Glass Sword (Red Queen #2)(39)
To keep my thoughts from welling up in my eyes, I flip open the book of names. Julian’s study of artifacts, peppered with the name and location of every newblood in Norta, calms me. If I can recruit them, train them, and show the Colonel that we are not Silver, we are not to be feared, then we might have a chance at changing the world.
And Maven won’t have the chance to kill anyone else in my name.
I won’t carry the weight of any more gravestones.
Cal leans in next to me, but his eyes are not on the pages. Instead, he watches my hands, my fingers, as they sweep through the list. His knee brushes my own, hot even through his ragged pants. And though he says nothing, I understand his meaning. Like me, he knows there’s always more than meets the eye, more than we can even begin to comprehend.
Be on your guard, his touch says.
With a nudge, I reply.
I know.
“Coraunt,” I say aloud, stopping my finger short. “How close is Coraunt to the Nine-Five landing strip?”
Farley doesn’t bother to look for the village on the map. She doesn’t need to. “Close enough.”
“What’s in Coraunt, Mare?” Kilorn asks, sidling up to my shoulder.
He’s careful to keep his distance from Cal, putting me between them like a wall.
The words feel heavy. My actions could free this man. Or doom him.
“His name is Nix Marsten.”
T E N
The Blackrun was the Colonel’s own jet, used to skip between Norta and the Lakelands as quickly as possible. It’s more than a transport for us. It’s a treasure trove, still loaded with weapons, medical supplies, even food rations from its last flight. Farley and Kilorn sort the stores into piles, dividing guns from bandages, while Shade changes the dressings on his shoulder. His leg stretches out oddly, unable to bend in the brace, but he doesn’t show any signs of pain. Despite his smaller size, he was always the toughest one in the family, second only to Dad white-knuckling through his constant agony.
My breath suddenly feels ragged, stinging the walls in my throat, stabbing in my lungs. Dad, Mom, Gisa, the boys. In the whirlwind of my escape, I’ve forgotten about them entirely. Just like before, when I first became Mareena, when King Tiberias and Queen Elara took away my rags and gave me silk. It took me hours to remember my parents at home, waiting for a daughter who would not return. And now I’ve left them waiting again. They might be in danger for what I’ve done, subject to the Colonel’s wrath. I drop my head into my hands, cursing.
How could I forget them? I only just got them back. How could I leave them like this?
“Mare?” Cal mutters under his breath, trying not to draw attention to me. The others don’t need to see me curling in, punishing myself with every little breath.
You’re selfish, Mare Barrow. A selfish, stupid little girl.
The low hum of engines, once a slow, steady comfort, becomes a hard weight. It beats against me like waves on the Tuck beach, unend-ing, engulfing, drowning. For a moment, I want to let it consume me.
Then I will feel nothing but the lightning. No pain, no memory, just power.
A hand at the back of my head takes a bit of the edge off, pushing warmth into my skin to meet the cold. The thumb draws slow, even circles, finding a pressure point I didn’t know existed. It helps a little.
“You have to calm down,” Cal continues, his voice much closer this time. I glance out of the corner of my eye to see him leaning down next to me, his lips almost brushing my ear. “Jets are a little sensitive to lightning storms.”
“Right.” The word is so hard to say. “Okay.”
His hand doesn’t move, staying with me. “In through the nose, out through the mouth,” he coaches, his voice low and calming as if he’s talking to a spooked animal. I guess he’s not entirely wrong.
I feel like a child, but I take the advice anyway. With every breath, I let another thought go, each one harsher than the last. You forgot them.
In. You kil ed people. Out. You let others die. In. You are alone. Out.
The last one isn’t true. Cal is proof of that, as are Kilorn, Shade, and Farley. But I can’t shake the feeling that, while they stand with me, there’s no one beside me. Even with an army at my back, I am still alone.
Maybe the newbloods will change that. Either way, I have to find out.
Slowly, I sit back up, and Cal’s hand follows. He draws away after a long moment, when he’s sure I don’t need him anymore. My neck feels suddenly cold without his warmth, but I have too much pride to let him know that. So I turn my gaze outward, focusing on the clouds blurring past, the sinking sun, and the ocean beneath. White-capped waves angle against a long chain of islands, each one connected by alternating strips of sand, marsh, or a dilapidated bridge. A few fishing villages and light towers dot the archipelago, seemingly harmless, but my fists clench at the sight of them. There could be a watch atop one of them.
We could be seen.
The largest of the islands has a harbor filled with boats, navy judg-ing by their size and the silver-blue stripes decorating their hulls.
“I assume you know what you’re doing?” I ask Cal, my eyes still on the islands. Who knows how many Silvers are down there, searching for us? And the harbor, crowded with ships, could hide any number of things. Or people. Like Maven.
But Cal doesn’t seem concerned with any of that. Again, he scratches his growing stubble, fingers rasping over rough skin. “Those are the Bahrn Islands, and nothing to worry about. Fort Patriot, on the other hand . . .” he says, pointing vaguely northwest. I can just make out the shore of the mainland, hazy in the golden light. “I’m going to stay out of their sensor range as long as I can.”