed the Security Center of Harbor Bay. He broke his own promise, and it’s wounded him more deeply than any battle.

“Nanny,” he mutters, unable to look away from Iral. With shaking fingers, he closes the captain’s eyes forever. Behind him, Nanny focuses on Iral’s face, staring at him. It only takes a moment before her features match his own, and I breathe a small sigh of relief. Even a fake Maven is nearly too much for me to bear.

A hiss of static crackles at Iral’s belt. His radio—the command center attempting contact. “Captain Iral! Captain, what’s going on down there? We lost visual.”

“Just a malfunction,” Nanny replies with Iral’s voice. “Might spread, might not.”

“Received, Captain.”

Cameron tears her eyes away from the dead Eagrie. She lays a hand on the red door.

“This way,” she says, almost inaudible over the drip of blood and the sighs of the dying.

I feel the prison’s command center like a nerve, pulsing, controlling all the cameras in the facility. It pulls at me, dragging me through the sharp turns of its hallways. The corridors are white tile, just like the entrance, but not so clean. If I look closely, I can see blood between the tiles, turned brown by time. Someone tried to wash away whatever happened, but they weren’t thorough enough.
Red blood is so hard to clean up.
I see the queen in this, in whatever nightmares she’s concocted deep in the bowels of Corros.

She’s here somewhere, continuing her frightening work. She might even be coming for us now, alerted to a disturbance.
I hope she is. I hope she turns the corner right now, so I can kill her.

But instead of Queen Elara, we round the bend to find another door with a large
D
on it and no lock. Cameron runs to it, her knife in hand, and gets to work prying at the switch panel. It comes loose in a second, and her fingers plunge into the wiring.