“It’s past Delphie,” she sighs. Her eyes cloud with painful memory. “Somewhere near the Wash, so close you can almost smell the radiation.”
The Wash forms the southern border of Norta, a natural divide from Piedmont and the Silver princes that reign there. Like Naercey, the Wash is a land of ruin, too far gone for Silvers to reclaim. Not even the Scarlet Guard dares walk there, where radiation is not a deception, and the smoke of a thousand years still lingers.
“They kept us isolated,” Cameron continues. “One to each cell, and many didn’t have enough strength to do anything other than lie on their cots. Something about that place made the others sick.”
“Silent Stone.” I answer her unasked question, because I remember the same feeling all too well. Twice I’ve been in such a cell, and twice it leached my strength away.
“Not much light, not much food.” She shifts on her seat, eyes narrowed against the flames. “Couldn’t talk much either. Guards didn’t like us speaking, and they were always on patrol. Sometimes Sentinels came and took people away. Some were too weak to walk and had to be dragged along. I don’t think the block was full, though. I saw lots of empty cells in there.” Her breath catches. “More every bleeding day.”
“Describe it, the structure,” Farley says. She nudges Harrick and I understand her line of thinking.
“We were in our own block, the newbloods taken out of the Beacon region. It was a big square, with four flights of cells lining the walls. There were catwalks connecting the different levels, all tangled, and the magnetrons pulled them back at night. Same with the cells, if they had to open them. Magnetrons all over,” she curses, and I don’t blame her for her anger. There were no men like Lucas Samos in the prison, no kind magnetrons like the one who died for me in Archeon. “No windows, but there was a skylight in the ceiling. Small, but enough to let us see the sun for a few minutes.”
“Like this?” Harrick asks, and rubs his hands together. Before our eyes, one of his illusions appears above the campfire, an image turning slowly. A box made of faint green lines. As my eyes adjust to what I’m seeing, I realize it’s a rough, three-dimensional outline of Cameron’s prison block.
She stares at it, eyes flickering over every inch of the illusion. “Wider,” she murmurs, and Harrick’s fingers jump. The illusion responds. “Two more catwalks. Four gates on the top level, one in each wall.”
Harrick does as he’s told, manipulating the image until she’s satisfied. He almost smiles. This is easy for him, a simple game, like drawing. We stare at the rough picture in silence, each one of us trying to puzzle out a way in.
“A pit,” Farrah moans, dropping her head in her hands. Indeed, the prison block looks just like a square, sharp hole.
Ada is less gloomy, and more interested in dissecting as much of the prison as she can. “Where do the gates lead?”
With a sigh, Cameron’s shoulders slump. “More blocks. How many total, I don’t know. I got through three in a line before I was out.”
The illusion changes, adding blocks onto the sides of Cameron’s. The sight feels like a punch in the gut. So many cells, so many gates. So many places for us to stumble and fall. But Cameron escaped. Cameron, who has no training and no idea how much she can do.
“You said there were Silvers in the prison.” Cal speaks for the first time since we began the meeting, and his mood is dark indeed. He won’t step into the circle of firelight. For a moment, he looks the shadow Maven always claimed to be. “Where?”
A barking, angry laugh, harsh as stone against steel, escapes from Nix. He jabs an accusing finger in the air, stabbing. “Why? You want to let your friends out of their cages? Send them back to their mansions and tea parties? Bah, let them rot!” He waves a veined hand in Cal’s direction, and his laughter turns cold as the autumn storm. “You should leave this one behind, Mare. Better yet, send him away. He’s got no mind to protect anything but his own.”
My mouth moves faster than my brain, but this time, they’re in agreement. “Every single one of you knows that’s a lie. Cal has bled for us all, and protected each of us, not to mention trained most of you. If he’s asking about the other Silvers in Corros, he has a reason, and it is not to free them.”
“Actually—”
I spin, eyes wide, and surprise echoes over the room. “You do want to free them?”
“Think about it. They’re locked up because they defied Maven, or Elara, or both. My brother came to the throne under strange circumstances, and many, many, will not believe the lie his mother tells. Some are smart enough to lie low, to bide their time, but others are not. Their court schemes end in a cell. And of course, there are those like my uncle Julian, who taught Mare what she was. He aided the Scarlet Guard, saved Kilorn and Farley from execution, and his blood is blinding silver. He’s in that prison too, with others who believe in an equality beyond the colors of blood. They’re not our enemies, not right now,” he replies. He uncrosses his arms, gesturing madly, trying to make us understand what the soldier in him sees. “If we set them all loose on Corros, it’ll be chaos. They’ll attack the guards and do everything they can to get out. It’s a better distraction than any of us can give.”
Even Nix deflates, cowed by the quick and decisive suggestion. Though he hates Cal, blaming him for the death of his daughters, he can’t deny this is a good plan. Perhaps the best we might come up with.
“Besides,” Cal adds, retreating back into the shadow. This time, his words are meant only for me. “Julian and Sara will be with the Silvers, not the newbloods.”
Oh. In my haste, I’d actually forgotten, somehow, that their blood was not the same color as mine. That they are Silver too.
Cal presses on, trying to explain. “Remember what they are, and how they feel. They are not the only ones who see the ruin in this world.”
Not the only ones. Logic tells me he must be right. After all, in my own limited time with Silvers, I met Julian, Cal, Sara, and Lucas, four Silvers who were not so cruel as I believed them to be. There must be more. Like the newbloods of Norta, Maven is eliminating them, throwing both dissenters and political opponents into jail to waste away and be forgotten.
Cameron worries at her lip, teeth flashing. “The Silver blocks are the same as ours, staggered in like a patchwork. One Silver, one newblood, Silver, newblood, and so on.”
“Checkered,” Cal mutters, nodding along. “Keep them separated from each other. Easier to control, easier to fight. And your escape?”
“They walked us once a week, to keep us from dying. Some guard laughed about it, said the cells would kill us if they didn’t let us out a bit. The rest could hardly shuffle along, let alone fight, but not me. The cells didn’t make me sick.”
“Because they don’t affect you,” Ada says, her voice controlled and even and gently correct. She sounds so much like Julian it makes me jump. For a blistering second, I’m back in his classroom full of books, and I’m the one being examined. “Your silencing abilities are so strong that the normal measures don’t work. A canceling effect, I think. One form of silence against another.”
Cameron just shrugs, uninterested. “Sure.”