He wouldn’t... not even the Citadel was that stupid.
Sophie followed my gaze to see what Winthrop was doing and gasped. She’d read my mother’s journal, she knew about the traps ancient fae used for their most powerful relics.
And if this one granted the power to cross the River, it was important indeed.
“Stop!” I screamed, unable to let him continue. I despised the Citadel for all they had done, for all they would do, but I wasn’t like them. I couldn’t watch them die when I had the power to do something about it.
I pulled away from the soldiers, not even bothering to glance at the guns trained on me. “You shouldn’t touch that without—”
Winthrop snatched the phoenix statue from the podium, not even bothering to look at the tiles underneath. He clutched it to him, features twisted with greed and ambition. “The Empress will be very pleased with us all today.”
The burn of acid hit my throat. I stepped back in shock, but two guards wrapped their burly hands around my shoulders, preventing me from going any further.
The ground below us shook, not unlike the dynamite that had exploded half of the mountain open for them to get in here. But this time, the dynamite was underneath our feet. A powerful, magical, fail-safe that would destroy the vault and everyone left inside it, a punishment for anyone who had stolen from them.
Shouts and screams echoed through the vault. A boulder fell from above, smashing to the glittering, golden tiles. Soldiers and Citadel workers scattered, running in all directions as rocks and pieces of the mountain began to collapse on us.
Magic stung the air, the bright thrum of it, the same sensation every time I used my own power. This time, instead of feeling like a path forward it was a warning.
You won’t get out of here alive.
But I had to change my fate somehow. I wrenched myself free of the soldiers and raced away, peeling out of the vault and towards the open crater in the ceiling even as the floor cracked in half under my feet.
Others ran towards the rubble as well, recognizing it as the only way they’d make it out without getting crushed. I jumped across the split in the floor that had opened up, managing to avoid getting swallowed by the mountain, though a soldier next to me was not as lucky.
I climbed up the boulders that had been left jagged by the explosives. My shoulder was still aching from the fall earlier, but I managed to heave myself through the opening, the cool morning air like being doused in relief.
“Yaseema!” Sophie climbed out after me, and I whirled with surprise. I hadn’t even noticed she was behind me. Our eyes met, and I knew mine were dark with rage from the way she retreated half a step.
“You can’t run from the Citadel.”
“And what should I do, Sophie? Help them?”
“Why not, Yas? You’ve worked beside me for years. You’re an excellent scholar. The Empress will reward you.” Her words were pleading, as if she were trying to appeal to me. But she could never appeal to someone who had no future here.
“Not after today.” I shook my head. “And I wouldn’t work beside you again, even if the alternative was going to prison.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said evenly, her hands spread as if showing me she wasn’t a threat. The problem was, they always were, even when they pretended they were your friends. Because in the end, they never wanted to give up what most benefitted them.
“We only want to help you,” she continued, with an air of benevolence. “Look at you. You’re all starving. You rely on a power that doesn’t exist anymore.” She laughed a little and I wanted to throw her backwards into the crumbling vault.
“Only because you’re stealing it.”
How could I have been so wrong about her?
I had trusted her, I had confided in her, and she had betrayed me for the Empire.
Did she ever really see me as a person? As someone who was her friend, as I did her?
She couldn’t have, not if she were choosing them over me.
“If stealing our relics, starving us to death, cutting off hands when we make our cloth, and refusing to allow us to wear and make our jewelry is helping us, then we don’t need that kind of help.”
She looked up at me with despair rather than anger. “You disdain us so much, Yaseema, but we are here to stay. Maybe you should work with us instead of against. The Citadel wants to preserve your treasures in its museums, to keep them safe, and study them. Not keep them buried under the ground where no one can see or use them. Isn’t that better? In a way we are honoring them much more than if they stayed here.”
“Why do you think they are buried in the first place? Why do you think we’ve been having endless droughts and famines? Why do you think there’s no magic left while the Citadel sends the artifacts back to Angrezia, for the Empire? Because the Empress wants them for herself. All of it. She wants to strip our country bare and put our relics behind glass where only she can see and use them. And now, she wants the power to cross the River too.”
“Why shouldn’t she cross the River? Why shouldn’twe? The fae are selfish, hoarding their magic and riches to themselves, not sharing it with anyone, cutting us off with their wall. They shouldn’t be allowed to keep us out. If anything, the Empire crossing the Basrol River will begoodfor Astolans.”
