At my feet, a young man hisses out a breath. He keeps a hand pressed to his chest, putting pressure on what must be an internal wound. I lock eyes with him, noting his uniform and his face. Older than me, classically handsome beneath streaks of silver blood. Black-and-gold house colors. House Provos, a telky. It doesn’t take him long to recognize me. His brows raise a little in realization, and he struggles for another breath. Beneath my gaze, he shakes. He’s afraid of me.
“What happened?” I ask him. In the din of the hall, my voice is barely more than a whisper.
I don’t know why he responds. Maybe he thinks I’ll kill him if he doesn’t. Maybe he wants someone to know what’s really going on.
“Corvium,” he murmurs back. The Provos officer wheezes, fighting to push out the words. “Scarlet Guard. It’s a massacre.”
Fear shivers in my voice. “For who?”
He hesitates, and I wait.
Finally he draws a ragged breath.
“Both.”
FIFTEEN
Cameron
I didn’t know what could possibly spur the exiled prince to action—until King Maven began his bleeding coronation tour. Clearly a ruse, definitely another plot. And it was headed straight for us. Everyone suspected an attack. And we had to strike first.
Cal was right about one thing. Taking the walls of Corvium was our best plan of action.
So he did it two days ago.
Working in conjunction with the Colonel and rebels already inside the fortress city, Cal led a strike force of Scarlet Guard and newblood soldiers. The blizzard was their cover, and the shock of an assault served them well. Cal knew better than to ask me to join. I waited back in Rocasta with Farley. Both of us paced by the radio, eager for news. I fell asleep, but she shook me awake before dawn, grinning. We held the walls. Corvium never saw it coming. The city boiled in chaos.
And we could no longer stay behind. Not even me. Admittedly, I wanted to go. Not to fight, but to see what victory actually looked like. And of course to get one step closer to the Choke, my brother, and some semblance of purpose.
So here I am, shrouded in the tree line with the rest of Farley’s unit, looking out at black walls and blacker smoke. Corvium burns from within. I can’t see much, but I know the reports. Thousands of Red soldiers, some spurred on by the Guard, turned on their officers as soon as Cal and the Colonel attacked. The city was already a powder keg. Fitting that a fire prince lit the fuse and let it explode. Even now, a day later, the fighting continues as we take the city, street by street. The occasional burst of gunfire breaks the relative silence, making me flinch.
I look away, trying to see farther than human reach. The sky here is dark already, the sun obscured by a cloudy gray sky. To the northwest, in the Choke, the clouds are black, heavy with ash and death. Morrey is out there, somewhere. Even though Maven released the underage conscripts, his unit hasn’t moved, according to our last intelligence reports. They’re the farthest away, deep in a trench. And the Scarlet Guard happens to be currently occupying the place his unit would return to. I try to block out the image of my twin huddled against the cold, his uniform too big, his eyes dark and sunken. But the thought is burned into my brain. I turn away, back to Corvium, to the task at hand. I need to keep my focus here. The sooner we take the city, the sooner we can get the conscripts moving. And then what? I ask myself. Send him home? To another hellhole?
I have no answers for the voice in my head. I can barely stomach the idea of sending Morrey back to the factories of New Town, even if it means sending him back to our parents. They’re my next goal, after I get my brother back. One impossible dream after another.
“Two Silvers just threw a Red soldier from a tower.” Ada squints into a pair of binoculars. Next to her, Farley remains still, arms calmly folded across her chest.
Ada continues to scan the walls, reading signals. In the gray light, her golden skin takes on a sallow hue. I hope she isn’t getting sick.
“They’re solidifying their position, retreating and regrouping into the central sector, behind the second ring wall. I calculate fifty at least,” she murmurs.
Fifty. I try to swallow my fear. I tell myself there’s no reason to be afraid. There’s an army between us and them. And no one is stupid enough to try to force me anywhere I don’t want to go. Not now, not with months of training behind me.
“Casualties?”
“A hundred of the Silver garrison dead. Most of the injured escaped with the rest into the wilderness. Probably to Rocasta. And there were less than a thousand in the city. Many had defected to the rebelling houses before Cal’s assault.”