He pulls back, gasping through a rapid array of emotions before he nods firmly, decisively. “Go to them, but don’t die. Primoria needs people like you,” he finishes, and dashes into the empty hallway, leading the way to the two large front doors, blades glinting for hidden enemies. My body follows but my mind is stuck on the feel of his lips on mine. Beautiful and equal, gentle and certain, making me cold and warm all at once.
We ease out the doors and slink down the great obsidian steps, not stopping once our feet hit the rolling expanse of Angra’s lawn. It’s empty here too, all soldiers either guarding Angra inside or busy at the front gate, where the firing of cannons echoes back at us. Theron shoots me a small smile of reassurance before he flies across the lush grass, running and running for cover at the north end of Angra’s palace complex. From there, he’ll go east, opposite his father’s approaching army.
But my path lies southwest.
My feet move before I realize I’m running, the palace complex whooshing past me in a blur of black and green. I leap over the garden Nessa and her brothers have been working in for weeks. The entire area is empty, no soldiers or workers. It’s still the middle of the day, the sun high and bright, with plenty of light left to force out a few more hours of work. But no one is here, so that must mean they’re in the camp, a panicked switch in their daily routine, or—
I won’t think about or.
Anxiety pushes me faster as I twist out a side gate and fly into Abril.
This part of the city is not so empty. Spring’s upper-class citizens prepare their houses, servants and stable hands nailing planks of wood over windows at their masters’ orders. They don’t care when I run by, don’t even flinch in my direction when the whir of white and black flashes past them. I scale the side of a bridge and I’m gone, leaving them to their worries.
The bridge drops me into the lower part of the city. I surge down alleys, leap over piles of trash. The residents of these buildings stay exactly where I’ve always seen them—huddled behind windows, peeking out of doorways, staying out of the way in the hope that life passes them without too much notice. As if they don’t acknowledge the approaching battle, it can’t hurt them.
One last bend up ahead will put me right in front of the entrance to Abril’s work camp. I slow to a walk, holding my breath to keep from gasping for air. It may be empty in this alley, but it’s not quiet—noises filter to me from up ahead. Soldiers shout orders at each other, and beyond their mangled barks lies the hum of people in confusion. My people.
The words feel wrong, like they don’t belong to me, like I’m not worthy of calling them that. But it doesn’t matter what I call them, what they call me. I have the ability to free them, therefore I have the responsibility to free them. That’s all that matters now.
That’s all that has ever mattered.
I stop parallel to the corner. One more step, Meira. Just one more.
I march onto the road, my chakram dangling like a harmless toy from my hands. Five buildings in front of me, the gate is madness. Spring soldiers on the outside throw blades and fists against the bending, creaking metal, punching back the swell of Winterians who push against the other side. The Winterians cry and scream, flinching against the blows. They’re confused, jerked out of their routine of work and forced back into their prison in chaos.
The first soldier drops without a fight. My chakram whizzes across the back of his neck, severing the top of his spine from his skull, and thunks back into my palm as the man collapses on the soldier next to him, pulling attention to me. First the dead man’s neighbor, then the man next to him, then every soldier charged with keeping order in the work camp. All eyes are on me, one lone Winterian girl against a whole battalion.
One soldier steps forward, his thick sword dinged with age and use. “Herod’s toy escaped,” he sneers.
“Herod’s toy killed him,” I respond, and a satisfying flash of shock takes over his face.
Another voice cracks out over the street. “Meira, run!”
My eyes flick behind the line of soldiers to the gate. Conall presses against the iron, the wire leaving streaks of blood on his cheeks and arms. He’s panicked, seeing me on the street. There’s a light in his eyes now, a light so different from his usual hatred that I have to be imagining it.
But no—it’s hope. He wants me to live.
Angra senses it too. He knows somehow, this hope they all have, and the Spring soldiers fly at the gate in one organized mass, raising all their weapons at the same moment. A strangled moan pops out of my lungs. Angra’s dark magic. He’s told them to—