Shadow Fall (The Shadow Saga) (17 page)

“The record of your entrance into the World System was fabricated,” Grace explained. “You didn’t arrive at the Capital Orphanage until you were nearly six years old, on a day when a man with the designation 301-14-A was killed in battle. We don’t yet have all the details, but that man’s identity was appropriated for you, to keep your presence at the orphanage from being discovered.”

“Discovered by you?”

She nodded, “Or Napoleon Alexander, I suspect.”

“Who could do that?” he asked. “You would need access to the System’s central computer. Manual replacement of DNA, fingerprints, personal history…”

“There will be plenty of time to talk about all this,” Grace said. “But for now, we must go.”

“Go?” he asked. “Go where?”

She frowned, “The battle will soon finish, and it is time to withdraw. You are coming with me…aren’t you?”

“We’ve been through this, Grace,” 301 sighed. “Even if everything you say about me is true, there’s no place for me in Silent Thunder. Not after all I’ve done. You’re working so hard to convince me that I don’t belong in the World System, and maybe that’s true. But that may just mean I don’t belong anywhere.”

Her expression hardened, “So what then? You’ll stay with them? Continue to serve a maniacal tyrant who wants to destroy everything I love? Rub shoulders with the man who murdered my father? Look at me, Eli!”

301 complied, and paused at the look in her eyes. He had never seen her fury. As the wind blew through her hair, that fiery expression made her seem like something more than a human. Beautiful, powerful, fearless—in that moment, he had no problem seeing why she had ascended to her father’s position. She was a force—one to be reckoned with.

“Don’t walk away from me again, Eli. I know how you feel about me, I can see it in your eyes. The only excuse you have for not coming is your own cowardice.”

“You’re asking me to leave behind everything I have ever known—”

“No,” she insisted. “I’m asking you to accept who you are. I’m asking you to do what you know is right. You know who Napoleon Alexander is—what he is—and yet you can still serve him? Forget about
my
father. Napoleon Alexander murdered your parents, Eli! He destroyed your family and stole your life!”

“A family that I can’t even remember!” he yelled, and suddenly he lifted his Spectral Gladius between them as if to shield himself from the onslaught of her words. “I don’t remember
any
of it, Grace! So what am I supposed to do? This isn’t about cowardice. It’s about reality. I am what I am, and you can’t change me.”

“Eli—”

“Do not call me that,” he growled. Her countenance fell and she stepped backward, as stunned as if he had slapped her. “The boy you knew is dead. Elijah Charity…is dead. It’s time for you—for both of us—to move on.”

301 turned his back to her and took a deep breath.
This is the real world
, he thought,
not some fairytale. Sometimes there are no happy endings
. The light of his Spectral Gladius died and the blade retreated back within the hilt. “I’ll tell them you escaped. And though I know you won’t listen, I’ll warn you again that you should get out of Alexandria. I may not be able to spare you next time.”

“301, please,” Grace said. “Don’t go.”

He kept his eyes on the door, knowing that if he faced her again he might not be able to do what was necessary. “I’m sorry, Grace. But we are not meant to be together. We never were.” He made for the door to exit the roof, each step away from her more painful than the last.

“Eli,” Grace said, her voice quiet with a deep sorrow. “He burned your mother alive.”

301 froze mid-step. The world suddenly swayed beneath his feet as he passed halfway between the real world and the world of his visions. He saw the flames, the green eyes within, and felt an anguish the likes of which he had never known—an anguish he had no desire to remember. Yet despite his wish, Grace’s words triggered it, and opened him up to the pain of that moment.

Were the visions of fire actually memories of his mother’s death?

He violated his own intentions and turned back to Grace. An involuntary tear fell down his cheek, and he wiped it shamefully away.
Soldiers do not cry
, he reminded himself.
Emotion is weakness.
But the way she looked at him, so full of pity, made it seem like the event had only just happened. His mother had just died, and he wanted to spill forth all the tears that his soldier’s life had denied him. Why? He didn’t even know the woman. She had been dead for fifteen years!

Grace smiled weakly and began to approach him again. In that moment he knew: she had him. When she asked again, he would not be able to say no. Love was a gift he felt he didn’t deserve, and so he could turn away from it. But this grief, and the strangely powerful anger that accompanied it, he could not just push away. The world was out of balance. Justice had not been served.

And he would set it to rights.

But as Grace opened her mouth to speak again, the door behind 301 burst open and Derek Blaine’s voice cut through the silence, “Don’t move!”

Derek circled around 301 with his sidearm trained on Grace, and 301’s breath caught in his throat. It was over. Silent Thunder would retreat, and Grace would be kept here until she could be taken into custody. Then she would be forced to endure whatever Napoleon Alexander had planned for her, and knowing him the end would not come easy.

“Hands where I can see them!” Derek ordered.

Grace complied and slowly lifted her hands above her head. Strangely, she did not appear the slightest bit alarmed or worried at Derek’s arrival. She just continued to watch 301 with that same intense sadness, keeping him rooted in their last conversation.

He burned your mother alive.
A similar if not worse fate undoubtedly awaited Grace if she was taken by the World System. He would be forced to endure it, to watch as she was subjected to horror and death at the hands of the men he considered his allies. And he would do so without lifting a finger to help her.

No
, he thought suddenly.
That is something the System soldier would do. I am not just 301-14-A any more.
Before he had fully thought through the ramifications, his sidearm was drawn and trained on his partner.

Derek’s head turned slightly, and his eyes widened with shock, “Captain? What are you doing?”

“Stand down, Derek.”

“Are you crazy? We have orders to bring her in.”

“I have no intention of handing her over to be butchered by the MWR,” 301 said. “Lower your weapon.”

“Or what?”

“Derek, this is not a request. I am
ordering
you: lower your weapon!”

“Then you’d better be ready to shoot me, Captain,” Derek spat. “Because that’s the only way she is leaving this roof without me. I should have known better than to ignore what Liz said on the deck of that ship. You helped her escape from the palace, didn’t you? And now you’re trying to help her escape again. I don’t know what sort of spell she has you under—”

“I’m warning you, Derek! This is not a game to me!”

“Kneel, Sawyer!” Derek yelled, ignoring him. “Put your hands behind your head!”

Grace did not move, but her gaze shifted from 301 to Derek, and as it did so her mood shifted as well. The sadness and pity were gone, and the fire returned in full force. She stared at Derek Blaine with merciless eyes, “Do not speak to me,
murderer
.”

“Your father died in battle. It wasn’t personal.”

“It was personal to me.”

301 watched them, amazed that though Grace was the only one unarmed she still managed to be the most fearsome one on the roof. He would not have wanted to be the recipient of that glare. Derek, however, seemed to take it in stride.

“I have been hated by more powerful foes than you. But—even though he currently has a gun trained on me—the Specter Captain is my friend. I won’t allow you to continue dragging him down with your lies. So kneel…or die.”

“I tried to change him, it is true,” Grace said, and glanced briefly at 301. “But he is still so full of pride. Perhaps he is not the man I thought he was.”

He could hear the disappointment in her voice—as though part of her world had been shattered. Her words were like a punch to the gut. He opened his mouth to object, to explain that he had been about to abandon everything for her, but cut off as a rapid beeping sounded from the Master Dish control panel.

And then the device began to turn.

-X-

“Grand Admiral! The Master Dish is realigning!”

Donalson cursed under his breath, “Destroy it now! Fire!”

-X-

“What did you do?” 301 demanded, lowering his weapon at the momentary distraction.

“I’m sorry, 301,” Grace replied. “But you were not the only reason I came here tonight.”

He heard a familiar noise nearby, but by the time he realized what it was the rockets were shooting over his head. They struck the Master Dish and blew the entire roof apart.

14

T
HE SHOCKWAVE THREW
G
RACE
farther than she intended to go, and she slid hard into the ledge. She covered her head with her hands as debris from the explosion rained down on the roof, and then all was quiet.

She raised her head to peer through the clearing smoke and saw the ruins of the Master Dish scattered all over the roof. But it was not debris she sought. It was bodies. She had been closest to the blast and seemed unhurt, which was probably good news for the other two.

She got up slowly, limbs still shaky from the shock of being thrown across the roof, and began to search for any signs of life. She unclipped
Novus Vita
from her belt as a precaution, in case it was Blaine she found instead of 301.

301. She still thought of him that way, despite knowing he was Elijah Charity. What did that say about how he must view it? He had seemed so lost, so confused…so angry. Not at all the man she had fallen in love with while in captivity. But then, love was not based on conditions. This might be one of the greatest challenges of 301’s life, and if she wasn’t there for him who would be?

The smoke shifted, and she caught sight of a lump on the ground. She approached cautiously, until she made out the familiar lines of 301’s face. Then she rushed to where he lay and hit her knees beside him, drawing in a sharp gasp. Blood covered his face and his eyes were closed. She reached out and pressed two fingers to his neck, and sighed in relief. He was alive.

Grace leaned in closer to examine his wound. Something had delivered a glancing blow to the right side of his head, likely a piece of flying debris. It would need stitches, but he would survive.

Sudden movement caught her eye, and she looked up to see Derek Blaine emerge from the mists, the charred ruin that was once the Master Dish rising up like a sinister herald behind him. The white light of his Spectral Gladius gleamed brightly at his side, and he growled at her like a feral animal, “Step away from him, Sawyer.”

Grace rose and gripped her Gladius tightly. Her anger flared at the sight of him, her father’s killer, standing there so arrogantly while her father lay buried beneath the rubble of the Weapons Manufacturing Facility. That wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Jacob Sawyer had rebuilt the rebellion from the ground up. He was supposed to have been here, seeing through his plan until the moment of victory. But instead it was her, shouldered with responsibilities she had never prepared for, trying to hold together an old tapestry fraying at the seams.

And even if victory lay at the end of this journey, the vision of her father’s smiling face leading them into a new era of freedom was gone forever. Derek Blaine had shattered it with one stroke of his blade. He had taken one of her dearest dreams.

Now she would take something from him.

“Forgive me,” she whispered.

She lunged forward,
Novus Vita
igniting in a flash of white fire, and struck at Derek Blaine with so much anger that her skin itself felt aflame. She swung straight at his head, and for a moment she thought it was already over, that she had caught him off guard.

But Derek’s Gladius stopped
Novus Vita
just inches from his neck, and the lost momentum reverberated up her arm as if she had punched a brick wall. The late block threw off her center of balance, and she had to widen her stance to keep from tumbling past him. Then Blaine spun to deliver his counterstroke, a quick and precise cut aimed at her back. She turned and caught the blade with her own just before it sliced into her, and the dance began.

Derek Blaine was good—much better than she would have imagined knowing how long he had trained with the Gladius. He fought with a perfect balance of strength and speed, which she might have found admirable had she not been trying her hardest to kill him. Regardless, she still had the upper hand. She had been training with the Gladius while he had still been learning to load a sidearm, not to mention that he was not quite as refined in his movement.

“What did you do to him?” he demanded, pushing off of her. “What lies did you feed him to make him trust you?”

“Why use lies, when the truth is so much more powerful?”