16. Silver
16
S ILVER
|3 DAYS UNTIL THE ASSURANCE|
This has got to be a joke. I stare at the bed, willing it to split in half and spare me. I can’t do this right now.
When the bed fails to accommodate my wishes and stubbornly remains a single object, I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to make sense of the last several minutes.
If I hadn’t seen the sword, if I hadn’t realized I recognized it just moments before climbing onto this cursed boat, then everything that happened after that might have gone differently.
Against my will, my mind replays the feeling of her fingers clutching the front of my shirt, the way her voice got soft when she told me she didn’t care about my past. The fact that she leaned in, and if I hadn’t stopped her she would have…
Why did I stop her again?
My gut clenches and I grit my teeth. I turn my back to her and lay my head against the ivy-covered window, trying to get a grip.
I had to stop her. I have to stop all of this. I’ve tricked her, lied to her, and stolen from her family with her help, but I won’t cross that line with her unless she knows everything.
So… maybe I should just tell her everything?
I glance back at her. She’s slumped on the floor, her head in her knees, her shoulders hunched. She looks exhausted.
I can’t tell her now. I don’t even know the full situation myself yet, and she’s been through enough for today. And, fine, a part of me wants to delay it as long as possible.
Because no one’s ever looked at me like that before. Vie and Rooftop and I, we have one another’s backs and we always will, but the core of our relationship is stark survival. It’s not sentimental, it’s necessary. If something happened to me, they would both be upset, but they would harden themselves and move on. They would do what they had to do.
Neither one of them has ever looked at me with the kind of vulnerability that Mance exudes so easily. It’s all the more compelling because I know how strong she is. And I find myself drawn to that combination of strength and tenderness, wanting to be the kind of guy who could earn it.
But I’m not.
At least… not yet.
I straighten my shoulders as I try to scrape together some kind of desperate plan. I don’t want to be involved with Guerre anymore; that much is clear. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to contact him, and then I’ll get some answers. Maybe it’s not too late to get out. Maybe I can even stop what’s coming, because I have a feeling this was only a step to something else. Something worse. I do have one last task left, after all.
So that’s the plan for tomorrow.
Tonight, all I have to do is not get too drawn in by the Prospective Seconde and the flickering candlelight in her vulnerable midnight eyes.
And that’s it! One job.
Shouldn’t be too hard, right?
“We should take off our clothes,” Mance says.
“What?!” I jerk my head back, smacking it into the window frame, and swear under my breath as pain laces through my skull.
She raises an eyebrow at me, amused. “And put on dry ones?” she finishes.
I scoff, rubbing my head. “Does the magical ship also generate magical clothing?” I ask. “How convenient.” The least it could do is generate a second bed, then, really. I check to see if perhaps the bed divided itself while my eyes were closed. Disappointingly, it did not.
“No…,” she answers, dragging the word out, “but after that first time, my cousin and I kept a few outfits here for when we went swimming and needed to change into something dry before going home. The clothes we stashed for me will all be too small for us now, but he was a few years older, so his might fit okay.”
She crosses the room and opens the cupboard, revealing two small stacks of tunics and pants inside. She raises one of the larger ones up to her chest, careful to hold it out enough that it doesn’t get wet.
Because her dress is… very wet. And the way that it clings to her body is—
I snap my gaze back to the window, seriously considering just gouging my eyes out entirely.
“Uh, I’m good,” I say. Changing involves nakedness, and nakedness seems like a very bad idea right now.
“You’ll get sick,” she says sternly.
There’s that frustrating compassion again. Vie or Rooftop would tell me to suit myself and laugh at me in the morning when my forehead was hot with fever.
Well, okay. Rooftop would make me soup or something. But he would still laugh at me while he made it.
“There’s no place to change,” I remind her.
“So don’t look,” she says lightly.
I’m gonna punch a fist through this window. She can’t possibly trust me that much. I don’t even trust me that much.
But when I look over, she’s struggling to keep a straight face and there’s a slight tremor in her hand that lets me know she’s as nervous as I am. She’s only pretending to be this cool.
Unfortunately, I find that adorable.
“Toss me a shirt,” I say miserably. We might as well just get this part over with.
She lobs me a tunic, and a pair of pants after that, and we turn our backs to each other. Almost immediately I am subjected to the torturous sounds of wet fabric sliding along skin and falling to a heap on the floor. I try very hard not to let my mind form any kind of conclusion on what that sound might indicate regarding her current state of dress. I just whip off my own clothes and jam my limbs into the new ones as fast as possible.
“I’m ready if you are,” she says.
“Same,” I say. We both turn around.
And she bursts into laughter.
Admittedly, the fit of my outfit is a little snug. The sleeves barely reach my mid-forearms, and the pants extend only a few inches past my knees. Mance’s outfit is small as well, but less in terms of length and more in terms of hugging certain unboyish areas very closely.
Did I ever find something to gouge my eyes out with, by the way? A dagger would be ideal, but I could make do with a spoon.
I grin sheepishly at her, because as embarrassing as the outfit is, her laughter is addictive, and I let it wash over me, wondering whether I’ll ever hear it again after tonight.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, still giggling. She walks over and tugs at my sleeves uselessly, trying to make them longer than they are.
I bat her off.
“I’ll be fine,” I say. “At least yours isn’t, uh, so bad.”
“Yeah.” She looks down, then twists the bracelet on her wrist with a grimace. “I wish I could get this off.” As she tugs at the thing, she reveals harsh red lines on her wrist where it bites into her skin.
I frown. “Let me see.”
She holds the bracelet up and I grip her arm lightly, turning the metal band back and forth until I can understand how it works. It doesn’t look terribly difficult to spring.
“Give me a hairpin,” I tell her.
Obligingly, she pulls one out of her hair, causing several strands to come free and curl around her face, clinging to the curve of her jaw.
I will not be focusing on that.
I take the pin and bend the tip of it until it makes a decent lockpick. Then I get to work, poking at the inside of the mechanism to see if I can get anything to give.
“A skill you picked up on the streets?” she asks, bemused.
“Vie’s better at it,” I tell her. “But I’m not bad.”
The mechanism clicks open, and I unwrap it from her wrist. She rubs the now-exposed skin with her other hand and closes her eyes. Relief eases her features as, I assume, she calls all her animals back to her. I can almost feel them filling her up, settling back where they belong, and when she opens her eyes again, she looks significantly more relaxed.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
I swear, if she thanks me one more time…
Guilt surges up my throat as all the things she doesn’t know rise like a wall between us.
“You should get some sleep,” I say gruffly. “I’ll take the floor.”
I grab a pillow and toss it down, but she snatches it out of the air.
“You can’t do that!” she protests. “The floor is soaking wet now.”
“Mance—” I start.
“ Silver ,” she cuts me off. “It’s freezing and it’s damp. And the bed is plenty big enough. Besides, I used to share with my sister all the time. It’s the same thing.”
Once again, her body language betrays her. The way she bites her lip and plays with those stray tendrils tells me she knows perfectly well that it’s not the same thing. But as endearing as I find her duplicity, it won’t work on me twice.
I open my mouth to deny her more definitively, but she cuts me off again.
“Besides,” she says. “I… I’d rather not be alone. With everything that happened today, I could really use the comfort of someone next to me tonight. If you don’t want to, of course, you don’t have to. But if you’re trying to be polite, don’t. I don’t need politeness right now. I need… solace.” Her voice is small by the time she finishes speaking, but her eyes are huge and imploring.
I swallow and my chest feels tight.
How does she do that? How does she just say what she wants like it’s that easy? When I want something, I either try to trick someone into giving it to me, or I just take it behind their backs. If you express it, then they can say no. They can shut you down. Which is exactly what I should do right now.
But I don’t want to.
I blow out a breath that feels like it comes from the depths of my soul.
And I plop down on the mattress.
She joins me shyly, easing down onto the bed with a slow deliberateness that tells me she’s still worried I’ll change my mind.
Her arm brushes mine and every hair on my body stands on end.
Suddenly possessed with the need to keep my hands busy, I lean back, wrenching the window open and breaking a hole in the vines so we’ll have at least some warning if anyone decides to follow us. Then I pat down the pillows and shake out the blankets in case any bugs worked their way inside. And then I do it again, just to make extra, extra sure.
When it becomes abundantly clear that I’m just doing things for the sake of doing them, Mance rolls her eyes and crawls past me. She picks up the edge of the blanket and burrows under it, taking the side closest to the window. Within seconds, she’s snuggled up tight, like a caterpillar in a cocoon.
I lay stiffly next to her, like a plank of wood.
“You can get under the blankets, you know,” she says.
“I’m good.”
“Silver, you’re being silly.”
“I’ll be more comfortable this way,” I tell her. “I promise you.”
Unfortunately for me, my traitor body decides to take that moment to visibly shiver. Between the frigid rain and the rapidly cooling evening air, the temperature has plummeted in the last few minutes, and my child-sized clothing isn’t doing much to fight it.
She narrows her eyes at me and I brace for her reproof. But instead of lecturing me, she tears the blanket off herself and flings it over my head. By the time I’ve wrestled free, she’s already scooched all the way against the window and curled into a ball facing me, completely uncovered.
“What are you doing?” I ask wearily.
“If you don’t want to share a blanket, I certainly won’t make you,” she tells me in a clipped tone. “But if that’s the case then you should have it. I’m the one who dragged you out here, after all. And I won’t be able to sleep knowing you’re shivering next to me.”
As if I’d be able to sleep with her turning to ice just a foot away.
I debate several options, only to reach the same conclusion at the end of every one of them. There’s no way to win with this girl. I’m caught.
If I were a better person, that wouldn’t thrill me so much. But I’m only me, and I can’t help the dizzying feeling that I’ve won even though I’ve objectively lost.
With an exaggeratedly tortured sigh, I lift the blanket and scoop her into it, my hand at the small of her back.
She squeaks but doesn’t struggle as I press her against my chest and wrap the blanket tight around both of us until every inch of her body is bound to mine.
“Happy?” I ask, and I should be alarmed by the rasp I hear in my own voice, but she feels so good there, so warm and so soft and so right.
She looks up at me through inky black lashes and nods, another smile curving over her lips, coy and victorious.
And I suddenly remember that she used to smile a lot. When she was a kid, every time her grandfather hauled the whole family out to look regal while he made some proclamation, little Mance would just stand up there beaming. As a boy, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Slowly, hesitantly, I trace the edge of her mouth with the pad of my thumb, marveling at the fact that the smile she has on now is for me .
But even as I try to hold it, the smile falters and turns into something more serious under my touch.
She shifts closer, her legs brushing against mine in the blankets, and reaches up a hand to my face, grazing my cheekbones and the line of my jaw with a deliberate, featherlight touch.
I inhale, but that’s a mistake, because I breathe in her scent.
Somehow, in the middle of all the rain, she still manages to smell like sunshine.
As her fingers skim closer to my mouth, I impulsively tilt my head, pressing my lips into the center of her palm, our gazes still locked.
Her eyes get darker. Bluer. Even more luminescent.
Then she returns the favor, pressing a kiss to the tips of my fingers, and I feel it all the way down to the pit of my stomach.
Reflexively, my hand curls, cupping the side of her heart-shaped face. With a soft pressure, I draw her toward me, heart hammering in my chest.
And it takes all my strength to tuck her head under my chin instead of pulling it up to my mouth.
As soon as I’m released from the intensity of her gaze, my expression collapses with an agony I can’t let her see. An agony that I have to remember, because I deserve it.
Beneath the sheets I clench my hand into a fist.
“Get some sleep, Mance,” I say roughly.
Because there’s no chance at all that I will.
I spend the next hour or so overly aware of Mance’s every shift and movement as the sky outside darkens. Eventually, her breaths even out and her muscles go slack against me. I blow out a puff of air and wonder how long this night is going to feel, unable to decide if I want it to speed by or to linger.
Somewhere between five minutes and six eternities later, when I’m just on the edge of miraculously surrendering to sleep myself, there’s a sudden glint of light outside, peeking between the greenery.
I stare at the space where I saw it, wondering if it was just my imagination, or perhaps the precursor to a dream. Then the light flashes again.
Carefully, without waking Mance, I lean over her and stick my head out the window to see what it is. There’s another flash, and I rear back when I see what it illuminates.
A face in the woods.
One with familiar blue eyes.
Mance makes a sleepy noise at my sudden movement but doesn’t awaken. Carefully, quietly, I extricate myself from her and slide out of the bed. An icy puddle chills my bare feet, and the air outside our little blanket fort is biting. I take the time to tuck the blanket closer around Mance and she snuggles into it, settling back down. Her face is open and peaceful as she rests, and I stare at it a little too long before I pad out the door.
It isn’t raining anymore, but the deck is slick. Wishing my boots weren’t too waterlogged to be helpful, I make my way to the side of the ship where one of the trees hangs low enough and jump up into it.
The leaves rustle as I make contact, spattering raindrops everywhere, and I whip my head back toward the door to the captain’s quarters, dangling precariously. But when Mance doesn’t emerge, I finish pulling myself up and ease my way across the branches and down the trunk.
Guerre is waiting for me at the bottom when my feet hit the muddy banks. He takes in my outfit with a derisive snort, and I glower, feeling like he’s somehow intruding on something personal. I’m about to make some kind of snarky comment when I notice what he’s wearing.
A general’s uniform. In charcoal gray.
I lift my eyes to his face, noting the ash smudges on each of his cheeks. “So you work for Prime Azele, then?”
“I work for myself,” he responds dismissively. “She’s not the only one who believes otherwise.”
I shiver as a brisk wind makes the cold night feel even colder.
“Were you there today?” I ask, rubbing my arms roughly with both hands. “Did you see what happened?” What I actually want to ask is whether he meant it to happen. Whether this was the plan or if something went horribly wrong.
“I was there,” he acknowledges. “Though I’m hoping you can help me fill in some of the gaps.”
“I will if you will,” I snap.
He raises an eyebrow and takes a step back, appraising me. “Well, well, well. Something has changed. Is it the girl?” He peers through the darkness toward the ship and I have the reckless urge to jump in front of him and block it from his view.
“What’s the end goal?” I ask. “What are you trying to do with all this?”
“I’ve already answered a question,” he tells me, tone sharp. “If we’re trading information, then I’m afraid it’s your turn.”
A gust of wind whips by and I tense. “What exactly do you want to know?”
He moves in closer again, an interested gleam in his expression. “How did he get her to attack with her animals?” he asks. “From what I’ve heard, she has a distaste for violence.”
Frowning, I roll the question over in my mind, trying to figure out if answering it could harm Mance in any way. I don’t think so.
“He had a bracelet,” I say. “That locked her animals out of her body. And then he used his power on her to make them panic.”
The moonlight catches on Guerre’s ice-blue eyes. “Fascinating. Whose magic is that?” He thinks on it, mentally sorting through some kind of catalog in his mind before he must land on a name. “Ah. I see. Very clever. Where is this bracelet now?”
“I’m afraid it’s your turn,” I sneer, mimicking his earlier tone.
He scoffs, impatient. “My end goal? The betterment of the realm. And I’ll make my next question more efficient to save time. Can you get the bracelet?”
It’s in my pocket right now, cold against my leg.
He must see enough in my expression to satisfy him, because he claps a hand on my shoulder. “Excellent. Then this is your third and final task. Get the bracelet and put it back on the Prospective Seconde’s wrist, this time while her animals are still within. If I’m right, then the bracelet is a barrier. It should be able to trap them in as easily as it can keep them out. Once it’s on and it’s locked, bring her to me.”
The chill of the air feels like it’s seeped into my bones now, harsh and constricting. “Are you going to hurt her?” I ask.
He leans back, studying my expression. The shadow of the branches falls across his face.
“I have no desire to hurt her,” he says. “In fact, I believe she and I want the same things, and after today’s events she might finally be ready to hear it. I want you to bring her to me because I’m going to ask for her help.”
My breath mists in cold puffs around my face.
Can I believe him?
And even if I can… what does he want her help with? If whatever Guerre’s doing resulted in the violence of just a few hours ago, then I don’t want Mance anywhere near it.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to do these tasks for you anymore. I won’t bring her.”
If I thought his eyes were cold before, it’s nothing compared to the way his stare frosts over now.
“You’d give up your mansion, your papers, your future? When you’re only one task away? When all I’m asking you to do is set up a conversation?”
I click my tongue, not buying it. If he just wanted to talk, he could climb up the boat and have a chat with her now. But he wants her leashed first.
It hurts to give up everything I’ve worked for, but I’ll figure it out. Rooftop and Vie and I, we’ll figure it out together. We always have.
“I won’t do it,” I repeat. “Give the house back to the family you evicted. I’m out.”
I turn to go, but he grabs my wrist, wrenching me back, and then suddenly his sword is pressed to my throat.
“Do not misunderstand,” he says through gritted teeth. “I will reward you for your help, but that does not mean you are free to stop providing it. If you refuse me, or if you breathe a word of my plans to anyone, especially Mancella Cliff, then not only will you never be able to afford a house, but I’ll burn down the one you have. With your friends in it. In fact”—he tilts his head, considering— “that’s where I’d like you to meet me tomorrow. I’ll be waiting, all day, with sweet Rooftop and pretty Vie. If you bring the girl, you’ll get the deed and the papers and everything will proceed as we’ve already agreed. But if you don’t…” His voice lowers to a snarl. “Then you may as well never go back at all, because there will be nothing waiting for you but ash and corpses. Are we clear?”
I swallow against the blade as panic blurs my vision. In that moment, I hate him. Perhaps as much as I hate the Prime. Or maybe I just hate myself for getting into this situation. For how few options I have.
Anger flaring, I slam my fist into the hilt of his sword, knocking it aside, then turn and make a break for it.
But I barely go two steps before he grabs me and smashes me sideways into the nearest tree. Then he brings his forearm to my throat, before slowly leveling the sword back to the soft spot just beneath my jaw. It would take him only one movement to either strangle me or slit my throat.
“Don’t make me ask again,” he growls.
My breathing is harsh, but my voice is as sharp as his weapon. “All right,” I say. “We’re clear.”
He pulls the sword back, sheathes it, and gives me an insincere smile, letting the arm at my neck fall away. “See you tomorrow, then, Silver. Sweet dreams.”
As he retreats into the darkened forest, I hold shaking fingers against my throat, watching him go. The shadows seem to swallow him up, and I stare into the gloomy night long after I can’t see him anymore.
Quietly, but not gently, I throw everything I have into a punch that I slam against the trunk of the tree. The pain is raw and searing, and I think I might be bleeding, but I manage to grunt instead of cry out, and the tree doesn’t even shake.
It’s not enough.
I want to scream. I want to knock the tree down completely.
I want my pain to matter .
I start to pace, shaking my arms out against both the cold and the sting that shoots up my right arm.
If I leave now, I could maybe be in the Outskirts by morning. Assuming I could find my way on foot in the dark, in a part of the woods I don’t know well. Is there any way I could beat him there? I didn’t see a horse or anything, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one.
How did he get here, anyway? How did he even know where we were? How did he know Mance doesn’t like violence when the majority of the population believes otherwise? And how did he figure out who made the bracelet when not even Mance knows everyone’s power?
Who is this guy?
I should have asked these questions earlier.
But at least I may have gotten myself a clue.
I stop pacing and hold still, listening to the sounds of the night, making sure that Guerre is really gone. The wind continues to attack the trees, buffeting their leaves, and somewhere far off I hear the hoot of a lonely owl. But otherwise the forest seems to be at rest.
Satisfied, I open my cloak and pull out the bundle I took from Guerre’s pocket when he was busy throwing me around.
Starting a fight is one of the most classic redirection tactics there is, and the bruises blooming on my back aren’t the first I’ve gotten from trying it. Vie may be best at opening locks, but no one can match my skill at picking a pocket.
I just hope that whatever I managed to grab was worth it.
Slipping into a patch of moonlight, I ease the bundle open and spread its contents onto a dry patch of forest floor.
It’s a pack of letters, with an array of broken seals—some, the bright ocher I’m familiar with, and others an ashy gray.
I suck in a breath, realizing that I’m about to find out what Guerre has been doing with the seal I gave him. The one he ripped off Mance’s plea for peace. I lean in close, squinting at the scrawled script in the dim light.
It becomes clear very quickly that, for the last several days, neither Prime Merod nor Prime Azele has read a single word that genuinely came from the other. Guerre has been intercepting and rewriting every sentiment.
Prime Azele thinks Merod killed her captain with the Victory’s Herald, a clear declaration of war. And Prime Merod thinks Azele wants nothing to do with an alliance, when in fact she’s been begging for one.
The letters aren’t complete—it’s pretty obvious they’re only a small subsection of the correspondence that Guerre has interrupted—but they’re enough to paint a picture.
I’ve been helping Guerre start a war that neither party truly wants.
A war that Mance has been trying to prevent. That I told her she was preventing.
And all the while, I’ve been taking her well-meaning actions and using them to destroy the peace she craves.
The guilt burns so fiercely in my gut that I want to vomit, but I push it down, because I don’t have time to dwell on how despicable I am right now.
I need to figure out what to do with this, preferably before Guerre murders my friends.
Because I’m certain that threat was real.
If I don’t show up tomorrow, he will burn my friends and my home to the ground.
And I can’t, I can’t let that happen.
But… I can’t betray Mance either.
Can I?
I look up toward the boat, picturing her sleeping there. Trusting enough to get in a bed with me. To tell me her secrets. And caring enough to want sides of me that no one else has ever wanted.
I can’t .
I run a shaking hand through my hair, gritting my teeth so hard it’s painful.
On the other hand, Guerre did say he only wanted to talk.
He did say he wasn’t going to hurt her.
That all he wanted was her help, and that their goals were the same.
Could that really be true?
I bite my lip, wishing I could believe it. But no. After these letters, I can’t even pretend to. I know Mance, and she would never work with someone willing to do such despicable things.
Which means she would never work with me, either. Not if I told her what I know. What I’ve done.
This fragile thing we’ve built would be over immediately, shattered like glass in the Outskirts.
The pain of that realization rips through me, and I hate myself for even feeling it. I never deserved her affection in the first place, and I knew that. So there’s no use mourning it now.
My only goal—the only thing that I have the right to care about now—is getting everyone out of this alive.
And that means that I can’t tell Mance anything, because if I did she wouldn’t trust me. She wouldn’t do what I need her to do. So I have to go back up there, pretend everything is fine, convince her to put the bracelet on, and deliver her to Guerre. If I do otherwise, then Vie and Rooftop will die.
But once we’re there, once my friends are safe, I will make sure that Mance gets out, too. I’ll take the bracelet off her wrist, tell her everything, and fight by her side if I have to. But I will get her out.
Even if it kills me.
Even if she hates me.
Even if it ruins everything else.
As long as everyone gets out alive… then that’s enough.
I pace for probably an hour more, but it’s the bitter cold that finally forces me to climb back up the tree and drop onto the mossy deck. Before returning to the captain’s quarters, I take several minutes to rub off every speck of dirt the forest flung onto me, and every smear of blood that streaks down my hand.
The door opens without a sound, but when I reach Mance, she’s shivering, and the sight makes my heart clench.
I lift the blanket and tuck myself in behind her, waiting until my skin warms a few degrees before I let it come into contact with hers. She melts into me, a smile painting her face, and I hold her close.
Even though I already know I’m going to betray her in the morning.