Chapter 30 Silver
Silver
Cool trick,” Reltas sneers, stepping through the wreckage.
Half the stairwell is rubble now, and there’s a sizable hole in the wall below it.
Black liquid flames hover in the air around him from the bottled explosion that he threw, and Reltas weaves through them.
Then he notices us on the floor, fully wrapped around each other, and scoffs. “Cute.”
I struggle to my knees and tuck Mance behind me, trying not to let Reltas see the rough shape she’s in. She can’t take another confrontation right now.
“We beat you, Reltas,” I say desperately. “The seeds are gone, Mance lives, and you’re surrounded by five armies. It’s over.”
But he just rolls his eyes, looking annoyed. “As if this stunt was my only move. This was merely one person’s power. Did you forget that I have scores of magic citizens at my disposal now?”
He takes out a knife and I reach for mine, but he’s not coming for me.
He throws it behind him, toward the wall, and it zips along the entire barrier around the castle, turning sharply at each corner, seemingly directed by its own power, before finally sinking into the side of a guard tower as easily as if the edifice were made of soft flesh instead of hard stone.
For a second nothing happens.
Then the path that the knife traveled ripples and distorts, forming a split in the air.
I swear and push Mance farther back against the crumbling half wall before a multitude of people start emerging from the slice in the air, like bugs crawling out of a corpse.
“However many of my traps you outmaneuver, I’ve got a hundred more ready to deploy,” Reltas says, sounding bored. “Thanks for summoning all the Primes to one place for me, though. Makes the whole thing a lot easier.”
Behind me, Mance goes rigid.
In the crowd of magic users, weapons are readied.
One man starts giving off sparks, like human lightning, though he grits his teeth like it costs him.
A young girl conjures a whirlwind in her palm, and her eyes get duller the faster it spins.
There are so many different types of magic that it’s impossible to follow or comprehend.
All of them somehow twisted, somehow wrong.
Below us, the Primes of each realm ready their own weapons, and what is left of Mance’s army by the gates does the same.
Mance struggles to her feet, bracing against the wall, but she slips and collapses back to the stone with a cry, clearly still not recovered from living through her own death four times over in the last several minutes.
I have to do something.
Now.
Because we are seconds away from the bloodiest battle since the Treaty, one that will have consequences in every single realm and will perhaps change the face of the Continent forever.
If this plays out the way Reltas wants, then every realm will be a wasteland, as broken and abandoned as the Outskirts, or the Forest Realm.
Leaving so many survivors starving for revenge—like him.
And so many orphans like me.
I flash back to one of the first times I felt this desperate, this overwhelmed by stronger forces. When I escaped the Academy and had to make a life on the street, had to steal from the very people I was afraid of.
I learned that they had fears, too. And if I knew what they were afraid of, then they were much easier to manipulate, no matter how much more power they had.
And I realize suddenly that I know what Reltas fears.
In the deluge of nightmares, the swamp of terrors that I spent the night drowning in, I remember the ones that belonged to him.
“You’re not saving them,” I say. “You’re ruining them. You’re ruining her.”
I don’t know where Kiar is in this mass of people, but I assume she’s here, and as soon as I finish my sentence, Reltas’s eyes find her for me.
At the look on his face, she scowls and whispers something to the man on her left.
Without thinking twice about it, he raises his arms and lifts the earth, creating a jutting ridge in the middle of Mance’s courtyard, which Kiar promptly strolls across, even as every step causes a painful-looking footprint to appear on the man’s chest.
“Whatever he’s saying about me, don’t listen to him,” she scowls when she reaches us. “I’m fine.” Even so, Reltas takes a beat too long to return his gaze to me, and when he does there’s an edge to it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps, stance turning protective.
I raise an eyebrow. “Don’t I? Tell her to show you her stomach, then.”
This time when Reltas’s eyes shoot to Kiar, her face is alarmed, and she reflexively folds both arms over her abdomen. She drops them again just as quickly, but the action was a giveaway, and Reltas knows it.
“What does he mean?” he demands.
“Nothing.”
“Then show me.”
She raises her chin. “No.”
Without another word, Reltas backs her into the wall and reaches for her shirt. She fights him, drawing her blade, but hesitates just short of actually hurting him, long enough for him to grab the hem and raise it for the briefest of seconds.
It’s enough.
Enough for all of us to see that her skin has been replaced by a tangle of ivy, and her exposed rib cage is turning into branches, some of which have snapped and started oozing sap.
It’s even worse than it was in my nightmares, which makes sense because she’s implanted at least four more people since then.
There’s a gaping hole where several of her vital organs should be, and it’s unclear how she’s even alive.
The magic must be sustaining her somehow, but it won’t forever. I know she feels it.
“Her power is killing her,” I tell him. “And the more she uses it, the faster she dies.”
He inhales sharply, eyes boring into hers. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispers. “Why do you continue to—”
“The same reason you keep using yours,” I tell him, “even though the hands are turning on you. Even though they’re trying to drag you down into the dirt with them, and even though there’s a part of you that wants them to succeed.
A part that is getting stronger by the day.
Even though you can feel your magic getting more and more corrupted. ”
“Strictly speaking,” Mance says behind me, “everyone’s magic is getting more corrupted.”
Reltas rounds on her, fists clenched. “What do you mean?”
She pulls herself up, slower this time, brushing off her skirts before approaching.
“Mara’s been doing some research. On the Treaty.
She found out that it was never signed to keep the power limited, as we were told.
No one really cared about stopping all the wars, not if they thought they might win them.
It was signed because everyone noticed that the more people were put into the Citadel, the darker everything got.
The more the magic was fed, the more damaging and painful it became, until everyone’s godlike powers turned into debilitating weaknesses.
They agreed to stop, for all of their sakes, but they also agreed to keep the real reason quiet so as not to appear weak before their citizens.
And that worked for a while. Until you”—she jabs a finger at Reltas’s chest—“started throwing all your citizens in by the wagonful, and it all started up again. The magic is reacting the same way as before. You’ve noticed, haven’t you? ”
Reltas’s jaw is so tight it looks like it might crack.
I step forward. “You have,” I answer for him. “And so have they.” I gesture around at the walls, at all the people poised to fight, and I know the fears of their hearts. “Your hate and vengeance are destroying everyone—”
“What if I don’t care?” Reltas cuts in. “You’re right, it is getting harder and harder not to let the hands pull me under. But what if my plan was always to let them? What if I just want to make sure I take the rest of you down with me?”
He bares his teeth, but I’m not fooled. This wasn’t the plan.
Reltas is as scared of this happening as the rest of his realm is.
I see the smoke blooming in his chest, and I know he cares about his people.
But now that we’re here, looking at a tidal wave ready to crash over our heads, his instinct is to open his arms and drown.
It’s easier that way. And it doesn’t hurt his pride.
“I’ll stop you.”
I was about to say the words myself, but a quiet voice beats me to it, and I shut my mouth in shock. Because it wasn’t Mance, either.
It was Kiar.
The silence after her words is charged. The promise of battle hangs in the air, all around us, ready to ignite at the slightest spark.
“You’ll stop me?” Reltas repeats. His tone is incredulous, but his expression is hurt. Then furious. “After everything we’ve been through? You’d abandon me now?”
“No,” she says firmly. “I will always support you. I will always seek your good. And I thought what you needed was revenge. I thought maybe once you had that, you’d go back to the way you were before.
When we were younger. But the further we go into this plan, the less I recognize you, Reltas.
I don’t think you can ever go back. Now you tell me you’re thinking of giving up your own life?
Pushing the magic and yourself so hard that the end of all this, all that we’ve worked for, is just losing yourself completely?
No. I won’t let it happen. I would fight anyone who means you harm. Even if that person is you.”
His eyes narrow, but Kiar meets his gaze resolutely, firm in her conviction.
“I think,” Mance says quietly, after a pause, “that you, too, have parts of yourself that you’ve suppressed.
I locked up Livid because I was afraid of my anger and hate, afraid to admit that I even felt those things at all.
But I understand her now. I understand why she’s part of me and why I need her.
And maybe you did the opposite. You locked up your version of Heart because you were afraid it would make you weak, like you think your father was.
But you need that piece of yourself just as much as I need Livid.
No part should ever act in isolation, and no part should ever be completely ignored. ”
After one loaded breath, Kiar nods, reluctantly, like she doesn’t enjoy agreeing with Mance. Or maybe like she’s realizing there are parts of her she needs to listen to better as well.
“We may not get to choose the beasts that our parents—that life buries in our hearts,” Mance continues.
“But we do get to choose the beasts we raise.” She unfolds her hands, and a dove appears between them, perched on her open, scarred palms. “Choose to let this vengeance go, Reltas. Not because it was right that it happened. Not because my father deserves forgiveness, or because yours didn’t fail you.
Choose to let it go because it is destroying you and everyone around you.
And letting it do so means you are still giving it power.
Take that power back, not by picking up a sword .
. . but by putting one down. Be free.” She lifts her hands and the dove takes flight, spiraling toward the sun.
Reltas watches it for a moment, but his expression doesn’t soften.
When he responds, it is through gritted teeth.
“Free,” he scoffs. “It sounds pretty. But there’s no way to undo what the magic has already done.
Even if I stop attacking now, if what you’re saying is true, then its darkness will still destroy us all anyway.
I’ve already poured too much into it. What do you propose that we do about that?
” He spits the word, and his attitude is still confrontational.
But there’s a desperation behind the words. Perhaps even . . . hope?
“I think,” Mance says, “It’s going to take more than just you and me to figure that out.
” She turns, making her way back to the parapet, and when I see how much she’s swaying, I hurry to prop her up.
Spread below us, four foreign armies still wait in a wreckage of glass trees, and Mance leans heavily against me as she stands at the edge to address them.
“Primes,” she calls out, and I’m proud of how strong her voice sounds, even though her hand is shaking in mine. “I formally request a counsel. There is much that we need to discuss . . . All of us.”