Not like the strongarms.
I still feel it, what I did to them.
What I did to every single person I ever killed.
The memories make me dizzy with shame. All for Morrey, all to survive. But no more.
I don’t have to be a murderer alongside everything else.
He clutches at me, eyes rolling in terror. “The Scarlet Guard,” he hisses, holding me close. “Cam, we have to run.”
“You’re safe; you’re with us now. They can’t hurt you, Morrey!”
But instead of calming down, his fear triples. Morrey’s grip on me tightens as his head whips back and forth, taking stock of Farley’s soldiers. “Do they know what you are? Cam, do they know?”
Shame bleeds into confusion. I push back from him a little, to get a better look at his face. He breathes heavily. “What I am?”
“They’ll kill you for it. The Scarlet Guard will kill you for what you are.”
Each word hits me like a hammer. And then I realize my brother isn’t the only one still afraid. The rest of his unit, the other teenagers, cluster together for safety, every one of them keeping clear of the Guard soldiers. Farley meets my eye from a few feet away, just as puzzled as I am.
Then I see her from my brother’s point of view. See them all for what he’s been told to see.
Terrorists. Murderers. The reason they were conscripted in the first place.
I try to pull Morrey into a hug, try to whisper an explanation.
He just goes cold in my arms. “You’re one of them,” he spits, looking at me with so much anger and accusation my knees buckle. “You’re Scarlet Guard.”
My soul fills with dread.
Maven took Mare’s brother.
Did he take mine too?
SIXTEEN
Mare
I can’t see Corvium through the low cloud cover. I stare anyway, my eyes glued on the eastern horizon stretching out behind us. The Scarlet Guard took the city. They control it now. We had to skirt around, giving the hostile city a wide berth. Maven is doing his best to keep it quiet; even he can’t hide such massive defeat. I wonder how the news will land across the kingdom. Will Reds celebrate? Will Silvers retaliate? I remember the riots that followed other attacks by the Scarlet Guard. Of course there will be repercussions. Corvium is an act of war. Finally, the Scarlet Guard has planted a flag that cannot simply be torn down.
My friends are so close I feel as if I could run to them. Tear the manacles off, kill the Arven guards, jump from the transport and disappear into the gray gloom, sprinting through the bare winter forest. In the daydream, they wait for me outside the walls of a broken fortress. The Colonel, his eye crimson, his weathered face and the gun on his hip a comfort like nothing else. Farley with him, bold and tall and resolute as I remember. Cameron, her silence a shield rather than a prison. Kilorn, familiar as my own two hands. Cal, angry and broken as I am, the embers of his rage ready to burn all thoughts of Maven from my mind. I imagine leaping into their arms, begging them to take me away, take me anywhere. Take me to my family, take me home. Make me forget.
No, not forget. It would be a sin to forget my imprisonment. A waste. I know Maven as no one else does. I know the holes in his brain, the pieces he can never make fit. And I’ve seen his court splinter firsthand. If I can escape, if I can be rescued, I can do some good still. I can make my fool’s bargain worth the terrible cost—and I can start to right so many wrongs.
Even though the transport windows are tightly sealed, I smell smoke. Ash. Gunpowder. The metallic, sour bite of a century of blood. The Choke nears, closer with every passing second as Maven’s convoy speeds west. I hope my nightmares of this place were worse than the reality.
Kitten and Clover are still at my sides, their hands gloved and flat upon their knees. Ready to grab me, ready to hold me down. The other guards, Trio and Egg, perch above, on the transport skeleton, harnessed to the moving vehicle. A precaution, now that we’re so close to the war zone. Not to mention a few miles from a city occupied by revolution. All four remain vigilant as ever. Both to keep me imprisoned—and to keep me safe.
Outside, the forest lining the last miles of the Iron Road thins into nothing. Naked branches fall away to reveal hard earth barely worthy of snow. The Choke is an ugly place. Gray dirt, gray skies, blending so perfectly I don’t know where the land ends and sky begins. I almost expect to hear explosions in the distance. Dad said you could always hear the bombs, even from miles away. I suppose that isn’t the case anymore, not if Maven’s gambit succeeds. I’m ending a war that millions died for. Just to keep killing under another name.