Every Striker turns instinctively to Aramin, awaiting his next order, while the guards and soldiers freeze in their motions, unwilling to lay a hand on the person we need to lead us into battle.
The Firstblade ignores the Speaker. Instead, he nods toward us. “Unchain them,” he calls out, “and get them into their gear. We don’t have time.”
And just like that, hands are on me, loosening the shackles around my wrists and ankles and letting them clatter to the ground. Guards do the same to Adena and Jeran. As they do, the Speaker keeps shrieking, his voice rising higher and higher.
“You damn traitor, you damn traitor!” he repeats at the Firstblade, his spit flying as he shouts. “I should have you beheaded for this! I should have executed you long ago! I—”
Then he lunges for the nearest soldier. He manages to get his hands on the butt of a gun and raises it at Aramin—but before he can fire, a bullet hits the gun and knocks it out of his hand. The Speaker yelps and shoves his hand in his mouth, hopping a little from the sting.
I look to see Pira pointing her gun at the Speaker, her lips turned down in a scowl, the barrel of her gun still smoking.
Aramin casts the Speaker a cold look. “You’ll be fine,” he calls out to him. “The Federation will be sparing your life anyway, won’t they?”
The Speaker stands there, frozen, as the Firstblade turns his head to his Strikers and lifts his voice, as if he had been ready for this attack all along. “Form your ranks!”
Their fists go to their chests in unison, and as one, they stream from the stands and run out of the arena, off to take their positions in front of the double walls. At the same time, the Senators, finally realizing the full extent of what’s about to happen, break into clusters and run too, hurrying for their homes.
Tomm and Pira are the only ones who run with Adena, Jeran, and me as we hurry to the supply halls outside the arena. Through my link, I send frantic messages to Red.
The Federation is here. The attack has begun.
He still can’t hear my words. I curse to myself, try again in vain, and then hope that he can feel the desperation pounding in my mind as I sprint to the supply hall. Here, dozens of weapons line the cases. One by one, we strap them on without a word as Tomm and Pira look on.
Six daggers each, their edges ready and sharpened, into our bandoliers and halters.
Two long, curved blades, tucked into their sheaths with a flourish.
Two guns each, strapped securely to our belts, a cloth bandolier of bullets around our waists.
Our crossbows slung over our backs.
Not long ago, Corian counted our weapons with me every morning. Now we do it without him, in what might be the last time we ever strap on our weapons.
Beside me, Adena finishes first and turns momentarily to face Pira. “Why’d you help us that day?” she says. “Out at the warfront, when you caught us running?”
She still wears that sneer on her face, the same one she’d always turned on me, but this time she looks away toward the walls. “They said you were going to destroy the Ghosts,” she replies. “I thought that was worth it.”
Beside her, Tomm yanks out a blade and a gun. He frowns at us, but this time, his wrath is trained not on us but in the direction of the gates.
“Are you done?” he snaps at me. When he sees my full arsenal, he nods. “Hurry up, then.”
Adena turns instead toward the Grid. “I’ll meet you all there,” she calls at me over her shoulder. “There are some supplies I need to grab.”
Then she’s off before anyone can say otherwise. Jeran dashes after her, the two of them soon running in sync as they disappear past the Plaza.
I call out again to Red as I run with Tomm and Pira. Still no answer, but I feel the rumble of something buried deep in him, that power he calls when his true fury rises. It sends a current through me, and I shudder with anticipation.
By the time we reach the edge of the Inner City, a fire is burning at the top of the outer wall, where a flaming rock hurled from a catapult had ignited a store of our own explosives and collapsed an upper portion of the gate. The rest of the