Chapter Twenty-Six

Rebeke screamed as the Charred shoved aside the table and went for Nomad's throat. He got his own hands up, grabbing her wrists before her nails dug into his flesh, but her momentum took them both to the floor in a writhing heap.

He grunted, rolling them to the side, trying to get the upper hand. This should have been easy. He'd trained extensively in grappling over the years, while she fought with an unskilled frenzy, eyes wide and teeth clenched. But every time he got close to putting her into a secure hold, she shoved free, breaking his grip with a burst of raw strength.

He found himself struggling to keep control. She moved in unexpected ways, kneeing him, biting at him as they rolled. He finally tried to cuff her across the face to stun her, but that direct an attack made his body freeze, and he involuntarily let her go.

Her movements a blur, she grabbed the sides of his head, then slammed his skull against the steel floor, making him see stars. Luckily his dazed state was quickly remedied by his healing, and he managed to seize her hands again, acting more by touch than sight.

Elegy was so focused on beating him senseless, she didn't notice as he summoned Auxiliary as cuffs and a chain and snapped them into place. When Rebeke—belatedly—tried to stop her sister, the distraction gave him a chance to roll away and lock Elegy back to the wall. As Elegy started toward him again, he had Auxiliary shorten the chain, then he scrambled out of range of her grasp at last.

Then he lay on the ground, groaning, his vision swimming.

Just over eight percent Skip capacity remaining, Auxiliary whispered as his vision and head healed. A part of Nomad hated hearing the notations like that. He hated feeling like a machine with a power source. Life had felt so much more…vibrant when he'd just drawn in power and sensed a general impression of what he had left.

He sat up, his back against the wall. Rebeke knelt next to him, looking horrified. Her sister wasn't completely locked back in place. Instead of being manacled both hand and foot to the wall, she was just locked there by her wrists, with almost two feet of slack.

She wasn't using it, but instead crouched on her toes, like a feral beast, glaring and growling at him.

"I'm sorry," Rebeke whispered. "I thought… She seemed to be recovering, and I thought…I…"

"Yeah," Nomad said. "Well, next time you do something that insane, could you at least give me a heads-up so I can start running?"

You all right? Auxiliary asked. Voice flat as ever, but the way he asked it—without pretense or affectation—implied real concern.

Nomad rubbed his head. "Yeah," he muttered. "I think."

"Elegy," Rebeke said, standing. "Why did you do that?"

"You have me chained," the Charred hissed.

"We were unchaining you!" Rebeke said.

"I fight," Elegy said simply. "It's what I do."

"I'm your sister!" Rebeke said. "This man helped me save you from our enemies. You are home. You don't need to fight any longer."

Elegy didn't respond, so Rebeke spun on Nomad. "She's not fully cured! Do what you did before, only more."

"Won't help," he said. "Any more of that might kill her. I've drawn off the part that was letting the Cinder King control her; what you see now is everything left of your sister."

Nomad moved over to his desk and cut out the sliver of sunheart in his arm, which had healed over, then wiped off the blood with a rag. He was even more frustrated than before, though. He'd locked up during the fighting—proof that the process hadn't worked on him as it had on Elegy.

So what could he do? Was there a path forward?

Rebeke was standing by the wall, softly crying. Best to give her something to do, so he asked her to fetch Zeal, who had the controls to activate the bracers that Elegy still wore. That would freeze her and let them lock her up fully again.

As Rebeke ran off, he took a few deep breaths. Then, wanting to keep moving, he began sketching out a new set of schematics. He found that if he rapidly jumped between his problems, he worked better. A little here, a little there, always trying to make progress on something. In this case, he came up with some ideas to deal with the Cinder King's forces after cresting the mountain.

"Is she really my sister?" Elegy asked from behind, interrupting him.

He glanced toward her. She'd settled into a seated position, hands bound by the chains over her head. She seemed…tired. Exhausted. He knew that feeling.

"Yes," he said. "You had a brother too. He died rescuing you."

"From what?"

"That voice in your head?" Nomad said, making a few more notes. "That's the Cinder King. He took you, put that cinderheart in your chest, and burned away your previous life."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Why shouldn't you?"

"Maybe you want to control me."

"You already let that voice do that," he said. "So why care if we control you or not? Why care if we're lying or not?"

She fell silent, letting him work a little longer.

"I don't belong here," Elegy finally said. "I can feel that is true. That other one, she expects something from me. But I'm not that person she sees when she looks at me."

"What person are you?"

"One on fire," Elegy said softly. "Burning with the fight. I…can't explain."

"Your entire body feels alert, tense, on the edge of panic. Something inside of you rages, like a storm, pushing you into motion. To action. Sitting still is agony. You need to move, to fight, to be running or struggling in some way."

"…Yes."

He looked up from his notes, meeting her eyes. "You're right," he said. "You aren't the person she thinks you are. You probably can't ever be that person again. You're going to have to find a new way, both of you."

"Let me free."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Will you attack me again?"

"Probably," she admitted. "But you feel it too. You described it. We could fight. You and I. Struggle. Move. Be alive."

"Not interested. Thanks."

She's charming, the knight says.

Rebeke soon returned with Zeal in tow. Using his device, they knocked Elegy unconscious and reset her chains. Zeal watched with curiosity as Nomad dismissed Auxiliary.

"How," he asked, "do you control that shade? Shouldn't it try to kill you?"

"Auxiliary," he replied, "is a little different from your shades. He doesn't attack with glowing eyes or a deadly touch. He uses sarcasm instead, and it's far more painful."

Excuse me, the hero interjects with a voice not the least bit sarcastic. I state facts. How you take them is purely up to you.

Zeal nodded to Elegy. "You sure you don't want me to take her back to the prison?"

"He's helping her," Rebeke explained. "Zeal, she spoke to us, like I told you."

"Never heard a Charred do that before," Zeal admitted. "Well, all right. I guess I'll leave this here." He set the control device on the desk.

"Appreciate it," Nomad said.

"What's that?" Zeal asked, nodding to his notes. He leaned in closer. "Guns? On the ships?" He whistled softly, picking out the scale.

Nomad nodded. "I've got a little more experience with weapons than I do with boilers."

"Do they need to be that big?" Rebeke said.

"We've picked the biggest, bulkiest ships to ascend over the mountains," Nomad explained. "It's what we need to carry all your people. But it means that once we emerge from the darkness and try to open the way to the Refuge, we're going to be easy prey for the Cinder King."

"Unless…" Zeal said.

"Unless we bring some serious firepower," Nomad said. "And hit him with something he's never seen before." He sat back, holding up his notebook. "If your ancestors really can fabricate anything, given raw materials and schematics, then I see no reason not to go big. These should work with sunhearts as power." He closed the notebook. "But they're irrelevant for now. Unless we get over those mountains, nothing else is going to matter."

"What are our chances of doing that?" Zeal asked. "If you had to guess?"

"No idea," Nomad said. "But better than zero, which is what we'll have if we stop moving."

Further discussion was interrupted by a sound echoing through the city. A horn being blown. That was unusual, since the Beaconites typically tried to keep the flying town as silent and invisible as they could.

He looked to the other two for explanation.

"Call to gather," Zeal said, reading the horns, which were bleating out a pattern. "The people have been warned already to gather essential clothing and items in one bag each and leave the rest. This is the final warning. We're going to start dumping the other ships to conserve power."

"Already?" Nomad said. "Your people move quickly."

As soon as he said it, he knew he'd opened himself up for—

Gosh, you think? The knight gives a pointed roll of his eyes—the ones he'd totally have if Nomad hadn't killed him. They move fast? Really? The people who spend their lives outracing the sun, always one step from being vaporized in a wave of burning light? They move fast?

Well, damn. Who would have thought?

"You really don't think that's sarcasm?" Nomad said in Alethi.

It's just being extra clear.

"I think maybe you go a little far."

Well, you don't have a valet who likes to stab himself with bits of unknown power sources for fun. You've got to be very deliberate with that sort of person, you know.

Nomad grunted, sliding his notebook into his coat pocket. "Come on," he said to Rebeke. "I want to check on the engineers and watch their new version explode."