Father is going to run again. House Samos will run. Leave Norta to crumble, with only the Rift remaining, an island against the lapping Cygnet sea.
Eventually we’ll be overrun too.
Queen Cenra has no sons. No one to sell me to. Volo Samos has no more bargains left to make. He’ll have to surrender.
And die at her hands, probably. The way Salin did.
If he even survives today.
So where does that leave me?
If my father faces defeat as much as my betrothed does?
I think . . . it leaves me free.
“Tolly, do you love me?”
Both Wren and my brother snap to attention, their faces whirling to mine. Ptolemus almost sputters, his lips flapping with surprise. “Of course,” he says, almost too quickly to be understood. His silver brows furrow, and something like anger crosses his features. “How can you even ask that?”
Just the simple question offends him, wounds him. It would do the same to me.
I take his hand, squeezing tight. Feeling the bones in the newly grown appendage he lost some months ago. “I sent Elane away from the Ridge. When you get home, she won’t be there.”
Red hair, a mountain breeze. It seems like a dream. Could it be real? Is this my chance?
“Eve, what are you talking about? Where—”
“I’m not going to tell you, so you won’t have to lie.”
Slowly, I force myself to stand on oddly shaking limbs. A baby learning to walk, taking steps for the first time. I quiver all over, toes to fingertips.
Ptolemus jumps up with me, bending so we’re eye to eye, inches away from each other. His hands are tight on my shoulders, but not enough to keep me in place if I choose to move.
“I’m going inside. I need to ask him a question,” I murmur. “But I think I already know the answer.”
“Eve—”
I look into his eyes, the same eyes as mine. As our father’s. I would ask for his help, but splitting him apart like that, asking him to choose a side? I love my brother, and he loves me, but he loves our parents too. He is a better heir than I ever was.
“Don’t follow me.”
Still trembling, I pull him into a crushing hug. He returns the gesture reflexively, but he stumbles over his words, unable to understand what I’m saying.
I don’t look back for what could be my last glimpse of my brother’s face. It’s too difficult. He could die today, or tomorrow, or a month from now, when the Cygnet queens storm my home to lay my family bare. I want to remember his smile, not a confused frown.
War Command is a mess, a study in chaos. Silver officers buzz through passages and chambers, calling out developments and army movements. The Lakelander boats, the Piedmont airjets. It all passes in a blur.
My parents are easy to find. My mother’s wolves guard the door to one of the communications chambers, flanking each side with bright, keen eyes. The beasts turn to me in unison, neither hostile nor friendly as I pass.
Static-filled screens fill the command room with a crackling glow of shifting light. Only a few are still operational. Not a good sign. The Air Fleet must be well into the storm. If it even still exists.
Volo and Larentia stand firm, mirror images of each other. Postures violently straight, unblinking as they take in such dire circumstances. On one of the screens, the first armada ship takes shape, a hulking shadow obscured by mist. Others slowly come into focus. At least a dozen, and still more.
I’ve seen this room before, but never so empty. A skeleton crew of Silver officers mans the screens and radios, trying to keep up with the flood of information. Runners bustle in and out, taking the newest items with them. Probably to Cal, wherever he is now.
“Father?” I sound like a child.
And he dismisses me like one. “Evangeline, not now.”
“What happens when we go home?”
With a sneer, he looks over his shoulder. Father cut his hair shorter than usual, cropping the silver close to his scalp. It gives him a skullish look. “When this war is won.”
I let him parrot the lie, feeling myself tighten as he spouts nonsense. You’ll be queen. Peace will reign. Life will return to what it was. Lies, all of it.
“What happens to me? What plans do you have in store?” I ask, remaining in the doorway. I’ll have to be quick. “Who will you make me become next?”
Both of them know what I’m asking, but neither can answer. Not with Nortan officers close by, few as they may be. They must maintain the illusion of this alliance until the last second.
“If you’re going to run, so will I,” I murmur.
The king of the Rift clenches a fist, and the metal throughout the room responds in kind. A few screens crack, their casings twisted by his rage. “We’re not going anywhere, Evangeline,” he lies.
Mother tries another tactic, closing the distance between us. Her dark, angled eyes go wide and pleading. Imitating a puppy or a cub. She puts a hand to my face, ever the image of the doting mother. “We need you,” she whispers. “Our family needs you, your brother—”
I step out of her grasp, toward the hallway again. Luring them both with me. Two rights, out the front, into the Square—
“Let me go.”
Father shoulders past my mother, almost knocking her out of the way so he can stand over me. The chromium armor gleams harshly in the fluorescent light.
He knows what I’m saying, what I’m really asking for.
“I will not,” he hisses. “You are mine, Evangeline. My own daughter. You belong with us. You have a duty to us.”
Another step backward. At the door, the wolves rise to their feet.
“I don’t.”
Like a shadow, like a giant, Father moves with me, matching my steps. “What are you, if not a Samos?” he snarls. “Nothing.”
I knew this would be his answer, and the last thread, already thin and fraying, snaps apart. In spite of myself, tears bite at the corners of my eyes. If they fall, I don’t know. I feel nothing but the burn of my own anger.
“You don’t need me anymore. Not for power, not for greed,” I spit back in his face. “And you still won’t let me go free.”
He blinks, and for a brief second the rage in him dissipates. The trick almost works. He’s my father, and I can’t help but love him. Even though he treats me this way. Even though he wants to use that love to keep me locked up, a prisoner to my own blood.
I was raised to value family above all else. Loyalty to your own.
And that’s who Elane is. My family, my own.
“I’m done asking for your permission,” I whisper, clenching a fist.
The lights overhead rip free, smashing down, a crashing blow that takes even my father off guard. A rush of silver blood gushes from cuts on his head as he stumbles, dazed. But not dead. Not even incapacitated. I can’t find the stomach for that.
I’ve never run so fast, never sprinted like this in all my life, not even in battle. Because I’ve never been so afraid.
The wolves are faster than me. They snarl at my heels, trying to trip me. I strike at them with the metal on my arms, drawing armor into knives. One howls, whimpering when I cut a ruby-red wound across its belly. The other is stronger, bigger, leaping to knock me over.
I try to dodge, and end up falling flat on my back, with a wolf lunging for my throat. It lands hard, almost two hundred pounds of muscle crashing into my chest. I gasp, feeling the air rush from my lungs.
Teeth clamp around my neck, but they don’t bite down. The points dig in, enough to bruise. Enough to pin me in place.