31. Duplicity
Duplicity
ZORA RAVENAL
MONTHS AGO . . . THE DAY OF THE IRON RITUAL AND MAGIC TEST
“Tell me everything,” the Marshal whispered so quietly I could barely hear her.
The scar on my throat tingled with phantom pain as I brought my lips to her ear, and obeyed.
The Marshal’s eyes widened, pupils consuming her irises as her face turned a sickly shade of green.
I told her the tale of a boy with dyed hair becoming a man, who stole the alias of his right-hand assassin and then let me stab him in the woods, pretending to be captured.
The same boy had begged me to go with him back to Azote.
I whispered so softly I could barely hear myself. “The man calling himself Tarantula, held captive on the base, is the Emperor in disguise. We do know his storm magic. It’s wind. I recognize his speech, his eyes . . . his scent. I’d bet my mom’s life on it. It’s him.”
The Marshal covered her mouth like she was holding back vomit, breathing loudly through her nose. Abruptly she straightened, completely composed, brushing her fear away like it had never existed. Duty had forged her into a woman of steel and fire.
She spoke in a rush, quick-witted and cunning. Faster than imaginable, she outlined an awful, brilliant plan. She opened a box on the side of the board and pulled out a golden figure—Plague. She sat the Emperor astride it and tossed them both down to my feet.
“The dragon is the asset,” the Marshal whispered. “We use what he wants—you—to get close to what we want—Plague.” Her voice shook with excitement. “We break the stalemate of mutually assured destruction, and then . . . we’re closer than we’ve ever been to winning this damned war.”
She smiled. It was laced with menace, shadows stretching long across her features. For a second, I saw him in her.
“Code name: Quest. Your mission objective is to seduce Aleksander so he ultimately brings you to Plague. When the time comes, I will give you a tracker and detonator to keep hidden on your person. You will place it on Plague, and you will activate one of our last intercontinental high-speed ballistic fusion-propelled missiles.”
“No.” I shook my head, stomach revolting. “It’s a suicide mission. It’s impossible—”
She slapped me, hard.
I choked on panic, but when she offered me her hand a few seconds later, I took it because I’d joined the Crimson Army to defeat the Empire and this was my chance—an awful, terrible, impossible chance, but a chance all the same.
Rule of survival: Take the opportunities given to you, especially if they scare you.
The Marshal didn’t release me as she hauled me upright off the floor.
She pulled me close and whispered, “There is no one else in all Antichthon who can pull this off . . . no one else he cares about. All the ships in our harbor are ablaze with dragon fire. There is no safety to retreat to. The Democratic Commonwealth is counting on you to save all humanity. They’re coming for us all. ”
I yanked from her hold.
The pressure was unfathomable; I backed away, straining under the weight of impossible circumstances.
My task: deceive the devil and destroy his most cherished monster.
As I panicked, a memory sparkled, starlight in the pitch darkness. Mom used to sing the same eleven words to me before bed, even when I grew up and came home later each night covered in dried animal blood.
“Lucky girl, you can do anything you want in the world.”
She must have foreseen.
What the world would ask of me.