Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(32)

I aim the weaponized arm upward and, with the embedded manual lever, trigger the cannon several times. The flashes of golden fusion energy careen toward the ceiling and shatter the transparent barrier holding the water back. Crouching, I cover my head with my arms, inhale deeply, and hold my breath.

Soldiers jump me, piling on top, covering me. Crushed and disoriented, I hear pounding water—like the downpour of a waterfall against rocks. Panicked cries cut off abruptly. Frigid liquid drenches my face and stings my skin. In seconds, I’m submerged. Bodies float off me.

I kick away from them and swim toward the surface, bumping into chairs and loose weapons, dodging flailing arms and legs. My hair swirls in my face. I kick as hard as I can, but the water just keeps coming, filling the room. The harder I swim, the faster I sink. My temples throb as I ache for oxygen. Bubbles of my breath escape, but I won’t. Suddenly that’s as clear as dawn.



My lungs burn. I wheeze and retch, vomiting water. It comes out of my nose, too, and flows down my cheeks into my ears and hair. I spit it out, almost choking on it, and gasp for air. Halos of bright white light blind me and sting my eyes. With some effort I’m able to lift one arm to shield my face, but my muscles feel as if they’re tearing. I grimace and moan at the ache. I’m trembling, and my fingers are tinted blue. I’m nearly frozen solid. My armor is gone. Only the uniform the machines created for me remains.

With my other arm, I feel around on the hard surface beneath me. Smooth metal. I turn my head a fraction. Shooting pain in my neck makes me pause. My breath comes out in watery pants. When I resume moving, I go slower, until my cheek rests against the cold metal surface of a laboratory table that hovers legless above the floor.

I recognize the room, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling held up by stone pillars. It’s the morgue located beneath the Round Ballroom of Sword Palace. Hovering bright lights center over a hall full of floating examination tables. There are so many hovering units—intended to serve as a triage ward if there were ever an attack on the Sword Palace. Now it contains a legion of drowned soldiers and Census agents. Not all of them fit on the units. Bodies are stacked in piles. Glass walls enclose the morgue’s hall on the far side—the front. Toward the back, where I am, it’s all stone.

I’ve been here only a few times before. The first was when I snuck down here to see my grandmother, the Fated Sword, before she was set to be interned. I was very young—no more than seven. The circumstances had been unusual. Firstborn aristocracy usually live well past their hundredth birthdays. With our advanced medical technology, such as it is, they look and feel young for decades. This wasn’t the case with my grandmother. She’d been relatively young, and sick on and off for spells, but no one would say why. Then she’d died quite suddenly in her sleep. The Stones of the Sword Palace whispered about poison—my grandfather and grandmother hadn’t been close. Theirs wasn’t a love match, much like my parents’ marriage. They say she outlived her usefulness. It makes me wonder if any of them knew how to love.

Maybe no one ever loved them, so they didn’t know how?

Othala didn’t allow me to attend my grandmother’s formal wake—it had been for firstborns only. So instead I brought my grandmother a single red rose and said my good-byes to her here, without Othala’s permission. I didn’t stay long. The Sword Palace is ancient, and even though this part has been modernized, it still has a medieval architecture that makes it easy to believe that ghosts reside within its stone walls. And now the room is overflowing with bloated, wet corpses.

Am I dead?

Every cell of my body aches. If this is death, it’s not what I’d hoped. The only thing I like about it so far is that it’s quiet. Nothing stirs, except me, but I’m not merely stirring, I’m quaking.

I need to get warm—get to a safe place.

I scan the other side of the room, but the exam table next to mine demands my attention. The unmistakable, waterlogged profile of Firstborn Agent Kipson Crow—His Grace, the ex-Census warlord and maniacal tyrant—lies rigid, possibly from rigor mortis, beside me, under intense circles of lights and a mortician’s embalming apparatus.

Agent Crow’s skin is even bluer than mine. Wet clumps of ashen hair rest in swirls on his cheeks and forehead. The kill tallies marring his face and neck seem darker, more pronounced. He isn’t breathing.

Did he drown? Did I? I feel as if I had—I feel mostly dead. Stiff and icy. To-the-bone cold.

It takes me a few tries, but I ease my leg off the side of the metal table. The rest of my body slides with it. Water drips from my Black-O uniform. My fingers catch the edge of the dull-silver slab, and I grip it until my feet feel steady on the floor. Shuddering wracks my body. My teeth rattle. I glance at Agent Crow beside me. His eyes are closed, his blue lips frozen in a condescending snarl, showing his metal teeth.

Squish. Water makes my boots burble. I inch a step, still holding on to my tabletop. I let go, shift abruptly, and catch myself on Agent Crow’s examination slab. I haul myself across the small aisle to him and steady myself against the table’s edge. Poking his shoulder, I ready myself to shove away if he stirs. He doesn’t. I press my fingertip to his damp eyelid, pull it back, and reveal his pale eyeball’s dead stare. When I snatch my hand away, it remains open—a sinister stare.

The thrill of vengeance percolates inside me. This can’t be happening. He’s dead! I’ve beaten him! I’ve won!