The Young Elites (22 page)

Baliras are violent when provoked. But be silent and still,
and you may yet see the frailness under their enormous size,
the way they wrap their fins around their young.

—
Creatures of the Underworld
,
by Sir Alamour Kerana

I
’m not sure how long we stay in the alley. Maybe a minute. Maybe hours. Time loses meaning for a while. I only remember leaving that narrow street in a stupor, my hand clenched tightly around Violetta’s. There is a corpse lying on the ground behind us that I don’t dare look at again.

Somehow, we manage to stay hidden in the shadows, the chaos in the city working to our advantage. In the heart of Estenzia, the steady presence of Inquisition patrols has quickly turned into teeming numbers, more white cloaks than I’ve ever seen in my life. Broken glass litters the streets. Shops owned by
malfettos
are smashed, burned, and destroyed—their owners dragged from their beds, still in their shifts, and thrown into the street to be arrested. The palace is taking its revenge for what we did at the piers.

I am taking my own revenge.

We continue on. It seems like the night sky has started to lighten . . . dawn already?
We must have stayed in the alley for some time,
I think as we go. Sheer exhaustion suddenly hits me, and I lean into a wall to steady myself against the wave of dizziness.
Something happened in that alley. What was it?
Why does everything feel so out of focus? A memory comes to me clouded and half formed, as if I had witnessed it through another’s eyes.
Someone had been there. A boy. He’d tried to hurt us. I can’t remember beyond that. Something happened. But what?
I look at Violetta, who returns my stare with wide, frightened eyes. It takes me a moment to realize that she is frightened of
me.

Perhaps I do remember. Perhaps I’m forgetting on purpose.

“Hurry, Adelina,” she whispers as she hesitantly takes my hand. I follow numbly. “Where should we go?”

Through the fog in my head, I murmur back, “The Fortunata Court. This way.” If I can just talk to Raffaele, I can explain everything. Enzo will listen to him. I shouldn’t have left them behind—this has all been a terrible mistake.

I lead us through the waning dark, past burning buildings and wailing people, the air filled with the smell of terror. I stop again when the darkness in my stomach becomes too much for me to handle.

“Wait,” I gasp out to Violetta. Before she can reply, I lean forward and heave. What little is in my stomach comes spilling out. I cough and retch until I have nothing left. Still, the darkness churns in me, relentless, bringing with it tides of both nausea and comfort. I teeter between revulsion and joy.

Through my dizziness, I feel Violetta wrapping her arm around my shoulder. She steadies me. When I look up, I meet her solemn eyes. “Who was he?” she whispers.

Her question sounds like an accusation. It confuses me. “Who?”

Violetta’s eyes turn stricken. “You mean, you don’t—”

This must be what it feels like to lose your mind.
I shake off her arm and turn my attention back to the streets. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I snap. I wait for Violetta to say something in return, but she stays quiet, and we don’t exchange another word until we near the arches of the Fortunata Court.

By the time we arrive, the city is full of the sound of screams, and the faint dawn is broken by bursts of orange. We pause in an alley to catch our breath. All of my strength has been sapped, and I don’t even try to conjure an illusion to protect us. Violetta keeps her eyes turned away from me, her expression stricken.

“Get back,” she suddenly whispers.

We shrink into the shadows as Inquisitors come running past the main street and into a nearby shop. Moments later, they drag a
malfetto
woman out, throwing her down with such force that she falls onto her hands and knees. She’s sobbing. Behind her, white cloaks flutter inside her shop, and the first signs of fire flicker at the windows. We watch in silence, hearts in our throats, as the woman begs them for mercy. One of the Inquisitors prepares to strike her. Up in the windows of nearby homes, neighbors look on. Their faces are pictures of horror. But they stay silent, and do not help.

Suddenly, the Inquisitor who is about to strike the woman tilts backward. As if a curtain of wind swept him off his feet. Then he’s yanked, shrieking, high into the air, past the roofline of the buildings. My eye widens.
Windwalker.
The Elites are here. The Inquisitor hovers in the sky for a moment—and then plummets to the street with a sickening crunch. Violetta flinches and turns into my shoulder. At the same time, the flames in the shop vanish without a trace, leaving nothing but black smoke curling from the building. Other Inquisitors shout in alarm. But wherever the Daggers were, they’re already gone. I shrink farther into the shadows, suddenly terrified that they will find me.

In the distance, we hear several
malfettos
in the street call out, “The Young Elites!” The woman on her knees screams, “They’re here! Save us!”

Others chant the same. The desperation in their voices raises the hairs on my neck. But nothing else happens. The Inquisitors sweep the streets, looking for them, but they are nowhere to be found.

“We have to get out of here,” I whisper. “Follow me. We’re going underground.”

And with that, Violetta and I backtrack out of our alley and flee down a quieter path, away from the carnage.

By the time the sun finally rises, we arrive at the streets in front of the Fortunata Court. I freeze, unwilling to believe what I see. The place, once a crown jewel, is now charred and destroyed, ransacked by Inquisitors. Blood stains the street at its entrance. The Daggers must be gone too—all their plans, their mission to assassinate the king, their safe house, destroyed. In one night.

There’s nothing left.

When the Aristans conquered the Salans, they took everything
with them, their jewels, their honor, and their children,
sometimes straight from the womb.

—Journal chronicling Amadera’s First Civil War, 758–762,
by Mireina the Great

I
didn’t dare step back inside the Fortunata Court. I didn’t know if there were still Inquisitors combing through the rooms there . . . and I didn’t know if I’d be ready to see whether or not the Inquisitors found the Daggers’ secret chambers. Whether or not there are any bodies inside that I’d recognize. I didn’t
want
to know.

Instead, I took Violetta’s hand and led us down to the only place where I thought we’d be safe. The catacombs.

From deep within the tunnels underneath the city, the roar of people aboveground sounds like a strange, muted echo, whispers of the ghosts that must haunt these dark, narrow corridors. Faint shafts of light come from small gratings at the top of the corridor, and the dimness of a rainy morning paints everything in a haze. I don’t know where else to go. We’ve been down here for a full day since we fled the Fortunata Court’s ashes, hiding in the midst of death. From here, we heard Teren’s voice ringing out across the palace square, saw Inquisitors swarming through the city streets. The memory of last night leaves a nauseating, aching feeling in my stomach. I should’ve stopped and helped the people in the streets. But I had no strength.

What has happened to Enzo, now that the court is ruined and the king is dead? What will they do now?

We can’t stay here long. Maybe the Inquisition has discovered the Fortunata Court’s secret passageways and uncovered the Daggers’ access to the catacombs. Maybe they are searching through the tunnels now, hunting for us. For now, though, we rest here, too exhausted to continue.

“Are you all right?” I ask my sister as we both lean wearily against the wall. My throat’s parched, and my words come out weak and hoarse. Above, the sound of gentle rain muffles my words.

Violetta nods once. Her eyes are distant, studying the new white mask that covers my missing eye.

I sigh, then push stray hair away from my face and start braiding the strands. Long minutes of silence pass between us. I braid, then unbraid, then braid again. The silence between us drags on, but somehow it’s a comfortable one that reminds me of the days we used to spend in the garden. Finally, I look at her. “How long did Teren have you imprisoned like that?”

“Since the day you escaped your execution,” she whispers back. It takes her a while to continue. “The Inquisition in Dalia searched for you for days. They scoured the city for other
malfettos
with silver hair. They killed two other girls.” She looks down. “They were already stationed in our home, so I couldn’t leave. Then Teren came and fetched me. He told me he was taking me to the port capital.”

“Did he . . . hurt you?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not physically.”

“Did he have any idea that you have powers?”

“No,” Violetta whispers.

I struggle up to a better sitting position, then firmly fix my gaze on her. She props herself up on her elbow. “Did
you
?”

Violetta’s silent for a moment. In her eyes, I see the truth. “You
did
know,” I whisper back. “When? How long?”

Violetta hesitates and pulls her knees up to her chin. “I’ve known since we were little.”

I’m numb. I can’t breathe.

“I found out by accident one day. I didn’t think it was real, at first,” she said, meeting my gaze timidly. “After all, I had no markings. How could I possibly be a
malfetto
with demonic”—she pauses—“with unusual powers?”

I try to ignore the buzzing in my ears. “When?”

“The day Father broke your finger.” Her voice turns quieter. “Do you remember when you pulled away from him? You wanted to hide behind a dark veil,
literally.
I could feel it.”

Only Raffaele can do that. “You could
sense
me?”

Violetta nods. “That day, I knew instinctively that I didn’t want you to do something to anger Father even more. I knew that if you were to do something extraordinary, he’d have you killed, or sold, or worse. So I reached out . . .” She pauses for a moment, as if trying to figure out a good way of explaining herself. “And I
pushed back
on you. I stopped you.”

In a flash, Raffaele’s words come back to me.
There is something dark and bitter inside you.
Is this where all of my terrifying thoughts come from? Do they originate from so many years of pent-up energy, yearning to break free?

It all makes sense now. Raffaele wondered why my powers didn’t surface earlier in life. They did. I just never knew it, because Violetta always suppressed them. She came down with a fever the day after that first incident, I recall.

And hadn’t I used my powers for the first time on the
one
night that we were separated? Hadn’t I felt like a mantle was lifted from me when I said my good-byes to Violetta? Hadn’t I used my powers during my execution?

And
Raffaele
. I start to shake my head. “No. No, there must be something you’re not telling me. We—the Daggers—had a Messenger, someone who could sense other Elites. He never sensed you. How could he have missed you?”

Violetta has no answer to this, of course. I’m not sure why I expect her to give me one. She only stares back helplessly.
Raffaele couldn’t sense her,
I suddenly think,
because she must have unconsciously suppressed his power too
. It is the only explanation. To Raffaele, Violetta’s power is invisible.

“When did you let me go?” I whisper.

Violetta’s voice sounds hollow now. “When the Inquisition first arrested you, I reached out and pushed your powers away. I didn’t want to think about you unleashing on the Inquisitors while you were in prison. I thought maybe they would pardon you if they couldn’t prove that you did anything out of the ordinary. But then I heard about your pending execution—I saw them drag you out to the square. I didn’t know what else to do . . . so I released your power. And you called on it.” She lowers her eyes. “I don’t know what else happened to you after the Young Elites took you away.”

My heart hammers against my ribs. Away from my sister, I learned for the first time how to grasp on to that energy after training with the Daggers. Suddenly, I reach out for her hand and press it to my heart. “I want to see you do it,” I say quietly.

Violetta hesitates. Then she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and
pushes.
I gasp. I feel it this time—as if someone were squeezing the air from my lungs, taking my lifeblood and pushing it down until it is invisible. Unreachable. I slump against the wall, dizzy. A strange emptiness hollows my chest. Odd. I don’t remember ever feeling this in the past. Perhaps it’s impossible to miss something you didn’t know existed. Now I know, though, and now I feel its absence. I reach out tentatively for my energy, searching for the darkness that pools in my chest. A jolt of panic hits me when I can’t feel it at all. I look back at my sister. “Give it back,” I whisper.

Violetta does as I say. I suck in my breath as the air comes rushing back through me, life and darkness, addictive and sweet, and suddenly I can see the threads of energy again, I can feel the hum through my body and I know where to reach out in order to grasp at the strings. I sigh in relief at the feeling, relishing the pleasure it brings me. I test my powers, forming a small rose before our eyes and spinning it in a slow circle. Violetta watches me with wide eyes. Her shoulders slump a little more, as if using her power has taken all of her strength.

She can suppress an Elite’s ability, and then release it again. All this time, my little sister has been sitting on a power that might dominate all others. A thousand possibilities rush through my mind. “You’re a
malfetto,
just like me,” I whisper, staring absently at the rose hovering between us. “An Elite
malfetto
.”

Violetta looks away. She’s ashamed, I realize.

“How could you keep that a secret from me?” My voice is raspy with anger. “How could you let me suffer alone?”

“Because I was afraid too,” Violetta shoots back. “I didn’t want to encourage you, and I knew how things would go for me if Father knew about my powers. You had your ways of protecting yourself. I had mine.”

All of a sudden, I understand my sister better. I always thought of her as the sweet, naïve one. But perhaps she wore her sweetness and naïvety as a shield. Perhaps she always knew exactly what she was doing. Unlike me, who pushed people away, she protected herself by making people like her.
When people like you, they treat you well.
So she stayed quiet at my expense.

“I saw how Father treated you,” she says in a small voice. Another pause. “I was afraid, Adelina. Father seemed to love me . . . so how could I tell him? Sometimes I imagined myself saying, ‘Father, I am a
malfetto.
I have powers that don’t belong in this world, because I can give and take away Adelina’s powers.’ I was a child, and I was terrified. I didn’t want to lose him. So I convinced myself that I wasn’t like that, that my lack of markings made me better. How could I tell
you
? You would have wanted to experiment, and Father might’ve discovered us both.”

“You left me to fend for myself,” I whisper.

She can’t look at me. “I’m sorry, Adelina.”

Sorry, always sorry. What in the world can you buy with an apology?

I close my eye and bow my head. Darkness swirls inside me, washing at the shores of my consciousness, hungry for release. All those years, I’d suffered alone, looking on as our father lavished attention on the one daughter he thought was pure and untainted, suffering his tantrums by myself, thinking my sister was unlike me, that she was pristine. And she had let it go on.

“I’m glad you killed him,” she adds quietly. There is something hard about her expression now. “Father, I mean. I’m glad you did it.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I never thought I would hear such a thing from my sister’s lips. It is this that softens the tight knot in my chest. I try to remember that she went to Teren to beg for my life. That she risked everything. I try to remember the way she used to braid my hair, the way she’d sleep in my chambers during a thunderstorm.

I can only nod.

The sound of commotion in the streets above us breaks through my thoughts. The bells at the Inquisition Tower are tolling. Teren must be getting ready to deliver a speech. We both listen for a while, trying to catch words from aboveground, but we can’t hear anything properly. Only the bells and the sounds of hundreds of muffled footsteps.

“Something big is happening,” I say. Then I motion for us to get up. We have to get to higher ground if we want to find out what’s going on. “This way.”

I lead us farther down the catacomb tunnel, until it branches off into three narrow corridors. I pick the left one. When we’ve walked fifteen paces, I stop and search for the small door embedded into the stone. My hand finds the rough gem in the wood. My energy activates it, and the door opens. We make our way up a tiny flight of stairs, until finally we find ourselves emerging through the wall that borders a dark alley at the edge of the main market square. We wander until the alley meets a side street, then peer out from the shadows at where the main square begins.

The square is crowded with people. Inquisitors line the streets, funneling the people down, and in the canals, gondolas sit idle. No water traffic allowed this morning.

“What’s happening?” Violetta asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply as I look from the crowd to the Inquisitors. We’ll have to wait—with my powers sapped, we can’t be out in the open with so many people around and risk being recognized by a guard. I hold my breath as a group of Inquisitors march past our narrow street. My back is pressed so hard against the wall that I feel like I can melt into it.

They pass by without noticing us. I let out my breath again.

I grab Violetta’s hand and pull us through the shadows. We make our way forward, slowly and laboriously, through winding streets until we finally reach the space where the main square opens up. Here, we crouch in the shadows of a canal bridge entrance and look on as more people file into the square.

The space is crowded this morning, as if it were a market day, but the people are all eerily quiet, waiting in fearful anticipation for an announcement from the Inquisition Tower. My eye wanders up to the rooftops, where statues of the gods line the ledges. They are crowded with Inquisitors today, but even now—somehow, hidden behind tile and chimney, the Daggers must be waiting in silence.

I’m still weak, but the square’s energy crackles with fear, vibrant and dark, and it feeds me.

A faint flicker of movement appears on the Inquisition Tower’s main balcony. A flash of gold robes flanked by white, the glimmer of a leader walking among his men. I tense. Moments later, Teren appears.

He wears formal robes, a shining coat of white armor under a flowing robe of swirling white and gold patterns. A heavy cloak is pinned over his shoulders and drapes behind him in a long train. The slant of morning light hits the balcony just right—a part of the palace’s intentional design—and illuminates him in brightness.

Then I notice that he brought a prisoner with him. “Oh,” I breathe, my heart seizing.

Two Inquisitors appear, dragging between them a boy with long dark hair, his slender frame weighed down with chains, his head tilted high as Teren now presses a sword against his throat. The boy’s rich scarlet robes are torn and dirty. His face is solemn, but I recognize him immediately.

It’s Raffaele.

It is my fault he’s here.

Teren raises his free arm. “Citizens of Estenzia,” he calls out. “It is with a heavy heart that I deliver this news.” He pauses. “The king is dead. In his place, Her Majesty, Queen Giulietta, will rule. Tomorrow evening, the king’s funeral will take place at the Estenzia arena. You are required to attend.”

He pauses before continuing. “There will be changes to how we deal with traitors and abominations. Her Majesty does not tolerate crimes against the crown.”

If Enzo had succeeded, he would have killed his sister, the queen, too. His nobles would have made their move, offering their support. He could be making his move
now.
But he won’t. Not with Raffaele held hostage like this. And I realize, suddenly, that this is why Teren, not Giulietta, is addressing the crowd. She knows she has to protect herself.