Fireblood (18 page)

“Come on, girl,” I say. “Time to run like there’s fire at our heels.” I grip her mane and jump onto her back, then kick hard, and she sprints through the gate.

Darkness swallows me. The moon is half-full and shrouded by treetops. The grass is gray and flat before me, the night veiling the curves of the earth. The black sky is laced with the faint blue lines, and they dimly light my way. I want to pull the reins, slow us down, but I trust the horse knows what to do. We hit a hollow and I nearly tumble off. Fireblood bounds on, and I sink against her back, letting her lead.

We forge on toward the open plain, and the moon brightens. I glance back, just once, and wish I hadn’t. Devlan follows not far behind on Hawken. He’s just hit the open plain and is gaining on me. I kick my heels and deepen my seat, launching Fireblood into a full gallop. “Come
on
.”

The treeline just before the wall is coming up on us, and I know it’s not long before we near the opening Sebastian took me through that leads to the meadow. Once I’m through, I can try to lose Devlan in the forest.

We enter the trees and the moonlight wanes. The darkness is thick, and I beg Fireblood to see the way. We can’t slow now. Branches reach out, grabbing at my hair and dress, but I sink closer to the horse and squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. “Just get us there, girl.”

I hear the trickle of water and rise up just enough to see the shimmer of moonlight in the winding brook. I dig my heels into her side, commanding Fireblood to enter. The boulders breaking the surface of the water are slick, and Fireblood’s hooves search for footing. She whinnies and dances back, refusing to cross the stream.

“Please, girl,” I plead. “We can do it.” I kick my heels, and she stamps forward, pushing off the bank and splashing her hooves into the dark water.

We’re nearly to the crumbled opening when a splash sounds from behind. I jerk my head around and see Devlan and Hawken coming up on us quick. “Go!” I kick her harder, and she digs her hooves into the riverbed.

Fireblood wavers to the side, her footing unsteady. I lose my balance and my grip on the reins. As I’m about to go over, arms reach out and grab me, pulling me off the horse and into the river. I land on top of Devlan. “
Ow
.”

The cold water rushes past my skin, and Devlan’s arms grip my waist tighter as I fight against him. “Ow?” he pants hard. “You landed on
me
.”

I elbow his side. “Get off.”

“No.” He circles his arms around me.

The freezing water rises to my waist as he traps my arms under his hold. I stop my struggle. I’ve lost. I know it. I’ve come so far, risked so much, and failed. “Just…” I stutter out, my will gone, lost as the adrenaline leaves my body and is replaced by resignation. “Just do it quickly.” Tears sting the corners of my eyes. I refuse to hold them back. My body shakes, wracked with sobs and shaking from the biting water.

Devlan sighs into the back of my hair. His arms loosen, and he folds me into him. His hand cradles my head to his chest. “I’m not going to kill you. No one is.”

I shake my head against him, loathing the comfort I feel from his arms, and slam my fist against his shoulder. “Don’t lie to me. I heard you. I heard all of you.”

Fear gives me one last surge of adrenaline and, ignoring the icy water and my shaking limbs, I elbow his ribs. He releases his hold on me and I bound up, splashing my way toward the hole in the wall.

Hunching, I crawl through and take off in a sprint. I’m just entering the meadow when his arms circle me. I stamp his foot, and he curses. Spinning on him, I shakily lift the hem of my dress and unsheathe my dagger.

Devlan’s eyes lock onto mine. “Zara. Don’t.”

I hold the blade out, my arm locked taut, and place one foot in front of the other, moving to the side of him. “I’m not afraid to use this.” I lift my chin, forcing false bravado into my voice.

He lowers his hands and stands straight, tall. “Then use it.”

“I just want to leave. You’ll never hear from me again. Just let me go.” I glance around at the trees, remembering the Eyes. “And use your communicator to call your knights and the Force. Stop them from pursuing me as long as you can.” I raise the dagger, making my point.

“There are no Eyes here. Sebastian and I disabled them when we were kids. And we made sure the monitors never noticed a missing section.” His mouth hikes up on one side. “We were good at escaping back then.”

Relieved, I begin to back away, putting one foot behind me. I stumble over a root, taking my eyes off him only for a moment. He springs forward and grabs my wrist, forcing my dagger hand out to the side. I struggle as he pushes me into a tree. My back scrapes against the rough bark, snagging my dress.

Devlan secures both my wrists, pinning my hands above my head. His breath is heavy, coming out in hard clips as he stares down at me. His face mere inches from mine. “You misunderstood what you heard back there.”

I force my head up and stare into his eyes. “I don’t care how you try to spin it. You said I was to be
offed
after the wedding.” My chest rises and falls against him, taking in deep breaths. “How, Devlan, did I misinterpret that?”

His blue eyes bore into mine, pale as the moonlight. The freezing water from the stream soaked my skirt, and it clings to my thighs. I shiver. Whether from the fierce look in his eyes or the cold, I’m not sure.

“Larkin’s a fool.” He shakes his head. “He only brought that up to get a rise out of me. He’s a bastard. He knows the mission has been changed.”

“What mission?” I shudder again as the biting night air seeps through my wet dress. “King Hart brought me here to be killed? I don’t understand. Why even bother with a wedding?”

“Zara.” He breathes my name, his breath warming my skin. “I don’t serve King Hart.”

“What?”

His lips press into a firm line, and his eyes widen as they steal over my shock. “I’m a Rebel.”

SIXTEEN

I
shake, my body wracked with cold, making it difficult to stand. My mind spins with thoughts of King Hart and Rebels and torture devices. My legs tremble and give out, almost dropping me to the forest floor.

Devlan links one arm under my legs, the other around my shoulders, and sweeps me up. I wrap my arms around his neck as the quick motion nearly sends me forward. My dagger dangles loosely from my hand against his shoulder.

I savor the body heat he provides before we reach the river bank and he deposits me on one of the logs, the same one I sat on the day Sebastian brought me here. The night air presses on my wet dress, and I feel like I’m wrapped in sheets of ice.

He stands beside me and looks down. “You’re cold.” He removes his vest, then his gray tunic. The moonlight washes his bare chest in pale light, the shadows accentuating his lean muscles. I turn my head, forcing my eyes away, but can’t help peeking. He turns around to place his vest on the log and his back catches the light. A large scar slices down his left shoulder blade toward the middle of his back.

My heart thuds against my breastbone. I avert my eyes and sheath my dagger. Whatever made that mark must have been painful. As he turns around, I jerk my head sharply and look toward the woods. “Here.” He comes up beside me. “Lift your arms.”

I’m too cold to fight him. I lift my arms and he slips his tunic over my head. It’s twice, maybe three times the size of me, but it still carries his body heat. I wrap my arms around my stomach, drawing in the warmth. His scent—the sweetness I can never pin down—fills my senses and my chest tightens. I used to associate it and the smell of mint and forest with the protection I felt from him. Now it infuses me with fear.

He sits on the log beside me and stares. Silent. It’s going to drive me mad.

“Were you planning to elaborate on your confession?” My stomach knots with unease at being so near a traitor, but I forge on. “Or is that as much of an explanation as I’m to get?”

He pushes his dark hair back and looks at the vest in his lap, then pulls it over his head. I’m relieved I don’t have to stare at his chest anymore. But his bare arms, flexing as he grips and re-grips his hands, wringing them, are still distracting.

Finally, he says, “I planned to unveil things much later.” He palms his thighs and leans forward. “But your snooping doesn’t give me much choice now.”

I don’t deny it. I was snooping. I straighten my back and raise an eyebrow, urging him on.

“What you, and most citizens for that matter, don’t know is that there is an ever-present uprising in Karm.” His brow creases. “The Rebels have been players in a silent war ever since a battle took place between us and the Force. It was after the Rebels lost that we chose to attack from the inside to bring down the barrier.” He takes a deep breath. “And this is the closest we’ve ever been to seeing that realized.”

I shake my head. “How do I not know about this? How does
everyone
not know about this?”

“Because, the last time the Rebels exposed themselves and fought against the Force hundreds were slaughtered.” He hangs his head. “The memory of that war has been buried. All those old enough to remember? Gone. Disposed of. The Rebels were nearly all taken out, too. The technology Hart possesses is something no one has seen since the Final War. And it’s something we can only access by getting to King Hart.” He laughs hollowly and looks up. “But as you know, no one can get to him. No one knows where he, or the mainframe that controls Karm, is.”

I grip my sides tighter, my head swimming with confusion and questions I want answered immediately, but I stay quiet. I’ve never heard Devlan speak so much, or so passionately, about anything.

“We’ve worked hard to be unseen, make them believe there’s only a small group so that King Hart believes the threat is close to being eliminated. It’s the only way we’re going to get someone close enough to him.”

“I can understand wanting change for Karm”—
every time the Force beat my father, I prayed for it
—“but why the barrier? What about Outside? Why are you risking so much for a wasteland? And one that is rumored to be dangerous?” I suck in a breath. “What if you succeed and it’s worse out there than in here? I mean, at least here there’s vegetation and food and we’re protected from monsters.” I’m surprised the words have left my mouth. After all my fervent arguments about change, this should sound like the answer. But it’s the truth. What are they fighting so hard to get to?

He exhales heavily, the air fogging as it passes his lips. “There’s just too much to explain.” He drives his hand through his hair, frustrated. Then he rises and extends his hand. “Come on. We could talk all night and by dawn there’d still be more to tell.”

I push his hand aside. “I’m not going anywhere until I get some straight answers, Devlan.” I rise to stand before him, my head angled back to meet his shadowed eyes. “Just tell me this. What I heard tonight, if the Rebels are the ‘good guys,’ how could you
kill
me? I’ve done nothing—am no one.”

His eyes are hard on mine. “You were to be the key.”

Taking a step back, I wrap my arms around myself and shrink against his steady glare. “I’m not a
key
…whatever that means.”

He steps closer and extends his hand again. “We should be moving.” He glances around, and I’m suddenly wary. I ignore his hand and instead jerk my head sideways, motioning him to walk ahead of me.

He releases a groan and backs away. “Wait here.”

Disappearing through the crumbled opening of the wall, he leaves me behind in the dark with only the crickets and trickling of the river. Before I have time to fear the unknown of the forest, he returns with Fireblood in tow.

“What about the Eyes in the castle? And what about Hawken? Shouldn’t I bring her?” The thought of being away from Court excites me.

“I have it covered.”

I study his assured features, and decide he does.
Will I be able to escape him once we’re farther away?
It’s a chance I’m willing to take.

He sets off and I walk just behind him, off to his side, as he leads Fireblood. “Believe me”—he unsheathes his sword and knocks a low limb aside as he clears our path—“I had no knowledge of the former leader’s plan. Even if Micah was still here, once the mission was to take place, I’d have stopped it. I won’t allow anyone to harm you.”

“But I still don’t understand. Who’s Micah? And why me? I don’t know anything.”

He cuts down a vine. “We don’t know how much Sebastian knows of King Hart’s operation. But regardless, he is to be King. Whether he knows everything now or not, soon Hart will prepare Sebastian to take over. We needed to get someone close to the prince. Someone he’d trust. Someone who could gain access through Sebastian to Hart’s operation.”

I step over a root as understanding dawns. “And that was me. But how could I do this if I was dead?”

“No,” he says. “It was me.” He turns on me. His face clouds over in the wan moonlight. “I had a close relationship with him once. The day I left Court, the Rebels recruited me, and it’s since been my mission to train and get back on the inside.”

I hold his stare. What happened between them for Devlan to so easily side against his former friend and join the Rebels? “I’m more confused.”

“I know.” He again turns and swipes his sword at the brush, moving us through the forest. “This won’t work. This is why I was trying to take my time with you.” He tugs Fireblood’s reins, leading her over a fallen limb. “I should never have allowed Larkin to come back. God, I hate that guy.”

“Just
tell
me.”

“Fine, Zara.”

His use of my name gains my full attention, and I move closer to his side.

“Micah, the previous leader of the Rebels, had a plan in effect. She thought disposing of you would make Sebastian distraught, and he’d seek solace in his former best friend.” He points to himself for clarity. “That he’d become so vengeful against the Rebels, he’d bring me into his counsel to formulate a counterstrike against them.”

My mouth drops open. “That’s sick.”

“Yeah, it was a sadistic plan. Micah was losing her mind to the Virus.” He shakes his head. “That plan would never have been carried out. I wouldn’t have let it.” He cranes his neck and his eyes trail over me. “You have to trust me. I would’ve killed Larkin with my bare hands before he ever placed one on you.”