CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Pain and light returned in the same instant. The sun was too warm on her right cheek, the ground too hard against her left. She was lying on her side on a platform high above the ocean with hands bound behind her back. The sun beating down on her told her she was still outside, and quiet voices nearby told her she was not alone.

Caledonia blinked, willing the fog to clear from her vision. When it did, she almost wished it hadn’t.

She was on the main level of the rig, the wide platform stretching out like the deck of a ship. On one side of the platform a line of cranes curled over the edge from which crates of baleflowers or Silt could be loaded and unloaded from ships far below. On the other side of the platform the factory itself seemed to grow up from the floor, smooth walls extending into snaking pipes that coiled and twisted through the air.

Only a few feet away, two young men stood side by side, their heads tipped together as though in deep discussion. Lir. And Donnally.

Lir held a knife loosely between his fingers, spinning the blade against the tip of his index finger, listening with a distant expression on his cold features, while Donnally stood with his arms folded across his chest, emphasizing whatever he said with tight bobs of his head. Between them sat her pack of mag bombs and a small collection of weapons they’d removed from her body.

Nausea swirled in her belly. They weren’t supposed to be here. Lir was supposed to be on the Mors Navis in the thick of battle. And Donnally— She had hoped this moment would never come. He’d made his choice and now she had to consider him a Bullet instead of a brother.

Spitting the blood from her mouth, Caledonia struggled to sit up and climb to her feet. Lir watched her as if her presence relaxed him. As if the sight of her delighted him.

“We’re so glad you could join us.” A smile touched Lir’s star-pale eyes as he savored those words.

A spear of ice shot down Caledonia’s spine and she searched Donnally’s expression for any sign that Lir was lying. Muscles flashed in Donnally’s jaw and he kept his eyes resolutely away from hers, letting Caledonia’s worst fears take root. This was a trap. One laid by both Lir and her own brother. Lir always knew how best to take advantage of her weaknesses. Her mercy.

They’d anticipated her perfectly.

“This started all those turns ago with the two of us on an island,” Lir continued. “It was always going to end the same way. You and me.”

“It won’t end the same way.” Caledonia struggled against her bindings.

“Have you come to surrender to me?” Gunfire sounded relentlessly in the distance and Lir shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like surrender.”

“It will soon,” she promised.

Lir’s eyes narrowed in sharp amusement. “Donnally,” he said, taunting and cruel. “I’d like a moment alone with Caledonia. Take her mag bombs and sink them.”

“No, Donnally,” she said, fighting to keep her voice from betraying her terror as Donnally stooped to collect the bag and swing it over his shoulder. “Donnally, don’t do this. Use those bombs instead! I know you think he’s your brother and maybe—maybe he is, but if that’s true, he’ll be your brother even if you destroy this place.”

Donnally paused just long enough to raise his eyes to hers. They were a deep brown, just like hers, but where she expected regret and submission, she thought she saw something more defiant.

“From Silt comes strength,” Lir said. “My brother knows that as well as anyone.”

“You were strong before,” she said, pleading with her brother to remember.

Only a few days ago, they’d walked the streets of the Holster. They’d shared a memory of their mother and Caledonia had dared to think that for a moment, Donnally might come back to her. Now, as he tugged the pack onto his own shoulders, she didn’t know what to believe.

“Hoist your eyes, Nia,” Donnally said. “I know who I am.”

Nia. She hadn’t heard that name in so long.

“Go,” Lir commanded.

Panic spiked in Caledonia’s blood. Donnally turned to give her one last look, then he was gone, and Caledonia was alone with Lir.

Sweat made quick tracks down Caledonia’s back. It slicked her palms and made the ropes around her wrists bite into her skin. She adjusted her stance watching the way Lir spun that knife around and around, but to her surprise, he put it away, tucking the blade into his waistband.

For a moment, he stood across from her without saying a word. His eyes traveled from her hair to her lips to either side of her hips where her guns should have been. He took his time consuming the sight of her and then he took three slow steps forward.

It took every bit of willpower she possessed to stand as if planted in place. Her mind rang with the memory of Donnally calling her Nia. It was his name for her. Not even their parents had used the nickname. It had only ever existed between a brother and a sister and Caledonia couldn’t shake the terrifying hope that it had been a message: Sister, I am with you.

Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t dropping her bombs in the ocean, but planting them as she’d meant to.

Doubt coated the thought. It could be another trap. Just a ruse to toy with her heart. But hope was all she had left.

“It took me a long time to understand that I needed you,” Lir said, as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation. “You are the reason I survived to take the Bullet Seas for myself. And you are the reason I’ll keep them now.”

The distant sounds of battle rushed to fill his silence. His confidence was a performance, or it was delusion. But most of all it was a sign that he believed Donnally would never betray him.

“I know because that is your purpose. You resist me, you stand against me, and every time you do, I gain a little bit more. Do you know what that makes us?”

Caledonia only glared in response.

Lir’s smile softened. It was amazing how much it changed his face. He could move from dangerous to innocent in the blink of an eye. Caledonia recalled viscerally how she’d dropped her own guard for that glimmer of vulnerability. It was no more real now than it had been the first night she’d seen it. This time, though, she knew it for what it was.

“It makes us polar opposites. We are the cardinal directions that give this world meaning. You are the rebellion. You’ve made yourself the solitary symbol of hope and resistance.” His smile sharpened and a breeze stirred the shattered crown of his blond hair. “And when I kill you, all that hope will vanish. I will be all that’s left. What will that even look like, Caledonia? I can’t imagine what comes after this.” He shook his head eagerly, as if not knowing excited him.

Then he moved forward again. This time he was close enough to touch her. He raised a hand, but instead of caressing her cheek, he let it hover an inch from her skin. The heat of it skimmed along her jaw, but she remained still, kept her eyes hard as behind her back she tugged at her bindings.

“You’re not afraid.” Wonder made his words soft. “Of course, you’re not afraid.”

“I haven’t been afraid of you for a long time,” Caledonia said.

At this, a low laugh tumbled from Lir’s lips. Without warning, his hand darted forward, gripping the back of her head and tugging her against him. Caledonia clenched her jaw against the pain as Lir bent over her.

“There is another option for us,” he said. His breath was hot against her mouth. “If you choose me.”

She forced herself to look into his star-pale eyes. They had haunted her dreams and more of her waking moments than she should have allowed. She’d only seen them four times in her life, but she could have described them in exquisite detail. The threads of ice that spidered through them. The way the inner rings shattered around the black center of the pupil. It was as if a bomb had exploded in the center of those eyes. As if a bomb had been exploding inside Lir all his life.

Choose him? Choose him.

He was offering her the chance to sit at his side, to save the lives of everyone who fought against him. If she agreed, her submission would crush the spirit of the rebellion she and so many others had fought and bled to build. He wanted her power. He wanted all the Bullet Seas.

But he was also asking her. He wanted her to choose him over everything else because no one ever had. All the choices he’d ever made had been demanded. All the trust he’d ever received, he’d also demanded. And that wasn’t trust. That wasn’t choice. It was power without consent.

Sympathy raced through Caledonia, unexpected and unwelcome. Part of Lir was still a little boy, wondering why no one loved him. He had been created by a violent force, and that was worth her sympathy. But he’d done everything he could to gain power over others, and that wasn’t.

“I can’t,” she said plainly. “No one can choose you. No one ever has.”

Lir’s grip in her hair loosed in shock. His eyes widened and in them Caledonia saw fear and anger twist together like smothering vines.

“Donnally chose me.” His teeth bit off the end of the last word. Before Caledonia could respond, he threw her to the ground, pressing her onto her back. He crouched over her. The knife was in his hand once more. Her knife, she realized with a jolt. The same black blade he’d used to stab her so long ago, that she had carried with her ever since. He’d taken it from her and now he threatened her with it. She could do nothing as he leaned in once more and repeated, “Donnally chose me.”

“He didn’t,” Caledonia challenged. “The only choice he made was to stay alive. He was no more your brother than Aric was your father. He didn’t choose you then and he hasn’t chosen you now.”

“That’s a lie.” Calm washed down Lir’s face and his body relaxed. He shook his head and brought the dagger to her throat, pressing the blade into her skin. “I gave you a choice, Caledonia.”

“You gave me nothing,” she answered. She had to keep stalling.

“I hope you’ll believe me when I say I wish you’d made the other choice.” The blade bit into her skin, lightly at first. Caledonia shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, preparing to use her body against him.

But before she could do anything, the sky exploded.