Rebel Born (Secondborn #3)(35)

Claws extend from the flesh-covered fingertips of the Black-O soldiers below us. They scramble up the wall. I use what’s left of the fusion power in my weapon to kill as many as I can. When Cherno reaches the barrel-vaulted ceiling, I’m forced to drop my weapon and clutch him with both arms. My legs wrap around his waist. My cheek rests against his scaly flesh. It’s cool like armor, but softer and suppler, like butterfly wings, with scales and ribs that refract the light and appear iridescent.

At the high point of the ceiling, Cherno punches his fist against the trapdoor, almost dislodging me with the jolts. My feet dangle.

“Hold on tighter,” he grunts.

I grab him more firmly, and he heaves against the trapdoor. The hinges grind and shriek, but the stone door opens like a hatch. Cherno reaches his palms up onto the floor above and pulls us out of the morgue. I let go and tumble onto the sturdy floor. I crawl to the trapdoor and force it closed, pushing with all my might. It falls shut with a bang. Sprawling on top of it, I pant and stare up at the rosette-shaped glass ceiling a couple of stories above me. Moonlight shines on my face. It must be dark in here, but my eyes compensate for the lack of light.

We’re in the Round Ballroom, aptly named for its shape. It’s near my former wing of the Sword Palace. The trapdoor lies at the core of the marble dance floor. Inlaid with intricate glass tiles, it looks like the center of a stained-glass rosette. Few guests or residents have known about the door as they glided across the ballroom at one of Mother’s lavish soirées. They’d comment on the clever way the pattern on the floor reflected the light of the eight stained-glass rosette windows ringing the room, and of course, the one forming the ceiling.

Cherno pants as he climbs to his feet. The trapdoor jolts upward, and I’m nearly thrown before it closes again.

“Cherno!” I squeak.

He runs to one of the curved silk settees in the room. With a powerful shove, he sends it gliding across the dance floor, scattering the round bolsters. I crab-walk backward off the trapdoor just before the divan settles onto it.

The enormous crystal chandelier above us glows golden, dispelling the gray with brilliant color. “You’re alive,” Kipson Crow, incredulous, calls from the balcony above us.

What I see next makes me question my reality. Two figures, both of whom I know to be dead—one by cyanide poisoning and the other by throne-room drowning—stand near the balustrade on the floor above. Seeing Kipson Crow and Flannigan Star together is like having a pin in the back of my head pulled and feeling my mind explode.

“Returned from the dead, have you, Roselle?” Crow asks. He aims his feral sneer at me.

His teeth gleam white and straight in the shine of the chandelier. Not a mark mars the supple veneer of his youthful complexion. His ashen-blond hair is combed back in his usual style, but it’s glossier, and there’s more of it. The kill tallies—gone. He’s handsomely dressed in dark, elegant evening attire.

“I could ask the same of you,” I reply. My fingers ache for a weapon.

The young woman beside him holds his arm like a lover would, leaning against his side, with a curious smile for me. The velvety black waves of her hair reach only to her chin. Her emerald-colored silk gown complements her every curve. The room is lovelier with her in it.

“You killed the old version of me,” Kipson’s voice echoes from above. “Do you want to know what I thought about as I was drowning?”

“No. I don’t care.”

“My final thought,” he continues through clenched teeth, “was for my firstborn sister, Sabah. I’d often wondered if she’d felt pain as I drowned her. Now I know what it’s like. It has left me conflicted as to whether I should bring her back.” Fear trembles down my spine. “Maybe I should thank you, Roselle, for killing me. I was dreading suicide. Nostalgia for my old body—you know how it is.”

“Oh, you’re welcome. I’m happy to keep killing you until it sticks.”

He squeezes the marble balustrade. “I feel the same way about you, Roselle. I’d kill you again and again. But I wasn’t resurrected. Bodies are merely something to wear now—like this suit. I’ve been growing this one for a while. I have several more just like it.” He strokes a hand over the fabric on his chest. “I’m immortal, and soon I’ll be able to access every living person in the world.”

I grit my teeth. “Was I dead?” I ask. I’m starting to think that I really did drown.

This elicits a soulless grin. “You were as dead as this one here, not too long ago.” He indicates Flannigan with a gesture of his chin. “I checked you myself in the morgue when I came to inspect my corpse, but unlike Flannigan Star”—he runs his hand over the bare skin of her slender arm—“I didn’t bring you back to life. How are you here?”

“Magic, Kipson.” I use a playful tone that’s the opposite of how I feel. “For my next trick, I’m going to make you disappear.” It’s a boast I can’t possibly make good on. I don’t even know what happened to me, let alone how to dismantle him and his artificial intelligence.

He knows it, too. “As if you could, Roselle.”

All the ballroom doors rip open at once. Several units of Spectrum soldiers swarm inside and surround the perimeter of the dance floor. None of them try to touch Cherno or me. Cherno draws closer to my side.