11

The walkway vaulted me upwards, and the mechanica in my thighs pulsed with harnessed strength, launching me at the knights. Left arm extended over my head, baton sizzling with power, I swung in a vicious arc, crashing down on the lead knight with tremendous force, knocking him to his knees. Hitting the pathway, I rolled, coming up with my weapon already slicing in a backhand blow, taking out the one behind me with a bone-cracking swipe to his knees.

He collapsed, the tracer gun skittering over the side of the walkway and plunging to the sea below. I hit him again and he went still. The smell of burning wood and ozone from the lightning pricked my nose. I turned, ready to fight.

To my right, Ashton ran in slow motion. Snowflakes fell around him in halting jolts as the lightning flickered down from the churning sky.

I whirled at a snarl, meeting the blade of the Trembler knight with my baton in a hail of sparks. In a fluid motion I spun, crossing our weapons and opening up his guard. He was still mid-blink as I was already striking up and delivering a shocking glance to his chest with the palm of my hand. Silvery energy flew through me sending him backward.

Four other knights lurched toward me, their gnashing teeth cracking as they broke into a run, flanking right and left, trying to surround me.

“Posta Sinestra!” Ashton yelled as he vaulted against the advancing Tremblers. Left Guard. Pulling his sword back over his shoulder and behind his head, he stepped forward in the power defense. Instinctually, I mirrored him with my left-handed stance, feeling the strength surge from the mechanica in my upper arms. I had done this before. We had fought together before.

I taught you how to wield it.

Moving in perfect unison, Ashton and I met the forward attack of the knights with twin blows. Lightning flashed off of Ashton’s armor, catching his every strike in brilliant images. A stream of icy vapor escaped my lips and adrenaline raced along my nerves, alighting my mind.

I faced off with the Trembler, recognizing the ginger hair from somewhere. It attacked with skill, but the nuance of its movement, the slide of a glance, a twitch of a muscle; all of it broadcast the knight’s intentions and I struck faster, harder, with deadly accuracy—the blows from my weapon pushing it backward.

Ashton lunged, disarming his opponent, but missed a step when his leg broke through a weak plank. He stumbled, the knight landing a jarring hit that brought Ashton to his knees.

Enraged, I struck, the energy from my baton sparked to the Trembler in front of me, crawling along his helmet and face, lighting him with startling power. He staggered backward, snarled, and advanced again, but I was already leaping, my knees connecting with his chest. I knelt atop him, riding the momentum as he crashed backward. Swinging the baton across my chest, I batted a strike of his sword away, grabbing the tracer gun from where I knew it would be beneath his armor with my other hand. I rose, shot him, and then ran, revving the gun works as I closed in on the other Trembler. Two more.

Distance to my target, trajectory of its raised blade, Ashton’s defensive strike, all of it flitted through my mind as the two tangled with aching slowness.

The Trembler threw Ashton across the walkway slamming him against the rubble of the doctor’s office. Embers erupted, whirling in the storm. He scrambled to his feet, his sword tinging in the air as he sliced at the Trembler.

“Duck,” I shouted, firing over Ashton as he rolled away.

The Trembler collapsed, quaking in the purple lash of energy.

Ashton turned, his lip bloody, dark eyes flashing in the storm lights. The wind picked up, flying sideways and hurling snow. Shapes of people running flit in and out of sight. I squinted, pulling on the muscles of my eye, and a muffled whir in my head snapped the terrain into brilliant violet as a lens flicked down over my vision. Movement in the shadows came into sharp focus. The last two Trembler knights joined, then split up again, stalking us in the obscuring flakes to mask their advance.

“Direction,” Ashton rasped, suddenly at my side. Collapsing the shield on his arm guard, he stepped closer, palm sliding across my middle as he eased me behind him. It was familiar, his touch, and I let him direct my movements. “Can you feel them?”

“One straight ahead.” The chaos in my head grew; rage and need, the desperate pain of Tremblers building. It was different somehow. Controlled, seething, focused. “The other is…lost.”

“Keep close. Do not leave my side.” Ashton whipped his blade out to the side, and the sound of the metal slicing the frigid air brought back an image of him and me— our lives in danger, the air hot, flaming seams of the wasteland vapors casting our enemy in shadow.

I turned, flattening my back against his, baton at the ready. The shift of his stance. The ripple of his shoulder muscles. I moved when he did, went where he did.

“They split up.” We turned in unison and the dark storm whirled around us, lit by bright flashes from the sky. Concentrating, everything fell away. The cold, the howl of the wind, the radiating heat of the fires behind me.

Mara’s scream shredded the night. I scanned the terrain and when I saw her, a gasp ripped from my chest. She stood by the walkway, hands out, blocking the still body of Lilah. Jack sobbed while pulling on his mother’s dress. The second knight loomed over them, raising his sword.

“No!” I tore across the pathways, leaping over crates and fallen stalls, arm out as I squeezed the trigger of the tracer gun over and over. The energy thrashed across the distance, hitting the Knight a moment after he struck Mara down. He fell in a pile of quaking limbs. “Mara—”

Ashton tackled me and we sprawled against the railing, nearly going over. “He is drawing you out, Charlie.”

“Unhand me!” Fury burned my chest as I twisted, threw Ashton off, and scrambled to my feet. A figure ran away with his armor clanging in the darkness. A low horn sounded, and the outline of a ship rose above the port, hovering. A lamplight slashed across the railing.

“Let him go,” Ashton grabbed for me. “Charlie, don’t—”

“Out of my way!” I slammed my palm against his chest with a silvery burst of energy. He flew backward. I did not bother looking down as I leapt over him, giving chase.

My world went quiet as I flitted through the dark. The pulse of my own heart was the only sound filling my head. Shaking with power, I tracked the knight through the snowstorm. Lightning and the slash of the lamplight cast my quarry in and out of darkness. I was gaining. My heart beat fast and steady, my breath even, as I closed the distance. Baton in my iron grip, it crackled with energy, the flow passing from me to it and back again.

The knight scrambled for the far retaining wall. It reached for the trailing ropes dangling below the ship. Lamp beams trained on him, lighting up my target. As I flew at him, the spike of pain from the mechanica at my spine jolted power through my limbs. I hit him full body, knocking him down. I slashed with my baton, breaking his grip on the rope. He crashed onto his back and I pounced, straddling the heavy chest armor, my baton to his throat. The piercing tone tore from me and the knight writhed, flailing. Our eyes locked, his pitch-black ones with mine, and I pressed harder. The rage flooded out of me, giving me strength.

I saw the tracer lash a moment before it hit me. Thicker, brighter than I remembered, it lashed agony across my skin. Screaming, I tumbled from the knight, twisting with pain, unable to breathe. The Trembler scrambled away, and all I could do was lie, immobile, staring up at the vessel. A pale face glanced over the side, his image pulling a strangled moan from me.

Arecibo stared down at me with a spark of excitement on his face. Frustration and the despairing cold of failure squeezed my chest. I watched helplessly as the author of all my pain, all my rage, drifted out of reach.

Ashton ran to my side, scooped me into his arms. He rocked me back and forth in the snow holding me to his chest. “I am sorry…so sorry…” he whispered over and over. “I had to. I had to save you.”

A sob tore from me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, my body trembling. “I hate you.”