“Liv!” Paz shouted. “Was hoping I might see you. Come here.”
Liv scowled and jogged over with her men. “Sir,” she said, “I was headed over to check how much powder-”
“Never mind that. I got a message I want you to take up to Lord Aravind up top.”
Grimacing, playing dumb, Liv said, “Can I send one of my men?”
“No, it’s important. Him only. Besides, how are you going to keep that little ass of yours so tight if you don’t sweat a bit?”
The captain laughed with Paz, and Liv’s men snickered quietly, as if trying to suppress it.
Liv looked at her men. “I don’t know what you boys are laughing about. If I gotta go up, you’re coming, too.”
That shut them up.
The captain laughed, but then looked uncomfortable. “I’m afraid I can only let two of you up there. We could take the message for you if you want, but I can’t let armed parties up the Great Pyramid.”
“We’re in the middle of a war. You’re joking, right?” Paz Cavair said.
“I hate to be a stickler, but orders and all,” the captain said. He was a young man. Dark-haired, beautiful blue eyes, beaded beard. “You know how it is.”
“I do,” Paz Cavair said. “Jump.”
“Huh?” the captain asked.
It was the code. Paz Cavair’s one guard and all of Liv’s attacked the Atashian soldiers, drawing knives and stabbing them through mail, breaking necks and savagely hacking into the flesh of the captain and all his men. It was over so fast, and the bodies carried away so swiftly, that there was no immediate outcry.
The murder done, Paz Cavair flipped his cloak around. He had the eagle sigil of Ru stitched on the other side and he took up position as if he was a soldier himself. Liv and all her men flipped their cloaks around as well. Paz Cavair’s bodyguards stripped the cloaks off the other guards, and they piled several others on top of each other and hid them as well as they could. “Five minutes to reach the top if you run. You need to get there before the guard’s changed.”
“This was supposed to be the new guards,” Liv said.
“Their relief is late. Nothing we can do about it now. Go!”
So they ran, straight up the steps. It would only be a matter of time before Lord Aravind’s men saw them. If they were lucky, their cloaks would buy them peace until they reached the top-most of the city’s soldiers had little official insignia, but only elite soldiers were supposed to approach Lord Aravind en masse. But it was war, and the old way of doing things always breaks down in war.
Liv ran.
Cannons went off to the south, and she could see part of the Color Prince’s army massing, charging toward the gates. It was mostly a distraction-for her.
“Liv,” the Color Prince had said last night. “I’ve been testing you. To see if I can trust you with something.”
“I know. I’d say, of course you can trust me, but I suppose I would say that regardless.”
He smirked. It was a little gruesome with his burn scars, but she barely even saw those anymore. “Not testing your loyalty, not now.” The sun was setting early, lighting up the Red Cliffs, making the shadows of the trebuchets stretch out forever. “Your competence. It’s a test that I’m forced to give you because I have so few superviolet drafters, and I need a good one for this. The best one. I’d like to keep you safe, but instead, I need to risk you so that we might be victorious. If you succeed, I will reward you more highly than you can imagine.”
“What do I need to do?” Liv asked.
And here she was, sweating, heaving, feeling like she was going to throw up. She stopped for a moment and looked out to sea, feeling something, thinking she’d heard something.
A vast green island had risen from the depths of the sea and now floated in the middle of the neck. Ships, small specks, were crashing and capsizing. Huge waves were rolling out from it. An enormous spire rose out of the center of the island. Her heart soared and she swore she felt suddenly wild and strong. The green bane.
To the south, she could hear the sounds of battle. Cannons and muskets were being fired from the wall, shaking the city. The soldiers at the top of the pyramid hadn’t seen the bane or Liv’s team yet, their vision narrowed to the battle playing out in front of the walls.
But despite feeling wild and strong, sprinting up the steps was exhausting. Liv slowed and the men on either side of her each grabbed one of her arms and helped her up the rest of the way. They didn’t harass her for it. They were fighters and their bodies were trained for this. She wasn’t. It made her feel weak and helpless-and some small part of her felt trapped and wanted to wrench free. But she suppressed the urge.
They slowed as they came close to the top of the pyramid. Almost invisible from below, there was a square patio at the pyramid’s penultimate level, where lords could gather and religious rituals be carried out. It was from here that the men and women of Ru’s royal family had been slaughtered and thrown down the steps. Fuschias hung from baskets and pools of water and fountains kept the nobles cool, slaves brought fruit and wine from within the pyramid itself.
The drafters in Liv’s team had all pulled on their spectacles, and she did the same. She drafted a shell of superviolet and filled it with liquid yellow, as Gavin Guile himself had shown her. It felt like so long ago now.
“Who are you?” a voice asked from above. A soldier, challenging them.
A spear of blue shot through the man’s nose and into his face, and blood exploded from his eyes. Liv’s team charged.
There were more people on the top of the pyramid than Liv had guessed, but no drafters. She shot her flashbomb into the middle of the crowd and it burst, blinding the half of the men who were looking their way. Liv’s men were ferocious-easily some of the best drafters and fighters she’d ever seen. Phyros spun two axes that looked like halberds with their hafts shortened, and everywhere he went, men died, slaves died, women died. The blue drafters shot spikes through faces and necks, left and right. Phips Navid charged Lord Aravind, shouting vengeance, and was cut down by the noble’s bodyguards.
Liv stood back and shot flashbombs, feeling vaguely cowardly, but knowing that she was irreplaceable, and her flashbombs did their work. She only had to draw her pistol once, when a crazed slave had rushed her with a flowerpot. The woman had dropped at Liv’s feet, powder burns around the bloody hole in the center of her chest.
Then, abruptly, it was done. Men and women were moaning, but there was no fight. Liv’s team was down to five, somehow, and each of them was checking bodies, dispatching wounded enemies who were scrambling to hide or to find weapons.
“Got ten soldiers coming up the outer steps,” Phyros said. “I’ll hold the inside steps.”
Phips Navid was whimpering over by the throne. Liv walked over to him. His left eye was crushed, and there was a spear all the way through his stomach and coming out his back, and his knee was bent the wrong way.
“We get him?” Phips asked. “That swine Aravind? We get him?”
“Yes,” Liv said. “Looks like he took a spike in the groin. Phyros just opened his throat.”
Phips barked a laugh, but it ended in a whimper. “Good, good. Fourteen years I been hunting that bastard. Wish I could have done it myself. Wish… wish I hadn’t needed to. You believe in heaven?”
“I believe in hell,” Liv said.
He looked like he tried to laugh, but his face twisted in pain. “Do me the favor, will you? I’ll go find out for both of us.” He grinned again fiercely and held that grin stubbornly against his pain and fear. She told herself it was mercy, but she couldn’t move until she drafted superviolet once more. It had to be done.
She did it, blade slicing neatly through carotid and jugular. She stepped back on shaky legs. Turned away before she could watch what she’d done.