Glass Sword (Red Queen) by Victoria Aveyard

Author:Victoria Aveyard [Aveyard, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-09T05:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

I try not to remember the faces of the dead. Running for my life makes for an effective distraction, but even the constant threat of annihilation can’t block out everything. Some losses are impossible to forget. Walsh, Tristan, and now Wolliver occupy the corners of my mind, catching like deep, gray cobwebs. My existence was their death sentence.

And of course, there are the ones I’ve killed outright, by choice, with my own two hands. But I don’t grieve for them. I can’t think about what I’ve done, not now. Not when we’re still in so much danger.

Cal is the first to turn his back on Wolliver’s swaying body. He has his own parade of dead faces, and doesn’t want to add another ghost to the march. “We need to keep moving.”

“No—” Farley leans hard against the wall. She presses a hand to her mouth, gulping in disgust, trying not to throw up again.

“Easy,” Shade says, putting a steadying hand on her shoulder. She tries to wave him off, but he stands firm, watching her spit into the garden flowers. “We needed to see this,” he adds, burning a righteous glare at Cal and me. “This is what happens when we fail.”

His anger is justified. After all, we sparked a firefight in the heart of Harbor Bay, wasting the last hour of Wolliver’s life, but I’m too tired to let him berate me.

“This isn’t the place for a lesson,” I reply. This is a grave, and even speaking here feels wrong. “We should take him down.”

Before I can take a step toward Wolliver’s corpse, Cal hooks one arm in mine, steering me in the opposite direction. “Nobody touch the body,” he growls. He sounds so much like his father it shocks me.

“The body has a name,” I snarl when I collect myself. “Just because his blood isn’t your color doesn’t mean we can leave him like that!”

“I’ll get him,” Farley grumbles, pushing off her knees.

Shade moves with her. “I’ll help.”

“Stop! Wolliver Galt had a family, didn’t he?” Cal presses on. “Where are they?” He casts his free hand around at the garden, gesturing to the empty trees and shuttered windows looking down on us. Despite the distant echoes of a city marching on toward nightfall, the square is still and quiet. “Certainly his mother wouldn’t leave him here alone? Are there no mourners? No officers to spit on his body? Not even a crow to pick his bones? Why?”

I know the answer.

A trap.

My grip tightens on Cal’s arm, until my nails dig into his hot flesh threatening to burst into flame. Horror to match my own bleeds across Cal’s face as he looks, not at me, but into the shadowed alleyway. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a crown—the one a foolish boy insists on wearing everywhere he goes.

And then, a clicking sound—like a metallic bug snapping its pincers, ready to devour a juicy meal.

“Shade,” I whisper, extending my other hand toward my teleporting brother. He’ll save us; he’ll take us away from all of this.

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