War Storm (Red Queen) - Victoria Aveyard Page 0,114

rest of us follow suit, except for the Haven shadows. They only deepen their focus, masking the hellish glow. “The tunnels come up behind the tree line. Drag your toes. Look for thick undergrowth.”

We do as she says, though Kilorn covers far more ground than I do. He kicks his long legs through the dead and rotting leaves, feeling for the telltale hardness of a trapdoor. “Don’t suppose you remember exactly where it is, do you?” he grumbles at Cameron.

She looks up from a crouch on the ground, her hands in the leaves. “I’ve never been in the tunnels before,” she huffs. “Not old enough to make the smuggle runs. Besides, that’s not my family’s way,” she adds, her eyes narrowing. “Keep your bleeding head down, that’s what we held to. And see where it got us?”

“Digging through the dirt for a hole,” Kilorn answers. I hear the smirk in his voice.

“Leading an army,” I offer instead. “That’s where you got yourself, Cameron.”

Her expression changes, tightening. But her lips pull into something close to a smile. A sad one. I understand it. She said before, in Corvium, that she was done with the killing. Done with the lethal burden of her ability to silence and suffocate. Her goal now is to protect. Defend. Though she has more cause than most to feel rage, to seek vengeance, she has the infinite strength to turn away.

I don’t.

The tunnels glow with our red light, bathing us all in crimson. Even the Silvers sworn to Cal or the Rift. The Haven shadows, the Iral silks. A dozen of them, scattered into our number. All of them, for a moment, red as the dawn.

I keep an eye on them as we walk, passing beneath the walls of New Town. They have orders from their lords and kings. I don’t trust them, not by a long shot, but I trust their allegiances. Silvers are loyal to blood. They do as blood commands.

And we are not helpless either.

Ella and Rafe bring up the rear of our number. Both seem energized by our mission, itching for another fight after our defeat in Piedmont. Tyton walks closer to the middle of our party, letting me take the lead, so that the electricons are evenly dispersed. His eyes seem to glow in the low light.

Cameron taps her hand at her hip. Counting steps. Her keen eyes watch the walls with blistering focus. She slides a finger over the place where the packed dirt fades to concrete. It shifts something in her, shadowing her features.

“I know what it feels like,” I whisper to her. “To come back as something else.”

Her eyes snap to mine, one brow raised. “What are you talking about?”

“I only went home once after I found out what I was,” I explain. It was only a few hours. But more than enough time to change my life again. Remembering that visit to my old village is difficult, if not painful. Shade wasn’t dead yet, but I thought he was. And I joined the Scarlet Guard to avenge him. All while Tiberias waited outside, leaning against his rebuilt cycle. Still a prince. Always a prince. I try to shake off the memory like a bad dream. “It won’t be easy, to look at familiar things and see something you don’t recognize.”

Cameron only tightens her jaw. “This isn’t my home, Barrow. No prison is ever a home,” she murmurs. “And that’s all these slums are.”

“So why not leave?” I want to smack Kilorn for his lack of grace, as well as for the rudeness of the question. He catches my glare and sputters. “I mean, you have these tunnels . . .”

I’m surprised by her answering grin. “You wouldn’t understand, Kilorn,” she says, shaking her head with a roll of her eyes. “You think you grew up hard, but this is harder. You thought you were tethered to that river village, trapped by what? A little money? A job? Some guards looking at you sideways?” He flushes deeper as she rattles off each word in time. “Well, we had this.”

Her hand strays to her collar, pulling it aside to show her tattooed neck in full. Her occupation, her place, her prison stamped in permanent ink. NT-ARSM-188907.

“Every one of us is a number up there,” Cameron continues, jabbing a finger at the ceiling. “You disappear, the next number in line disappears too. And not well. Whole families have to run. And where do they go? Where can they go?”

Her voice trails