The door ahead of us stands ajar, as if waiting. Bree doesn’t need to tell me this is our family’s bunk, because there’s a purple scrap of fabric tied around the doorknob. It’s frayed at the edges and clumsily embroidered. Lightning bolts of thread spark across the rag, a symbol that is neither Red nor Silver, but mine. A combination of the colors of House Titanos, my mask, and the lightning that surges inside of me, my shield.
As we approach, something wheels behind the door, and a bit of warmth moves through me. I would know the sound of my father’s wheelchair anywhere.
Bree doesn’t knock. He knows everyone’s still awake, waiting for me.
There’s more room than in the mersive, but the bunk is still small and cramped. At least there’s space to move, and plenty of beds for the Barrows, with even a bit of living space around the doorway. A single window, cut high in the far wall, is closed tight against the rain, and the sky seems a bit lighter. Dawn is coming.
Yes it is, I think, taking in the overwhelming amount of red. Scarves, rags, scraps, flags, banners, red on every surface and hanging from every wall. I should’ve known it would come to this. Gisa sewed dresses for Silvers once; now she painstakingly makes flags for the Scarlet Guard, decorating whatever she can find with the torn sun of resistance. They aren’t pretty, with uneven stitches and simple patterns. Nothing compared to the art she used to weave. That’s my fault too.
She sits at the little metal table, frozen with a needle in her half-healed claw of a hand. For a moment, she stares, and so do the rest. Mom, Dad, Tramy, staring but not knowing the girl they’re looking at. The last time they saw me, I couldn’t control myself. I was trapped, weak, confused. Now I am injured, nursing bruises and betrayals, but I know what I am, and what I must do.
I have become more, more than we could ever have dreamed. It frightens me.
“Mare.” I can barely hear my mother’s voice. My name trembles on her lips.
Like back in the Stilts, when my sparks threatened to destroy our home, she is the first to embrace me. After a hug that isn’t nearly long enough, she pulls me to an empty chair.
“Sit, baby, sit,” she says, her hands shaking against me. Baby. I haven’t been called that in years. Strange that it returns now, when I’m anything but a child.
Her touch ghosts over my new clothes, feeling for the bruises beneath like she can see right through the fabric. “You’re hurt,” she mutters, shaking her head. “I can’t believe they let you walk, after—well, after all that.”
I’m quietly glad she doesn’t mention Naercey, the arena, or before. I don’t think I’m strong enough to relive them, not so soon.
Dad chuckles darkly. “She can do as she pleases. There’s no let to it.” He shifts and I notice more gray in his hair than ever. He’s thinner too, looking small in the familiar chair. “Just like Shade.”
Shade is common ground, and easier for me to talk about. “You’ve seen him?” I ask, letting myself relax against the cold metal seat. It feels good to sit.
Tramy gets up from his bunk, his head nearly scraping the ceiling. “I’m going to the infirmary now. Just wanted to make sure you’re—”
Okay is no longer a word in my vocabulary.
“—still standing.”
I can only nod. If I open my mouth, I might tell them about everything. The hurt, the cold, the prince who betrayed me, the prince who saved me, the people I’ve killed. And while they might already know, I can’t bring myself to admit what I’ve done. To see them disappointed, disgusted, afraid of me. That would be more than I can bear tonight.
Bree goes with Tramy, patting me gruffly on the back before following our brother out the door. Kilorn remains, still silent, leaning against the wall as if he wants to fall into it and disappear.
“Are you hungry?” Mom says, busying herself at a tiny excuse for a cabinet. “We saved some dinner rations, if you want.”
Though I haven’t eaten in I don’t even know how long, I shake my head. My exhaustion makes it hard to think of anything but sleep.
Gisa notes my manner, her bright eyes narrowed. She pushes back a piece of rich, red hair the color of our blood. “You should sleep.” She speaks with so much conviction I wonder who the older sister really is. “Let her sleep.”
“Of course, you’re right.” Again, Mom pulls me along, this time out of the chair and toward a bunk with more pillows than the rest. She nannies, fussing with the thin blankets, putting me through the motions. I only have the strength to follow, letting her tuck me in like she never has before. “Here we are, baby, sleep.”
Baby.
I’m safer than I’ve been in days, surrounded by the people I love most, and yet I’ve never wanted to cry more. For them, I hold back. I curl inward and bleed alone, inside, where no one else can see.
It isn’t long before I’m dozing, despite the bright lights overhead and the low murmurs. Kilorn’s deep voice rumbles, speaking again now that I’m out of the equation.
“Watch her” is the last thing I hear before I sink into darkness.
Sometime in the night, somewhere between sleep and waking, Dad takes my hand. Not to wake me up, but just to hold on. For a moment, I think he is a dream, and I’m back in a cell beneath the Bowl of Bones. That the escape, the arena, the executions were all a nightmare I must soon relive. But his hand is warm, gnarled, familiar, and I close my fingers on his. He is real.
“I know what it is to kill someone,” he whispers, his eyes faraway, two pinpricks of light in the blackness of our bunk. His voice is different, just as he is different in this moment. A reflection of a soldier, one who survived too long in the bowels of war. “I know what it does to you.”
I try to speak. I certainly try.
Instead, I let him go, and I drift away.
The tang of salt air wakes me the next morning. Someone opened the window, letting in a cool autumn breeze and bright sunlight. The storm has passed. Before I open my eyes, I try to pretend. This is my cot, the breeze is coming from the river, and my only choice is whether to go to school. But that is not a comfort. That life, though easier, is not one I would return to if I could.
I have things to do. I must see to Julian’s list, to begin preparations for that massive undertaking. And if I request Cal for it, who are they to refuse me? Who could say no in the face of saving so many from Maven’s noose?
Something tells me the blood-eyed man might, but I push it away.
Gisa sprawls in the bunk across from me, using her good hand to pick loose a few threads from a piece of black cloth. She doesn’t bother to watch as I stretch, popping a few bones when I move.
“Good morning, baby,” she says, barely hiding a smirk.
She gets a pillow to the face for her trouble. “Don’t start,” I grumble, secretly glad for the teasing. If only Kilorn would do that, and be a little bit of the fisher boy I remember.
“Everyone’s in the mess hall. Breakfast is still on.”
“Where’s the infirmary?” I ask, thinking of Shade and Farley. For the moment, she’s one of the best allies I have here.
“You need to eat, Mare,” Gisa says sharply, finally sitting up. “Really.”
The concern in her eyes stops me short. I must look worse than I thought, for Gisa to treat me so gently. “Then where’s the mess?”