War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,60

his head to look down at me. The glowing lights of the Hawkway cast jagged shadows across his face, emphasizing his cheekbones. It makes him look old and tired, a king for years instead of days. “Yes, Mare,” he finally says, his voice a low rumble. “But remember it wasn’t just me.”

I blink. “What?”

“You chose something over me too,” he sighs. “Many things.”

The Scarlet Guard. The Red dawn. The hope of a better future for the people I love. I bite my lip, chewing my own flesh. I have nothing to deny. Tiberias isn’t wrong.

“If you two are done,” Tyton says loudly, leaning down from his vantage point on the transport, “I think you’d both be interested to know there are people in the trees.”

I suck in a breath, tensing up. Tiberias puts out a hand quickly, touching my arm in light warning. “Don’t startle,” he says. “I’m guessing they have us targeted.”

Metal groans, and I jump beneath Tiberias’s fingers. His grip tightens. But it’s just the transports being moved.

“How many?” I ask through gritted teeth, trying my best to mask my fear.

Tyton looks down at me, eyes bright. His white hair gleams in the artificial light illuminating the Hawkway. “Four, two on each side. At a good distance, but I can just feel their brains.” Next to me, Tiberias frowns, the corners of his lips curving downward in distaste. “Fifty yards, maybe.”

I look past Tiberias, and he looks past me, both of us searching the shadowed pines as furtively as we can. I can’t see anything beyond our circle of light. Not the gleam of eyes or the flash of steel down a gun barrel. Nothing.

I can’t feel them either. My ability is nowhere near as strong or as focused as Tyton’s.

Farley catches my eye and approaches with a hand on her hip, the other still clutching her pistol. “You three look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says, sweeping her gaze back and forth. “Snipers in the trees?” she offers, as if she’s asking about the weather.

“Did you see them?” Tyton breathes.

“No.” She shakes her head. “But it’s what I’d do.”

“You can drop them, right?” I ask, nudging Tyton’s boot. I remember the electricons taught me about his ability. Brain lightning. Tyton can affect the electricity in a person’s body, the tiny sparks inside our brains. He can kill without anyone knowing. Without any trace.

He frowns and furrows his dark brows, a sharp contrast to his dyed hair. “I might be able to, from this distance. But only one at a time,” he says. “And only if they are raiders.”

Tiberias scowls. “Who else would they be up here?”

“I don’t enjoy killing people without cause, Calore,” Tyton replies. “And I’ve lived on these mountains my entire life.”

“So you’ll wait for them to shoot us?” The prince shifts slightly, squaring his shoulders so that I’m sheltered on one side.

Tyton doesn’t budge. As he speaks, a breeze plays up, carrying with it the strong, sharply sweet scent of pine. “I’ll wait for your magnetron princess to tell me if they’re holding sniper rifles or not.”

On the one hand, I agree with Tiberias. We’re exposed up here, and who else would be waiting in the trees, watching us scramble? But I understand Tyton too. I know what it is to pour lightning into a person, to sense their nerves sparking off and dying. It feels like a small death of your own, an ending you can never forget.

“Get Evangeline,” I mutter. “And tell Davidson. We need to be sure.”

Next to me, Tiberias huffs. But he doesn’t argue. He pushes off the transport, intending to stalk after Evangeline.

The breeze strengthens, playing across my face. Pine needles brush my skin, soft as trailing fingers. I try to catch one, but it dances off on the growing wind.

And it sprouts before my eyes, a sapling growing in midair. It spears a soldier before any of us can react.

The attack is not the storm of bullets we expected, but the spray of pine needles blasting in a strong, sudden gale. It catches Tyton head-on, tossing him off the wrecked transport. He rolls onto the road, head smacking against the pavement. He stumbles to a knee, then falls, oddly off balance. I throw up an arm to protect my eyes and drop to a knee as needles scratch across my exposed skin. Where they land, roots and trunks burst forth in curling, living explosions. The Hawkway cracks and transports heave, tossed by the forest growing before our