Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(109)

From inside it, I hear screams.

The Springer horns fade out.

On either side of the clearing, no one moves.

With one gesture, I have demonstrated not only the ultimate power on this battlefield, but the willingness to use it. The Springers have no choice but to understand—if I’m willing to kill my own kind, I’m willing to kill them, too.

I am the wind…I am death.

We all stand there, motionless. We listen to the screams fade, then die out.

The fire roars on. The machine that was made to build cities, then converted to kill, is now a colossus of flame and smoke.

Aramovsky stares at it blankly. He prepared well for this battle, far better than I expected. He had his people salvage spiders. He acquired weapons that gave him the advantage. He had children repair a machine that looked like it was rusted and long since worthless. He was led into a trap, but in the end, he might have won anyway.

Three of the six spiders at his disposal are out of the fight. The Springers have probably reloaded their carts by now, and will assuredly take out at least one more spider if not all three. Aramovsky is vastly outnumbered. And his weapon of awe—the one thing the Springers could not possibly bring down with flying boulders—burns like the biggest bonfire ever created, the crew of four people inside it turning into ash.

People that I killed. What have I done? I make choices, and people die.



Bishop brushes past me. He’s trying hard to hide a limp. Bleeding, his face swollen and cut, his coveralls ripped and torn, he squares his shoulders and stands in front of Aramovsky’s spider.

“Knights, hear me,” he shouts. “You voted for Aramovsky, but he is false. Everyone he left behind was to be sacrificed to the Grownups, so they could be overwritten. You are here only because there is no Grownup waiting to erase your mind. You are expendable.”

He spits that last word with a power I didn’t know he possessed, with so much venom it makes my hair stand on end. But he’s not done talking.

“No one else has to die. The Springers showed Em how to kill the red mold. We will have food, all we can eat. Em did that, not Aramovsky. She killed my creator. She saved my life. I have fought beside Em. I have bled with Em. She is honorable. She is brave. She is willing to sacrifice for the greater good. She is not a knight, but she is everything we knights aspire to be. If you want to fight the Springers, you’ll have to go through her. And to get to her, you’ll have to go through me.”

Bishop can barely stand, yet his words carry thunder. Where is the spoiled boy who bullied anyone who disagreed with him? That person was a child in a grown man’s body, but—like me—that child is gone.

And more than that…he’s bluffing. His legs tremble. He couldn’t fight one young circle-star, let alone all of them. This time, though, it isn’t about Bishop’s physical presence. The person who doesn’t like to talk is ending this with his words.

The spider on the left: a circle-star lowers her bracelet. Next to her, a circle-star boy takes his hands off the cannon’s controls and steps back. The spider crew on the right does the same. The little gear girl driving Aramovsky’s spider swings a leg over the rail and descends, abandoning him.



Aramovsky watches them all, eyes cold and consumed with rage.

He’s lost. He knows it.

A tap on my arm. It’s Barkah.

“Hem.” He gestures toward Aramovsky. “Move.”

We do. Barkah and I walk to Aramovsky’s spider. I climb the rungs. I stand before the red-robed “leader” of our people. Barkah climbs up as well, then stands next to me, shoulder to shoulder. Human and Springer together, facing down a common enemy.

Aramovsky sneers at me. “The food doesn’t matter, you gullible idiot. Don’t you understand? They…aren’t…human. This war will happen now, or it will happen later. Someday they will come for us. They will kill us because we…aren’t…them. And if you’re still alive, you’ll know you sold out your own people to these monsters.”

“The only monster here is you,” I say. “No more fighting. No more death.”

Aramovsky’s chest heaves. There is a scream inside him, a scream that has no voice, no home. I know he is thinking the same thing I thought when he took the spear from me, that he can run me through, fight to keep what he believes is his and his alone.

Slowly, gently, Barkah draws the knife given to him by O’Malley. The knife with the double-ring made of red stones. The knife with the blade as long as my forearm. The Springer prince keeps the knife at his side. The tip points down, not at Aramovsky, but the message is clear.

Aramovsky stares at it, eyes wide. Threatening an unarmed person is one thing—facing an armed opponent is another.

“Barkah and I are in this together,” I say. “You attack one of us, you attack both of us. You wanted to kill Springers, Aramovsky? Well, here’s your chance. If you’re going to fight, then do something with that spear besides just pose with it.”



The fingers of his bracelet hand twitch. Maybe he’s wondering if he can fire twice before one of us gets to him. But I don’t think he’ll try. For him, the bracelet and the spear are little more than props. He is a leader, yes, but he is no warrior. When the time for speeches is past, when he must kill or be killed, Aramovsky’s conviction turns to cowardice.