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“Can I call you sunshine from now on?” Penelope teased.
“I’ll think about it. If it comes with a raise.”
“You guys are getting paid?” Camina muttered under her breath, with a sly smile.
“You okay?” Curate Marcus asked, gripping my arm when I stumbled. I was shaking, but not from exhaustion or disgust. I rolled my neck, checking the wounds in my shoulder. A ragged chunk was missing from my neck, but the sinews had already begun healing back together, stopping the flow of blood. Elixir sparkled against my bare skin, oozing directly into the wound.
My other shoulder was coated in blood that dripped down to my waist, from where I’d been cut earlier. I poked at it, but found only the deep white scar that sliced down to my collarbone. I barely felt the pain, but my heart was beating too fast, and I was feverish and sweaty.
“So much for clean clothes,” I said. I grabbed a sword and chopped off the ends of sweeping fabric around my legs, so I’d be less restricted. Now that we’d stopped, the cool air felt refreshing against my bare skin. I’d lost far too much blood to still be standing, but the elixir in my veins fought to save me. Doubts and fears came crashing back with a vengeance as my sobriety returned.
We were about to steal a throne, with no elite prince to sit on it. Was this really just about saving my brother? Was I putting everyone else in danger, for an unattainable goal? And how many guards had I killed, in just the last hour? I couldn’t even count them. I barely saw their faces.
I watched Penelope pull an elite woman with dark hair off April, in a pretty green ballgown. It reminded me of the dress I’d worn for my choosing ceremony. Tobias held up a hand and the elite went stiff, holding out her arms as Camina staked her from behind. Across the raised courtyard was the renewal center, framed with winged statues and scowling golems. And we were nearly at the base of the wide steps leading up to the palace.
I peeled chunks of splattered elite off my face absently, my body hungry for the potent elixir, and chewed on it like vampire jerky. Luke made a face of disgust but didn’t make a snide comment. There was something else in his eyes, like awe, or horror.
But I didn’t care. I licked myself clean like a cat, feeling a rush of energy and the buzz of adrenaline. I’d been raised to treat each drop of elixir as a precious gift, and now it was distributed in bloody pools around me, sparkling from the walls and marble tiles, sinking into the earth of the citadel gardens.
We could still do this.Even without Damien. I had Tobias, and a handful of elite. The sharpshooters from Iklebot, and our allies inside the citadel. And we’d already made it this far. But then an icy chill ran down my spine, an unnamed dread I couldn’t place at first.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, scanning the way forward, lit by moonlight, the dark silhouettes of the cathedral spires.
“What is it?” Luke asked, looking up.
“The power is out,” curate Marcus said.
I hadn’t noticed it at first, but as night settled like a blanket, the darkness seeped like black soot. For the first time in a hundred years, the citadel of light had gone dark.
20
Igripped the fabric of my dress, hitching it up so I could creep forward into the shadows. A second later, the others were behind me. Somehow, the din of battle had faded into the distance, but there was something else in the air, a subtle trembling.
Even with the sun down, the citadel was usually lit brightly by streetlamps and the glow of a thousand windows. Now only a handful of soft, pulsing red lights lit throughways, beckoning ominously. I could barely make out the black silhouettes of the buildings against the dark sky. In the open spaces between them, the soft, pale blue, dim light of the crescent moon was more than enough to see the path, but in the shadows the darkness was as thick as smoke.
Some of the rebels turned on bright patches of UV light, suspended around their necks or from their shoulders, that glowed like purple neon; accentuating the outlines of my friends as we moved together like a pack. They formed purple halos of protective light around us, like bubbles. A few even had night goggles, but I could see keenly enough already. Occasionally we would hear gunfire or an explosion, or worse—a pinched scream as someone met their maker.
“Was this part of the plan?” Camina asked.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t exactly give us an advantage. The mutids and elites have better night vision.”
“What was that,” I asked, spinning around.
“I don’t hear anything,” Luke said.
But Tobias met my eyes. He heard it too. A growing roar, that started as a buzz but was quickly growing louder. From our perch we could look out at the city and gardens below, the central courtyards. They were writhing with people, but moving too quickly to be human.
The dark surge of bodies rushed towards us like a breaking wave, their limbs and fabric flapping in the wind, and then they were upon us. Hundreds of new elite. Their eyes black, fingers ripping and slashing.
A few had swords, but most were unarmed. And though they were vicious, they were clumsy and seemingly half-blind, driven by scent alone. But there were too many of them. I gasped when I stopped a dagger with my bare hands, then ripped it away by the blade and slashed it through the man’s neck.
I turned around to face another elite, her cheek ripped open, exposing a toothy grin up to her ear. She snarled towards my throat. I kicked her over the balcony and retreated against the smooth, stone wall.
There was a burst of fire from nearby that knocked me backward. Steve was wearing a large container on his back and holding some kind of flaming hose that spit fire. The elite screamed and flailed as the flames engulfed them, lighting each other up like a pack of matches.
Jacob and six of his men with automatic rifles fired rounds into the flaming horde, wearing red bandanas on their arms or forehead. I saw a man toss a grenade that shook the ground, exploding a wet hole in the middle of the writhing bodies.
There were still too many, and they were too fast. They parted around us like water, ducking into the bushes or shadows, climbing up the walls behind us like spiders.
