Chapter 39
‘Ryland,’ I rasp, breathless. But he knows Soren’s coming. I only hope he also sees the knife in Soren’s hand.
Soren swings violently and Ryland dives back, but he’s too winded from the smoke to really fight. He coughs, barely moving out of the way of Soren’s next slash with the blade.
He needs a weapon. I whirl around, searching, but everything is inside the jail. At the smoky door of the post, I gulp two big breaths of clean air, then run inside and regret it instantly. The smoke is like acid in my eyes, the heat unbearable.
Do it anyway. Ryland will die without something to defend himself.
Resolve bolsters me as I clear the first room quickly.
My lungs ache from lack of oxygen as I enter the back room we just escaped.
It feels like the flames plaster the ceiling.
Blindly, I make my way to the wall of torture instruments and pat it down.
My hand closes on exactly what I’m looking for.
The burn from holding my breath turns agonising, and I allow a small pant. Acrid smoke spreads like poison through my lungs. I immediately start coughing. The heat adds to my panic as my clothes feel like they’re on fire.
Get low, Ryland had said.
But I can’t. Instead, I run, fighting my desperate lungs from taking another breath and stumble out of the door. I suck in fresh air, then check myself – no flames to put out. A miracle.
My gaze snaps to Ryland. Although Soren’s above him, they both have a hand on the knife, wrestling for control.
‘Get off him!’ I shout, panting.
Soren ignores me.
‘I said.’ Gasp. ‘Get off of him.’ Gasp. Then with every ounce of strength, I break into a limping run. Soren releases one hand to punch Ryland’s temple, just as I snap my whip. The tail booms into the air, cracking against Soren’s face, throwing him back.
He lands hard on the ground, hand gripping his cheek. His shocked face melts into rage as he pushes to his feet.
‘Ryland,’ I call. Why isn’t he moving?
Soren stalks forward, attention now on me. I make the whip lash out again, faster than he can dodge. It strikes him in the chest.
With a cry, he drops to his knees. I use the moment to catch my breath.
But before I can get more than a lungful, he comes at me again. I swing, but the timing’s wrong. His arms collide with my waist, tackling me, and we land hard on the ground. Pain explodes in my wounded back.
My training kicks in, and I wrap my legs around Soren’s waist. I keep my hold on the whip – I’m not losing my weapon. Not when we’ve both been trained in grappling by the same man.
Soren rolls us, and my heart screams at how dangerously close we are to the edge of the cliff – the highest spot in the whole Notting perimeter.
A split second before he swings at my throat, I notice that he still has his knife. I block him using my whip clutched between both hands. The serrated edge sinks into the leather. I scream as I fight to hold him back, knowing I can’t do it for much longer.
Ryland ploughs into Soren, throwing him off me, and nearly over the cliff. Soren claws at the ground, his legs dangling perilously over the edge. ‘Help me!’ he calls.
I freeze.
‘Marian!’ he shouts. His gaze flicks to me. Begging. Pleading. ‘Please, I’m sorry. Help me.’ He slips a little more and makes a feral sound as he grimaces, fighting to hang on. ‘Come on – it’s me. You know … you know I love you. I’ve always loved you. That’s what this is all about.’
His confession arrives like a slap. ‘How dare you say that.’ Not after hurting me. Leaving me to die in the fire. Love would never do the things he’s done.
But there is something about his desperation that sinks its teeth in me. It reminds me that he’s human. He’s the boy I once gave my heart to. My first kiss.
I won’t deny he’s a terrible person – the kind who would leave people to die. But that’s the difference between us: I am not. Before I know it, I crawl forward and extend my whip, refusing to get close enough to give him my arm.
‘Marian, no!’ Ryland shouts.
Soren manages to grab on, and his weight drags me closer to the edge.
Ryland lands on my legs, holding me down. ‘Marian, let go!’ I feel another person – Rufus – grab my feet.
My arms scream in agony, and my hands slip.
‘Pull harder,’ Soren yells. Then he lets out a single hard laugh in victory as he finds a foothold on the side of the cliff. He reaches and grabs my arm. I cry out as he uses both my body and our holds on the whip to pull himself up.
It feels like I’m ripping in half.
‘I knew you’d do it,’ he says in my ear. ‘You’re so patheti–’
Suddenly, the whip snaps, exactly where his blade cut it. His body slips back, losing ground, then swings wildly from our connected arms, dragging me with him.
Ryland lets out a beastly growl as he fights to keep me from going over the edge. Then, in the blink of an eye, Soren’s grip breaks.
Time pauses a beat. Soren’s arms pinwheel as he tumbles backwards through the air. And knowing that this time there’s no saving him, I tuck my head and look away.
Ryland pulls me back from the edge, and once I’m out of danger, he drops back down, hugging my hips like he doesn’t trust the ground – or me – to stay put. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks, his chest rising and falling harshly against me.
The answer doesn’t make it to my mouth.
He lifts his head. ‘Marian?’ He crawls up my body and gently rolls me over. His concerned face is damp with sweat and specked with soot.
In a burst of movement, I sit up and hug him to me.
He grips me just as fiercely, his hand cupping the back of my head. ‘I’ve got you.’
I bury my face in his bare chest, and we stay like that until our fast breaths slow down and begin to sync. I don’t want to let him go. Ever. Soren almost – ‘Wait. Are you okay?’ I ask. ‘Did he cut you? I saw him hit your head.’
‘No stab wounds,’ he says, looking like he wants to pull me back to him.
Do it.
But then something shutters over his eyes. He backs up and rises to his feet. I watch as his muscles stiffen, first his fists, then the planes of his face. Now he won’t look at me, seemingly fascinated by the ground.
Really? Even after that? My face heats, then cools as rejection comes swiftly.
Rufus strides to the edge of the cliff and peers over. ‘Well, he’s dead.’
I glance at the forest, feeling like I’m bleeding, haemorrhaging from somewhere important – my broken heart. I slip on a stoic mask, like a piece of armour. Even my next words come out as if reporting for duty. ‘The whip snapped. It shouldn’t have, but Soren cut it when he attacked me.’
‘He deserved it,’ Ryland says. ‘He was trying to kill us so we can’t report it to Atlas.’
That’s the first time I’ve heard Ryland not call him the Commander. I nod and swallow back the sickness twisting my guts at Soren’s betrayal. His death. ‘Speaking of Atlas – Agatha is with him.’
At the mention of my sister, a muscle twitches in Ryland’s cheek – what does that mean?
‘You said they’re marching on Kingsland?’ he prompts.
‘Yes.’ I take a breath. ‘When you … bonded with Agatha, she saw how to get there.’
‘I didn’t –’ His head rears back. Slowly, his eyes shutter. ‘She was touching me when I woke. She must have seen the memory of what I was thinking. Dreaming. Somehow. But I didn’t show her anything. Not on purpose. I wouldn’t have …’
Why not? I hate how desperate I am to know the answer. How I hold my breath at the thought of him changing his mind about me, about Agatha.
Stop it. He’s made his choice.
I study Halkirk Tower as it smoulders beside us.
The bed of rock it’s built on should keep the fire contained.
‘The Commander wants your coal-powered machinery. Electricity. Magic. And anything else he can get his hands on. He has Agatha’s bombs, all our catapults, and unless you have the same kind of weapons, bows and arrows won’t stand a chance against them.
He’ll annihilate the people in Kingsland, then capture it.
Our best chance is to stop him before he gets there. ’
‘You’ll come with me?’ Ryland asks. ‘To stop them?’
‘I’m in,’ says Rufus.
‘No, you’re not,’ Ryland says to him. His steady gaze doesn’t waver from me, waiting for my answer.
‘Yes, I’ll come’ I say. ‘Me confronting Atlas is long overdue.’
After checking the Northeast point cliff and finding no sign of Lucky, dead or alive, I collect our horses and Ryland’s gear, then lead him through one of my secret raiding paths – though I’m not sure the secrecy was needed.
I saw almost no guards left on duty. Atlas must have taken nearly all of them with him, leaving Notting with barely a defence.
With extreme caution, Ryland and I search for Samuel and Levi’s camp, hidden somewhere on the outskirts of militia territory. Ryland whistles and soon the sound is returned.
For the first time in a while, Ryland and I make eye contact, the message clear: be alert. Our already nocked bows take aim in the direction of the sound as our horses walk closer.
‘About time you made it out here,’ Samuel grumbles. He appears slowly from behind a bush. But instead of lowering his bow and arrow, he scans the horizon with it, looking for anyone who followed us. ‘The kid thought you’d show up yesterday. Tell me you won that contest.’
The tension on Ryland’s face doesn’t break at being united with his friend, which surprises me.
‘Long story, and yes,’ he says, as he steps down from his horse.
I do the same but stop when I see the dim outline of not one but two men sitting around the pit of an unlit fire. The first man is tall. And he looks a lot like –
‘Lucky?’ I ask.
The man stands, and – by saints – it is my friend. We collide in a painful hug, his wiry frame wrapping around me. ‘H-how did you –?’ I sputter. ‘I thought … I looked …’
‘You thought I was dead and dragged away by an animal?’ He smirks, looking over at Levi beside him. ‘Nah. But I did hurt my arm, trying to catch myself on a root. Twisted my ankle too.’